April

Go Terps! I'll try to write this while watching the game. The game is moving quickly.

So, the rest of my trip... I walked around Notting Hill for about an hour- looked in some of the shops and walked around Portobello Market looking for a hat (didn't find anything). I also twisted my right ankle again since I missed another stair due to my poor eyesight. I really must talk to Dr. Billig about this when I'm there in 2 weeks.

I got to Heathrow 3 hours early and the airport was so efficient, I had plenty of time on my hands before the flight left. I found a place to check my email. I didn't do anything about any of it- just read a few that looked interesting.

So my last day in London had typical weather for the area- cool, drizzling, grey skies, and slightly windy.

The flight was uneventful. I sat next to a young guy with an accent that sounded Eastern European. He was meeting some friends in New York and then driving down to College Park to watch the championship game at Cole Field House. He had been living in Germany and now has a break (I have no idea what the break is from) until the beginning of May and is going to hang out in the States for a while. How odd for a non-American to be so excited about college basketball. He said a friend of his has two children. The son went to Indiana and the daughter went to Maryland. That's pretty neat.

I tried to sleep on the plane but didn't have much luck. I slept for about 30 minutes at the very end of the flight. And when I woke up from that little nap, I had a sore throat. Not good.

It was pouring when we got into JFK, so there was a bit of traffic heading into the city.

I got home and tried to deal with some of my email. I didn't get very far.

I spent 4 hours this morning dealing with email. Then I got some work done and typed up my journal entries from my trip. Now I'm enjoying the game.

Tomorrow I need to unpack and then get to get back to lovely classes.

April Fools Day is the only holiday that doesn't get more and more overdone every year. Valentine's Day is out of control. So is Easter, Memorial Day... April Fools Day used to be a big deal not too long ago (maybe 10 years ago). Now I hardly notice it. I'm surprised the capitalists haven't found a way to make a fortune on this "holiday".

Holy cow!!!!!!!!! The Terps so deserved this!!! The game last night was very Red & White. It was strange seeing a game with both teams having the same colours. The floor and the stands were all red & white. All I could think about during the last couple of minutes was wanting Kellogg and Gumbel to stop talking about how great it was to see Maryland finally playing well; this is what everyone expected to see- I was afraid they were jinxing them. But they weren't jinxed. The Terps finally won a championship game! Truly exciting!

I REALLY enjoyed last week's Six Feet Under!! Intense, wacky, light-hearted, seductive... The whole relationship talk that Brenda and Melissa had was the first relationship conversation to which I could really relate. Brenda's proposal really came as a surprise. Adam Scott, the guy who played Benjamin Cooper, was cute. One question though: Does HBO have some kind of partnership with Apple? Brenda uses a Mac, Carrie, on Sex and the City, uses a Mac...

I wonder if I can make time to see "Ice Age". A light movie with Denis Leary? Sounds ideal during my month of stress.

One more random comment about London: people over there seem to be making Burberry as popular as they are making it here. I think, in a typical day, I see about 5-6 women wearing Burberry stuff (scarves, hats, coats...).

In part of my dream last night, I was talking to someone about how the Terps won the game. There were a lot of other fun parts to the dream, but of course, I can't remember them now.

I still have a cold today. It really came out of nowhere- didn't have time to fight it. I'm not surprised I got sick though. I hadn't been eating much and I've been running around with no rest time for a while now. Unfortunately, that is not going to change until the end of July. I'll at least start eating better now that I'm home.

I just checked, and my concert report is due on the 9th. I guess I'll have to start working on it tomorrow.

Yesterday, I went to my theatre class and there was a student there that said she ran into Michael on the train and told her to tell everyone there would be no class. Several people thought it was an April Fools joke, so we stayed for a few minutes and then left. I decided rather than be productive, it was a perfect time to see a movie since it was free time I wouldn't normally have. So I went to see "Ice Age". It wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be, but at least I got to listen to Denis Leary for a little while. I love him! Anyway, they had the Star Wars preview. That really doesn't look as good as it should. If it turns out to be worse than episode 1, I'm REALLY not going to be looking forward to episode 3.

I'm feeling better today but not perfect. I'm assuming I'll feel back to normal (or almost back to normal) tomorrow- especially if I don't go to a show tonight and instead stay home and rest. I seem to always have issues with going out versus staying home. There are so many things I'm interested in and of course don't have the time to do all of them. But when I do have some time to do one of them, I feel like I should do it even if staying home and relaxing sounds like a good idea too and something I don't do enough of. I'm not very good at finding the balance there. But today I'm going to start trying to simplify my life. When I went through the mail, I threw out everything that I didn't think there was at least a 90% chance of my needing. I threw out interesting looking catalogues that had things I didn't need, discount fliers of shows I wasn't thrilled about seeing, coupons for things I don't need in the near future... This is a round-about way of saying that my April resolution is to simplify my life by eliminating all things that I don't have to do or have a huge desire to do.

As for my March resolution- find regular social activities- I didn't get very far. I forgot to attend my Community Board meeting (in fact, I'm going to call them today to find out the date for this month's meeting), the girl I was emailing about doing a Sunday brunch hasn't written back, and Brook (the cool chick in my theatre class) missed the last two classes (but I'll see about making plans with her the next time I see her). But I am still in touch with Meital and we have plans in the works to go swing dancing (it's just hard to find a time when we're both free) and I'll be getting together with her and a few other people next week for her birthday. So my March resolution will continue into April. So what if those two resolutions conflict a bit? Maybe I should change April's resolution to "balancing my life". That way I can use simplification as part of the balancing.

It seems like every month there are more and more emergency vehicles in this neighbourhood. Or am I just noticing them more and more? I don't know but they are really loud and distracting.

I put up the pictures on my walls this afternoon. I've been putting that off for two months. The hardest part was getting them out of the boxes. Once I did that, hanging them on the walls was easy. They all are a lot smaller than I thought they would be, but that's okay. The Fenway panoramic view really looks shrunken. I think I need other pictures or something else around it. Right now it looks ridiculous. But they're up and my apartment looks much more lived in. I love when I have a project to do and I never seem to want to do it and then out of nowhere I get it done. That feels so good.

I know I was supposed to write my concert report tonight, but I have absolutely no motivation. That's okay though. I can do it at the last minute on Monday. Maybe I'll even start on it tomorrow morning.

I've been reading the emails from Rebecca, Kristin, and Christina about plans for their UK trip in May. As much as I'd like to travel a bit longer with them (rather than just the 2 days in Edinburgh), I'm also glad I'm not. There are so many details to work out. I never realised how many details would need to be discussed before leaving. Train vs car, where to stay, where to go and when, what kind of place to stay, travel pass or pay-as-you-go... It's exhausting just reading it, let alone actually pay attention and make suggestions about it. I think if I was a part of this whole trip, I'd let the others decide all those details and just go along with it (unless I really disagreed with something).

I looked into castle accomodations in Edinburgh, and the only one located in the city (outside the city won't work for us without having a car) is rather plain looking. I don't know if it's worth staying there. Maybe I can find out more about it. And maybe I'll keep looking and hope I can find something I haven't found yet. If anyone knows of any interesting castles in which you can stay in Edinburgh, let me know.

Kristin's going to be in New York this weekend. I can't go out with her Saturday night since I'll have all these people here, but we are having brunch/lunch on Sunday. I'm trying to convince her to go to Norma's. I think she'd like it, and I know I would love to go back there.

I'm really having trouble realising it's a new month. I'm still thinking that April is a ways off. How can it be April already?

I put up the last picture this morning. Now my apartment has some colour (although they are dark colours (dark blue, grey, black...). But it doesn't make my apartment look dark or dim. It just adds to the atmosphere/theme/tone of the place. I do like the way this apartment turned out. I could stay here for a long time. And I will stay here a long time (well, long time for me). I'll be here for about another 3 years- maybe more, depending on where my life takes me.

I'm still a little congested today, but I feel 95% better.

I've been having weird dreams but can't remember them at all.

I got caught up with work this morning, so I didn't start on my concert report yet. I'll work on it this afternoon.

I talked to Jon today. Their plans are changed slightly, so I'm going to see if I can rearrange stuff too. They won't be getting here until Friday night (they're stopping at someone's house in Jersey for dinner). His cousin doesn't have tickets for Saturday night, she has them for the Sunday matinee. So they're going to see a Saturday matinee while I watch Steven, and then we'll all meet up with Jon's friends (or it might be family) for dinner Saturday night. Since they'll be going to the theatre on Saturday, Jon wanted to go to the Yankees game on Sunday. If that happens, I can't do brunch with Kristin, so I was going to see if she wanted to do something Saturday night after I go out for dinner. I need to go call Rebecca to get Kristin's number so I can ask if that will work for her. Oh, and because Jon and Michelle won't be here until later on Friday night, I can work on my concert report Friday evening! Procrastination is a wonderful thing!

Once again, today I'm in an I-miss-the-New-River-Valley mood. Maybe it's the Styx album I'm listening to- I have images of sitting on the blue carpet in my bedroom in Christiansburg and listening to this. Maybe if I'm really productive at the end of July and the beginning of August, I can schedule a little road trip down there in the middle of August. I could drive through West Virginia and go down to the New River Valley on the back roads (southwestern Virginia has the best country roads to drive on- I'd rather drive around there and in the canyon area of Utah more than anywhere else). I guess I'd only do this though if Josh and Chandra are still living there (I have a feeling they will be). I don't want to have to stay in a hotel and I don't know anyone else down there anymore well enough to ask if I can stay with them. Or maybe I'll wait until I have a long weekend in the fall and go down for a football game. That could be fun too! Whatever, I don't need to think about this now.

I'm feeling rather peaceful right now- like I don't have a care in the world. I don't know why I'm feeling this way though. I have a lot to do in the next few months and barely enough time in which to do these things. I'm not complaining about my mood though- it feels great to be relaxed.

I'm also feeling in the mood to drive somewhere. I guess that came from thinking about driving around Virginia. I'm glad I'll get a chance to do that soon- when I drive down to Maryland on the 20th. That's soon! I'm still trying to decide when to leave. If I leave Friday afternoon, I'll hit a ton of traffic heading down there, but I'd be able to see Paula and Harvey Friday night. I could avoid the traffic and aggrevation of leaving right after class and leave on Saturday in time for Molly's wedding reception at her house (Paula's friend who's always inviting me to things when I'm in town). I could also be bad and skip class on Friday and leave earlier on Friday when there will be less traffic. It's so ridiculous that attendence is required for classes. We're adults. We're paying to be there. Our actions should be our responsibility. If we miss too many classes and don't do well, it's our fault. If we want to miss one class to get out of town earlier when there's less traffic, we should be able to do so without consequenses. Oh well, I'll stop ranting about it for now.

A lot of people clicked into my site yesterday from Epinions. Why yesterday? Usually one or two people a month find my site through there. Yesterday it was around 40 people. Hello Epinions people!! Maybe I'll get back to writing one of these days (maybe in August when I'll have a little more free time).

In 2001, I wrote entries on 284 days. Through the year, I feel like I miss about 1-2 days per month. Guess I miss a lot more than I think.

Harvey filmed his interview with Pat Summerall the other day. He said he was a nervous wreck, but I'm sure he did fine. Can't wait to see it.

Can't wait for the "Spiderman" Movie!!!

Today when I was in the lobby waiting for class to start, there was an obnoxiously loud woman on her cell phone. I had a vivid image of walking over to her, grabbing the phone out of her hand, and smashing it on the ground. How nice that would be.

I got my theatre review back. He liked it but said I assume my readers know more than they do. I got an A. School is going well for me right now.

Last night we got our Brain and Behaviour tests back. He told us that since the highest grade was only an 88%, he added 12 points to all our grades. Wow- that's very generous! So I guess I had gotten an 84 because with 4 extra credit points plus the extra 12, I got 100%. Got lucky for once!

Now I should be working on my concert report but I'm not. I went to pick up my pictures and grab a bite to eat after class, then I got home and cleaned up the apartment and did some work, and now I only have an hour or two before Jon and Michelle get here. And I need to relax a bit. I can work on it a little after they go to bed tonight and then again tomorrow night and if I'm not finished, I can finish it on Monday.

I hope Kristin calls when I'm home. I decided that it's not a good idea to go swing dancing tomorrow night. I'm just getting over a cold. So hopefully she can either meet on Sunday around 11:00 and I can go to the Yankees game with Jon after that or Jon won't be able to go to the game since he'll need to stay here and help Michelle with the two babies and I can meet up with Kristin any time on Sunday.

Just have time for a quick entry.

Jon, Michelle, and Steven arrived a little after 10:00. We hung out for a bit after they put Steven to bed. Today Jon woke up early to go down to Ground Zero so he could see whatever he wanted to see before the platform viewing started. Then we walked over to his cousin's apartment to drop off some scary looking dolls of hers that they had for some reason (they sort of looked like crash test dummies, except they weren't). Then we went to Ben Nash so Jon could have a huge sandwich. After that, we came back here and they went back out to see "Allergist's Wife" and I'm staying here with Steven. He cried for a bit before his nap, but he's been sleeping ever since. Jon and Michelle should be back in a few minutes. They want to go to FAO Schwartz since they have a small gift certificate and then later we're going to Trattoria dell Arte for dinner with two of Michelle's cousins (who aren't related- one's from her maternal side and the other from the paternal side). I met one of them- Brian- we watched the Maryland/Duke game together. Kristin called about an hour ago. I told her I was going to skip the swing dance but will meet her (and Vanessa) for brunch tomorrow. We're going to Norma's!! Then later this evening, I'll find out if Jon and I can go to the Yankees game. If Trisha (one of Michelle's cousins that we're having dinner with tonight) can help Michelle watch the two babies, Jon and I can go to the game. If she can't, we'll hang out here with the two babies (I might use some of that time to run a few errands, like go to the bank and go to Mailboxes Etc. to mail Josh's package- Mars Bars from the UK, he and his dad loves them).

Okay, gotta run. Jon and Michelle should be back here any minute.

This is what I wrote last night:

I did not like the beginning death scene on SFU tonight. I did like the Harry Potter reference. I don't seem to be enjoying Nate and Brenda's relationship this season. Anyone else feel this way? This scene at the breakfast table with Nicolai was well done. Oh, the person who died didn't matter- it's his wife that's the important point of the death part of the show. Why is David so cranky today? His relationship is going well. Is it just that he wants to be with Keith? I know I don't want more characters since it waters down the main characters (you're not able to be as involved with the main characters), but I like the way they're introducing Ruth's sister. I don't really care for Frederiko and his wife but they did a great job with that arguement scene today. I love LOVE the budding relationship between Claire and Ruth's sister and the relationship between Ruth's sister and Nicolai. The writing and dynamics in this show is incredible. Can't wait to see Nate and Brenda try to announce their engagement at this dinner table. At least we haven't seen any scenes dealing with Nate's tumour so far- they're dragging that out too much, we just keep seeing the same type of scenes over and over on that issue. Wow- that halucination with Nate talking to the widow- I had no idea that was a halucination. Ugh- plugging Russell Crowe in "Gladiator"- yuck. Ah, Frank Sinatra. Now David is acting like he hasn't a care in the world. Why the sudden change? Is he just really moody? Okay, here comes the tumour issue... Love the scene outside the church with Taylor (Keith's niece) and David. I don't like this widow. Nice scene between David and Ben. The writing for the scene with Ruth and her sister was incredible- almost too perfect- I wish some of my difficult conversations could go half that easily. I love how Brenda keeps doing these wild and slightly out of character things to jump start her novel. She's really moody too. I think one of the writers is either moody or really understands moody people. That part of the writing is consistently good. And Ruth is an incredible woman- she learns and grows every day. A most excellent show tonight. And next week, Claire goes under the influence of Ruth's sister. Interesting.

"Spider-Man" trailer awesome!

I understand Volkswagon is gearing their products toward youthful people, but this new commercial is going a bit too far, I think. The couple in this new commercial looks like they're 20. These two 20 year olds living in a nice suburban house and driving a new Volkswagon is a bit of a fantasy, no? Sort of like the lifestyles of those 20-somethings on Friends. There will probably be some depressed 20 year olds when they find out how near impossible it is for them to have a lifestyle of luxury at 20.

More sex scandals in the Catholic Church here in New York.

So this weekend was a bit more active than I wanted it to be. Saturday night Jon, Michelle, Steven, Bryan, and Trisha went to Trattoria dell Arte. It was a good choice. Good food and a loud enough place to take a baby. I had a few glasses of wine and a grand marnier after dinner. That seemed to put me in a go-out-and-party kind of mood. I asked Bryan if he wanted to go get a few drinks somewhere after I get Jon and family back to my apartment. We all hung out here for about an hour, and then Bryan and I went out. He's not a bad person to go drinking with- he's relatively quiet but has some interesting things to say. We tried to go to Pig N' Whistle but it was packed. So we went to that bar on 59th between 2nd and 3rd that I've been to a few times. They have a good juke box there. So we hung out there for a while and Bryan mentioned that he liked piano bars. So I told him there are a few on 46th St. and some in the West Village. We decided to go to Marie's Crisis. We took the F train and I decided that I'd rather take the bus down 7th since I could find it more easily from there plus I wanted to get off the train and find a place to pee. We got out at Rockefeller and the exit we tried was closed. We didn't feel like walking to the other end, so we went back down to wait for another train. The D train came and that seems to only be going as far as Herald Square. So we got out there and went to a bus stop, trying to find a place to pee on the way but was unsuccessful. We waited a few minutes for a bus and then I decided we should just take a cab. Not only did I have to pee, but I was slightly drunk and didn't feel like waiting in the cold. We took the cab down to the Village and got out around where I thought Marie's was. We stopped in Caliente Cab to use their bathroom and then walked over to Marie's Crisis. There weren't many people there when we arrived (it was probably around 3:00 with the clock change). We stayed for a few drinks and then took a cab home. I didn't mean to stay out that late. I didn't mean to drink that much. I was not feeling very good on Sunday.

I managed to get up for brunch with Kristin and Vanessa, but I wasn't very lively. We had a great brunch at Norma's (I really love that place and sharing it was Kristin was wonderful), but I still wasn't feeling back to my usual self at the end of brunch (probably because I was still getting over this little cold added to the night of drinking). I started feeling more human around 5:00.

Jon and I decided that going to the Yankees game wasn't going to work. We both had brunch at 11:00 and the game started at 1:00. He didn't want to get there late and it wasn't going to be a very exciting game, so we decided he could come up another time for a game. I can't believe he's never been to Yankee Stadium. In fact, I was very surprised to learn that the only ballparks he's been to is Camden Yards and Memorial Stadium. He's a baseball fanatic. He's travelled many places. Why didn't he go to games in those places?

Jon's cousin Ilene and her husband, Gerald dropped off their 6 week old baby, Daniel so they could go to "The Producers". Daniel was a cute baby. Jon and Michelle and the babies took naps and I just relaxed and watched a little of the Yankees game (anyone know what the "Y" "E" and "S" stands for in the new YES sports station?). I should have used that time to be productive, but I wasn't feeling up to it.

Ilene and Gerald came back to get Daniel in the evening, and we hung out while Jon and Michelle packed up their stuff. After Ilene and Gerald left, Jon and Michelle had some pizza that I got delivered from Ray's. It really felt a bit like Grand Central this weekend. Jon and Michelle left around 8:00 and I cleaned up a little bit (still have a lot to clean up) before watching SFU.

Today I need to write my concert report, do a little more work, and finish cleaning. Tonight I need to do laundry so I can have clean sheets and towels for my next weekend guests (Neil and Maxine arrive Friday night).

And one day REALLY soon, I need to think of a topic for my Brain and Behaviour research paper and get working on that.

So the concert report only took an hour to write up and I wasn't even writing for an hour non-stop. Not a big deal. Now it's done and I feel like I can relax a bit tonight. Laundry can wait (I just hope I can get a washing machine during the day... I'll get one eventually).

So with my free time tonight, I think I'm going to do something crazy like watch "While You Were Sleeping. I feel like there's some sort of curse related to that movie for me, so if I watch it tonight and nothing bad happens, I'll feel much better. I've watched very few movies this year. I guess it's a combination of being extremely busy and seeing a lot of theatre instead of watching a movie.

I did not watch any movies last night. Oh well, maybe next week.

A sure sign Spring hasn't really started yet- I'm not getting any Spring/Summer memory flashes (eating snowballs, outdoor concerts, honeysuckles, theatre season awards, sandals, street fairs, hiking...).

I talked to Mike for almost a half an hour yesterday afternoon. I called to talk to Paula but she wasn't there so I wound up talking to him. I've never heard him in such a chatty mood before. Usually he's laid back, mellow, and reflective (he sort of reminds me of a less funky version of Rowlph from the Muppets). This afternoon he kept jumping from topic to topic- Ireland, work, age, time, theatre critics... Maybe he's excited about his trip to Ireland in a few weeks and his mood is energised so he's just very talkative right now. It was fun talking to Mike. He's really one of my favourite people in this world.

Got an email from Meital yesterday about going out to dinner for her birthday. There will probably be about 10 of us going to Le Zinc. Should be fun. Her mother and sister will be there. I never knew her mother that well but her sister and I hung out a few times a while ago (I think around '89 or '90) and it will be interesting seeing her again. Something tells me she will be quite different from what I remember, unlike Meital- she was almost the exact same. It's nice that her birthday is on the one night this week that I'm not busy.

I realised last night that it's good that I went out with Bryan on Saturday night. I almost never do random, spontaneous nights of nightlife like that. I'm not that old. I should still be doing stuff like that from time to time. Last year I had 3 random nights like that- 2 in Savannah and 1 in London but the year before that, I don't think there were any. I got tired of carefree partying way too early.

I've been in the mood to watch "High Fidelity" again.

Woke up singing "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd".

I still can't remember my dreams these days, but I came close this morning. I have pale images of people and things (George, castles) and faded memories of events (walking up a lot of stairs, trying to get some sort of project done). Maybe tomorrow or the next day I'll remember details. I miss my dreams. Sometimes I have the theory that I only remember my dreams when I spend large quantities of time alone. I've never taken the time to research this though. Maybe one day when I have a good amount of free time and I actually remember, I'll check it out.

I wish I got up an hour early today. I feel like I'm just about an hour behind today. I don't have anything urgent that needs to be done right now, I'd just like an extra hour for catching up on fun, not-so-important things.

I was a bit confused when I woke up this morning. I guess I woke up from a deep sleep and it took a bit of time to come back to reality. I didn't know what day or time it was or what I had to do. I'm all straightened out now though.

Yesterday I was looking into office rentals in Midtown. That was fun. It's nice to look at this stuff when it's not you who needs the space- no stress that way.

I'm still congested today. And I can't breathe when I'm trying to sleep. This is getting irritating.

I've been getting into downloading music again on Audiogalaxy (that site is too good to be true in present times). I really should fix my CD burner before I download much more though. I don't have much room on my hard drive.

Wow- I need to get ready to leave in a few minutes. I really should have set the alarm an hour earlier this morning. Oh well, too late now.

I haven't heard back from Daniel. I really wanted to visit him in Bethesda when I'm down there in a couple weeks. I was always so comfortable around him and our conversations were always fun.

I'm looking forward to my quick trip to Maryland- driving, the College Park Tea House, seeing people, hopefully taking some pictures...

I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to last weekend. It seems like the more I want to take pictures, the less I take them. Maybe I need to stop thinking about it and I'll start using the camera more often.

Jon wants to come up to see a Yankees game some time this year. I'm trying to encourage him to come up when the Red Sox will be playing (I've never seen the Red Sox play at Yankee Stadium). He asked about coming up June 1, but I'll be somewhere in Scotland or Ireland then. So I'm hoping the weekend of July 20th will work for him. That will be perfect for me. The summer session will have just ended so there will be less stress in my life starting that weekend. That weekend will be the kickoff of the quietest month of the year for me. Work is slow, no school, not much theatre going on- can't wait!

I remembered another show I saw this year with water- "Monster". There was a tech guy splashing his hand around in a bowl of water during scenes where they needed the sound of water. This isn't the same as the other shows involving water since the guy in "Monster" wasn't really seen by the audience, let alone splashing the water at the audience. The only reason I noticed him was because I was getting splashed with the water- he was sitting on the ground a few feet away from me.

I feel like it's been a while since I've listened to Tull. It's good to hear them again. I hope I can make a trip to Atlantic City to see them in August.

I want to try to see Paula and Harvey this evening before I go to Le Zinc. I don't have to be there until 8:30, so it should work.

I'm getting more and more irritated with Michael. We discussed playwriting yesterday. We talked about how you should have something important to say and find a compelling way to say it. Everything we discussed were serious issues (education, war, violence, illness...). What about happier topics? Farce is extremely compelling without being profound or depressing or serious. I wanted to try to bring up something like that but my brain was too tired to make a clear point. It was so hot in the room. The windows don't open so it's always stuffy, and yesterday was warm so it was especially uncomfortable in the room. In the classroom where I have music, the windows open. So he had them open yesterday so the room would cool down a bit but of course then you get all the traffic noise (buses, emergency vehicles, honking horns...).

I didn't go to Brain and Behaviour last night. I still had a lot to do when I got home, so I decided to give myself an extra hour. I can get the notes from someone- not a big deal. It was probably roasting in that room too- 6th floor, no windows (well, there were windows but now they're covered with mirrors- God knows why). It really helped- having that extra hour that I wanted to have in the morning. I feel much more on top of things now. Today I will work, wash dishes, hopefully meet Harvey and Paula, and then go to Meital's birthday dinner. Tomorrow I will work, pay bills, help out at the Four Seasons for a couple of hours, and go mail a few things (like Josh's Mars Bars) before my 2 classes.

The UK planning emails have still be flying back and forth. Now it looks like we might go to Stirling for a night instead of staying 2 nights in Edinburgh. While it would be nice to stay more than 1 night in Edinburgh, it's equally appealing to go to Stirling. They have a castle to stay in and it would be exciting to see something quieter than Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I just smelled peanut butter cookies.

I'm pretty sure that in my dream last night, I was in some sort of show. I'm pretty sure it was fun too.

It was a bit weird being in Tribeca last night. I guess because I don't go down there much (I've only been there a few times since September 11), it's still a shock to me when I do go. I can't explain in words how I felt getting off the bus and walking toward the bright lights at Ground Zero.

The dinner was okay. I got to see Noha (Meital's sister) and their mother. I didn't talk to them much. They both looked the exact same. I'm still under the impression that people should look at least a little different if you see them after not seeing them for over 10 years. I've seen a lot of people recently that I hadn't seen in around 10 years and everyone looks the same. I talked to a few of Noha's friends from business school during dinner. They were all down to earth, simplistic people. And they know Jonathan (Rebecca's brother)- he's getting his MBA at Columbia too. My dinner was okay, but not as great as I thought it would be. I had salmon with mushrooms and black beans wrapped in an Asian pastry on a bed of coconut rice. I think it was a new item and they haven't perfected it yet. I didn't even notice the beans. And I had a glass of crappy wine- Bergerac Sec. Oh, and Meital brought up wanting to go swing dancing again. I guess she really liked my idea. We made tentative plans for the last weekend in April (the next time I'll be available).

On the way home, I took the 2 train up to Columbus Circle and somewhere around Penn Station, the train stops due to signal issues. I think we sat for 20 minutes before the train started moving again. There was a guy on the train selling magazines. When the train stopped, he sat down across from me and talked to some guy about children growing up with drugs and how parents should do their best to keep them out of jail because he spent 10 years in jail and he doesn't want his kids going through that... I was too tired for that conversation. I just wanted to get home.

I decided that I will go see a show Friday night. I wanted to see something different. When picking a show, there are so many choices, I usually go with something familiar (playwright, actors, subject...). Friday I'm going to see "The Secret Order".
"A brilliant young researcher makes a breakthrough discovery and is thrust into the highest corridors of science. The pressure mounts, his research unravels and he's pushed to sacrifice his integirty or the truth."
I read somewhere else that it's about cancer research. I hope it's not too depressing. Eytan's going with me. I wanted to go see something free and told him if none of the options sounded interesting, I would go see "The Goat" with him. I would like to see "The Goat" again, but thought for tomorrow, I'd rather see something free and something different that I would normally not see. I know I'm supposed to be simplifying my life this month, but I figured with Neil and Maxine staying with me, I couldn't relax at home as easily as I can when I'm alone so I might as well go out and do something. I bet Eytan will enjoy the play more than I will.

I can't wait for my eye appointment.

I straightened the apartment a bit today (I'll finish up tomorrow morning) and decided that I don't need to do the mail and bills until Monday. I'm not going to want to do it then, but I'll have to since I doubt I'll make time for it today. There are never enough hours in the day. I feel particularly overwhelmed today.

But not overwhelmed enough to not take 5 minutes and mentally draw up a possible itinerary for my Scotland/Ireland trip.
May 25- travel to Edinburgh
May 26- arrive in Edinburgh and hang out with Kristin, Christina, and Rebecca
May 27- beginning of the day in Edinburgh, then travel to Stirling
May 28- spend the day in Stirling, then head to Glasgow
May 29 & 30- stay with Judith in Glasgow
May 31- beginning of the day in Glasgow, then fly to Dublin
June 1- beginning of the day in Dublin, then travel to Cork
June 2 & 3- stay in Cork
June 4- beginning of the day in Cork, then travel to Dublin
June 5- fly to Edinburgh and then fly home
I usually don't like these whirlwind trips but it's the only kind of trip I have time for right now, the circumstances is what's leading me to doing it this way (Kristin, etc will be in Edinburgh, I have people to stay with in Glasgow, I really want to see Cork...), and it's certainly better than not going at all.

Yesterday evening, Eytan wanted me to stop by the Four Seasons since he had to stay there with Ed. So I stayed for about a half an hour before I had to go down to Le Zinc. George was there as well. I told him I had a hectic day, and I was too tired to deal with him. I really just needed to relax for a few minutes. He seemed to understand and even made me laugh at one point. He was trying to get into a programme on the computer and he was trying to act like he knew what he was doing. I knew he was wrong and went over to help but he didn't want my help. He was sure he could do it himself. I started to help and got him into DOS and then decided he didn't want my help so I went to sit down. He then typed my name in for a command. I was waiting for him to continue and type something nasty about me, but he didn't. He just left my name sitting there with the blinking cursor after it. It was amusing. It was a you-had-to-be-there story.

I think I'm going to stop by there for an hour this afternoon. I'm not sure if I'm needed or not, but I thought I would just go and see. I could call, but for some reason, I kind of want to check out what's going on. I'm not doing a good job of simplifying my life. Oh well, I can't get it right all at once. Balance of life is complex- it'll probably take me a few months to get it right. I am beginning to see a little change though- that's good.

Oh, icky bus driver on the way down to Tribeca. As I was inserting my Metro Card, he looked at me and said in a too-friendly tone, "Hello, Red,"- ick.

I was bad yesterday and didn't go to classes. I don't like missing Brain and Behaviour but hopefully I can get the notes from that guy in the class who asks a lot of questions so I know I won't be missing anything. Jazz I'm not as worried about, although if he gives me a lower final grade because I missed a few classes... I don't think he'd really do that though. If I get A's on everything and have a couple of absenses, I still should get an A. His policies seem ridiculous and a little unreasonable, but I'm still not worried. I just don't care. I decided it was worth having a fun evening.

And a fun evening I had. I went to see "The Goat" with Eytan (which was good the second time but it seemed to drag a little more). Eytan seemed to enjoy it. He even had some things to say about it (mainly the homosexuality element), and Eytan hardly ever has anything to say about a show other than "I liked it,", "It was okay,"...

After the show, we had dinner at Maya- yum! We split a tamale and I had my usual- pork tenderloin with corn puree and pumpkin seed sauce. I'm glad Eytan suggested it. I wouldn't have thought about going there last night and I really love that place.

I need to finish cleaning up the apartment this morning and then head to class. Then I'll come home for a few minutes and then meet Eytan for dinner and "The Secret Order".

I feel relaxed but every few minutes I remember all the things I'm ignoring. I should be more on top of things, but I'm just not. I know I'll pay for it later, but I'm still not really worried. It's strange- I have feelings of relaxation and guilt at the same time. The main thing I keep thinking about is the research paper for Brain and Behaviour. We have to turn in topic proposals by the 18th and I don't have a topic yet. I will definitely look into that on Monday (after I pay bills and mail packages). And I was thinking about renting a movie on Monday night. I'll stop by Fliks on the way back from Mailboxes Etc.

I have to remember to tape SFU Sunday night. I was thinking I won't watch it until next Sunday and then I could watch two in a row. Problem? I won't be able to watch it next Sunday since I'll be in College Park. So I think I'll watch this week's episode on Monday night and then I'll tape the week when I'm in College Park and then watch 2 episodes in a row the following Sunday. Just thought it would be fun to have 2 hours of my favourite TV people. I think 3 hours would be too much at once. And it's best to watch it on Sunday since that seems to be my favourite day of the week recently. Sundays are great (especially during the football season).

I got an email from Brie this morning asking me what I thought of the Bloomberg/pot story. She was delighted to hear the news. My favourite comment mentioned in the article:
"I have it," someone else announced. "Maybe we should change the name of the city back to New Amsterdam," a tribute to the hash-filled "coffee shops" and relaxed marijuana laws of our old Dutch namesake.

Why do the mornings always go so fast?

Very busy weekend!

Friday night, I met Eytan at Ensemble Studio Theatre. "Secret Order" was great. All aspects of the show was very well done. If I had more time, I would see it again. I was trying to watch it from too many different perspectives (the writing, the acting, the story, the playwrighting techniques...) and couldn't catch everything. I especially liked the amount of science related material that was included. I really want to catch a couple of the one-acts going on there later this Spring. I really like that intimate theatre. After the show, Eytan and I had a drink at Connelly's.

Saturday was work all day and most of the evening. I usually have no problem working those hours and always have enough energy for it. Not yesterday. I was dragging and felt burned out most of the day. I guess because I've been going non-stop without a rest day for too long (I don't even remember how long). After work, Eytan, George, and I went to Kiiroi Hanna for dinner. They closed the kitchen shortly after we got there but didn't tell us until it was too late. So we only got appetisers and sushi. I could have eaten something else besides the appetiser of sea bass (which was REALLY good) and a bowl of rice. I can't believe the waiter didn't warn us about the kitchen closing. After dinner, we had a few drinks at Connelly's. That night I learned that George and I have the same eye doctor (Dr. Billig). Figures. We have way too much in common. It's a little disturbing.

Sunday was another long day but I felt much better (after getting very little sleep Saturday night). The day flew by and was very easy! And there weren't any major problems. And no one was especially rude to me like they usually are (just a few minor nasty comments). That night, George, Eytan, and I went to DJ Reynolds. I had the filet of Sole (per George's suggestion) and it was a perfect choice- plain and tasty. I ate the entire thing (even all the mashed potatoes which for once were not too buttery), and Eytan and George had to have a 5 minute conversation about how they've never seen me order a big meal and finish the entire thing.

During dinner, I was talking about how every time I try to go to Shelly's, it doesn't work out. Eytan jokingly said that he should stay Monday night, go to Shelly's with me, and then go to the Dave Matthews concert. The joke started to turn into reality. I told Eytan I could call my friend Matt, who is a ticket broker, and see if he can get me good seats. I was 90% sure he could. I told Eytan I'd call him in the morning before breakfast and if he has tickets, he can stay with me Monday night and take the train back on Tuesday morning, and if he doesn't have tickets, he could go home after breakfast.

Eytan called it an early night and George and I went back to his hotel room and got stoned. What a random thing to do. It was actually a really good time. We had some good, silly, funny, intellectual, and fun conversations. Then we went to Connelly's and had some more good, silly, funny, intellectual, and fun conversations.

Monday morning, I called Matt but he wasn't there. I talked to someone else and tried to explain who I was. He asked if I was at the Tull show in San Diego. I told him I was, and he told me he was looking at a picture of us from that show and asked which one I was. He told me he had to check on the tickets and he'd call me back.

I met George and Eytan at Norma's. Yum!!!! I REALLY love that place! It's so consistent in everything- service, food... I had the crunchy french toast (which was crunchy because it was coated in Rice Crispies), Eytan had apple katafi, and George had a Belgian waffle with fruit. The waitress got my order wrong so she gave me a free smoothie- very nice. George was impressed with the place and impressed that I was the one who knew about it (hey George, I read a lot and eavesdrop on a lot of conversations- I know a lot about a lot of things). He said it was his new favourite breakfast place in New York. I said it was my favourite breakfast place in the world.

The guy from Rave Tix called while I was eating and I called him back when we were finished. Matt answered the phone, so I got to talk to him for a few minutes. That was nice. I haven't talked to him in over a year. He told me I should have called a few days ago- they had tons of tickets then. He didn't have any left yesterday morning. Big concerts should not be spontaneous decisions for people who don't spent hundreds (pr thousands) of dollars on tickets. Oh well. We started talking about Tull shows, and I told him I was planning on going to the show in Atlantic City this summer. He told me they would be there. If I remember, I'll call him when tickets go on sale and ask if he can get me one with them. Then we could all sit together.

So George and Eytan left yesterday and I got to get back to reality. The later it got, the more exhausted I became. I did manage to go through the mail and pay bills before breakfast. When I got home around 11:30, all I could do for 2 hours was lay on the couch and deal with email. Then Harvey came over and he walked with me to Mailboxes Etc so I could mail a package (so glad those places exist so I didn't have to stand in line at the post office on tax day). Then we came back here and hung out for a bit.

That was as productive as I got yesterday. Last night I watched SFU.

I wrote this at some point on Friday night/Saturday morning:
I was so glad to watch Theatre Talk Friday night! I got home just in time. It was nice to hear Mercedes Ruehl talk about "The Goat" and it was nice to get a little bit (just a little bit) of insight into Edward Albee. I really think he has work you either love or hate (no in between)- and I love him. And Marian Seldes is do dramatic. I was glad she's not currently in one of Albee's plays- the focus was more on Mercedes Ruehl that way. Marian Seldes knows how to steal a scene (including an interview). Mercedes seems like such a down to earth, somewhat serious, non drama queen- I love listening to her talk.

And I wrote this last night:
Even though I really want to take advantage of the free tickets to the Wednesday matinee of "The Smell of the Kill", I'm not going to. I need to take the time to do more important things. If I wasn't going to a show that night ("Modern Millie"), I would consider it. I hate the idea of turning down free tickets to a Broadway show though. Fortunately, this one doesn't interest me too much.

I didn't have much time to think of a metaphoric, ironic play that can be about an important issue and written in a compelling way (our assignment for theatre). Oh well.

Soon I need to look into tickets for shows in Boston the weekend of May 10th.

Sooner than that, I need to book a car for this weekend.

I did not like the editing of this week's SFU. And I would normally think that Ruth's sister was a bit over the top, but I've actually known a few people exactly like her. I really can't deal with overly dramatic people for long periods of time. And the guy who plays Keith is getting better and better- of course, he's also finally getting good writing and a little more to work with. And I love the scenes between Brenda and Melissa. And very cute scene with them and Nate. And David does a great job with the insecure-in-his-relationships thing. Oh wow- the scene with Ruth eating alone at the little kitchen table was extremely well done. And Lauren Ambrose is so beautiful. See, when the main actors are given more stuff to work with, we get to see their talent shine even more. I wish they would give up on the idea to add lots of minor characters (or at least tone it down a little). The growing relationship between Robbie and Ruth is great. And why is Friends mentioned on tons of other TV shows (including many shows not on NBC)? Why would a Jewish family not only not have funeral servives at a Jewish funeral home, but have it at a funeral home with the owners being serious members of their church community? I like how they're having Nate question death in a very real way. I like Brenda because she's honest, logical, rational, and open minded. Wish she was like that consistently. It's a good deed to pay repsect to the dead because you're doing kindness without any chance of the return kindness? Sure. But the way it sounded to me was that it's like, "Hey, quick, pay your respects to the dead. It's an easy way to add a good deed to your list of super good deeds,"- this is often the way people sound to me when they are religious because you're supposed to be, not because you truly believe in the religion. And the Jewish Rabbi woman was really irritating. She did remind me of many Jewish women I have met though. But she redeemed herself with her speech on soulmates (that word has been brough up a lot today- by Harvey and Paula separately). Wow! That fantasy scene of Brenda's was... WOW! Oh, ending the show with the second to last scene being Rico and family- another problem with this week's show. And I think Rico is one of those super "normal", "regular" guys- and his wife thinks he's a "weirdo sometimes"? And the scene with Keith and his niece- WOW!!!! Oh, I really didn't want to hear a September 11 joke- my opinion of this show went down a teeny tiny notch. But in general, a nice episode with a lot of details. I might try to remember to tape this one so I can watch it again before watching next week's show and catch more of the subtle details.

I need to go to the bank before classes. And I need to do some research to find a topic for my Brain and Behaviour paper. I'll do that in between theatre and jazz. I don't really have time to eat anything today. Guess I'll grab a power bar or something on my way up to school.

There, that wasn't so bad. I thought it was going to take a lot longer to write today's entry.

Oh, and the good part about Eytan not staying for the concert last night (besides that fact that I was really too tired for it) was that it was cancelled due to an illness (Dave Matthews has strained vocal chords).

Winter coat, sweater, leather jacket, winter coat, leather jacket, t-shirt. The weather has been so weird the past month or so.

For the past few days, I keep getting "Holding On for a Hero", from "Footloose", in my head.

So I was a bad girl again yesterday. I decided that since I've never skipped a theatre class and since we weren't doing anything that I was required to be there for (like a performance or excercise), I could skip it yesterday. I went to see "Gosford Park" instead. It was definitely worth seeing again, but it wasn't as good as the first time. Perhaps seeing it in London made it seem better. I had a problem with the previews/commercials before the movie. First, they had this 5 minute long tribute thing to the NYPD and FDNY. They had a long montage of the WTC cleanup. So much for escapism at the movies. I really thought that was a bad idea. Then there was a preview of some new war movie with Ben Affleck (they need to stop putting him in movies). I don't think this country needs to see a dramatised, ficticious war movie right now.

After the movie, I walked around the Upper East Side- gorgeous day! Then I went to my two evening classes.

Brain and Behaviour was interesting last night- circadian rhythms. I asked him if some people could be on free running rhythms even with zeitgebers (external factors like light) present. He said he didn't think that was possible in normal people (without neurological disorders). I talked to him after class about my lack of circadian rhythms (random eating and sleeping schedules, no jet lag...) and he didn't really know what to say (not his area of expertise) other than letting me know that if it doesn't present a problem, my lack of rhythms, than I shouldn't be too worried. It did make me think about changing my mind about my paper topic. Astigmatisms interest me as well, but so do circadian rhythms. I don't have any information on either topic yet, but I will need to get on that today since the topic proposal is due tomorrow.

What else is tomorrow that I didn't exactly realise? A jazz test. I think I thought it was next Tuesday. I don't feel comfortable with the material for this one at all. But that will change by tomorrow afternoon. It's not an overwhelming amount of information. On a good note, the Brain and Behaviour test that was originally scheduled for Tuesday is now scheduled for the following Thursday. That's perfect! I get back from Maryland on Monday evening and will be too tired to cram for the test. Plus, Tuesday doesn't give me much extra time to study since I have two other classes that day. Thursday gives me all morning and much of the afternoon (fortunately I don't have much in the way of work projects right now) to study. So I'm not as stressed as I thought I'd be today.

I even told myself last night that I could sleep in a little this morning. I went to bed fairly late (not as late as most nights, but late considering how tired I was) but woke up at 8:00. At least this way I have more hours in my day. I worked some this morning, tried to look into flights to Scotland (didn't get very far- think I'll look into direct flights to London and then flights from London to Edinburgh and then Glasgow back to London- it seems I'll have better options that way), and started looking for information on circadian rhythms. Soon, I will look into the Brain and Behaviour topic and narrow down my options (I'll write up the proposal tomorrow morning), study for the jazz test, and reserve a car for Saturday. Then tonight is "Into the Woods".

Tomorrow I will write my topic proposal and do some work. Then I'll go find somewhere comfortable to study some more for the test. Friday is class, then I'll come home and dye my hair and pack. Saturday I leave for Maryland.

I wish I could spend some time outside today, but everything I need to do requires being indoors. Maybe I'll go study at the park or an outdoor cafe tomorrow.

Quick entry today.

"Into the Woods":
- obnoxious people around me, the people behind me talked and laughed through parts of it- I had to turn around and tell them to shut up a few times
- I counted about 20 people who left during the curtain call- how rude
- Little Red Ridinghood, the Witch, and Jack's Mom were miscast
- Baker and Baker's Wife should have been much better
- Jack, the princes, Cinderella, and the Narrator were fine. The minor characters were fine as well
- I knew I wouldn't be thrilled with the casting
- I loved Judi Dench though, as the voice of the giant
- The cow stole too many scenes. I miss the mechanical cow
- the sets were wonderful
- as an ensemble, they worked well together but their voices didn't blend
- it had its moments, but in general, I was a little disappointed- I'm surprised Jim Papine approved this choice of casting

Things seem to be more crowded here these days. I had to fight my way through people to and from the theatre last night- always a pleasure.

I wrote my topic proposal. I'm going to do a paper on circadian rhythm and how artificial light affects our behaviour (mostly related to sleep). I'm assuming my topic will get approved.

I think I know the pieces for the jazz test as well as I can. I can only recognise the melody, drums, and intensity of the songs, so if he plays a section of a piece that is strictly improvisation, I probably will have no idea what it is. I need to study some more for the non-listening part of the test. I'll leave here in an hour or so and go study at a cafe.

I forgot to take this week's SFU. Oh well.

Tomorrow I'm not only going to dye my hair but cut a few inches off as well. Maybe then it won't be as dry and frizzy. What I'd really like to do is cut it really short. But then I'll have to deal with it every day. Longer hair is much easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis. I don't have the patience to style it when it's short. Maybe I'd have more patience if I was better at it. I just don't have that talent.

I got an email this morning from Rebecca. She forwarded an email from her friend, Seth, in Boston who is friends with Charles, who lives here (I went out one night last fall with these two). He wrote that Charles read on some website that I was married and living in Minnesota. I have no idea how he came up with this idea. How did he decide it was me he was reading about? I don't think he knows my last name and even if he did, both my first and last names are extremely common. I think it's rather amusing. Maybe it's a sign that I should propose to Jeff and make the move to Minneapolis (uh, no thank you).

People were nasty yesterday! First I was on the bus and there was an old man yelling at middle aged man, "Get out of my country, you foreigner,". He was really screaming. The bus driver came back and told him that he can either get off the bus, sit up front, or he would get the police. He eventually sat down in front but a minute later went back to his original seat and continued to argue with the other man (not quite as loudly this time though so the bus driver kept checking back there but didn't get the police involved). Then I was walking on 77th and saw a young girl (probably around 14) start beating up on a young guy and screaming at him.

The jazz test was fine. I think I got 1 or 2 wrong. I talked to the same two people during the break after the test and before the rest of class. I guess the three of us are the only ones to find his tests easy enough to finish that quickly. We spent the break talking about how ridiculous the rules are of this class and other school related issues. Both of them are sort of pretentious-intellectuals (fun to talk to for a few minutes but any longer than that can be too much).

Every B&B class, I get more and more excited with the topics. Every topic makes me want to become an expert in that field (I want to become an opthamologist, work at a sleep clinic, research how the brain puts the images it broke down back together so we can see the object as it's meant to be seen...). I asked him if he teaches any other classes and he does. Unfortunately, the class he's teaching in the summer and the one he's teaching in the fall are upper level classes that I'm not allowed to take. If I had the time, I'd sit in on the class just for fun. He makes everything so interesting and has a way of explaining things so that I never leave the class, after learning about the most complex things, confused. Although, last night I learned more about what a strange person I am. We were told that you only dream during REM and REM only happens at stage one. People who are on anti-depressants do not go through stage one- the medication blocks REM, so people on this medication do not dream. I asked him if this was always the case or if it's just this is a typical side effect of the drugs. He said it was 100% of the time. Well, I used to take Zoloft and I specifically remember having dreams at that point. One of these days, I'd really like to go to a sleep clinic to learn more about my sleeping patterns (they would have a field day with me, I think) and maybe I'll remember to ask them about the dreaming while on Zoloft thing.

I had Oasis' "Wonderwall" in my head last night. I heard it the other night at Connelly's. I had gotten sick of it, but I hadn't heard it in several years, so it was fun. Eytan and I reminiced about when he & Jeff were over my apartment in Bolton Hill and I played that song on my guitar and he & Jeff sang backup (Jeff cannot sing!). So Eytan and I recreated that moment at Connelly's. George probably didn't want to be seen with us at that point. I also had "Dexter Digs In" (one of the pieces I had to know for the jazz test) in my head last night. It was the only one with a singable melody (of course, I can often sing unsingable melodies as well).

When I say I feel old, it's not a rational comment. I know I could be much older. I understand that. But everyone's response when I make that comment is something like, "It could be worse. You could be 40 (or 50 or 60 or whatever age they feel like using). That's a rational response, I know, but my comment wasn't rational. A rational response won't help an irrational comment. I think that's why age related comments people make to me bother me so much.

I love when things make sense in my head (even if they only make sense for a few minutes before I come up with ways to question myself and argue with myself and debate all the different points of view).

I noticed last night, that whenever I have flashbacks, they almost never involve my life in Phoenix. There must have been some interesting things or at least things worth some kind of memory, but I never seem to remember them.

I've been in the mood to read "Good Omens" again.

Wish I could go to the Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend (but I probably wouldn't pay the $15 to get in if I was going to be home).

Today I figured out that I don't feel as stressed in the morning and upset that I have to leave for school if I only have one class and nothing to do that night. This afternoon I had no problem leaving the apartment to go up to school since I will only be gone about 2 hours and then I can come home and get back to work and stuff (although today I need to cut and dye my hair and pack as well).

My favourite part about getting ready for a road trip is packing my music. I love picking out which CDs to bring on a certain trip. It is an art. Hmm- maybe I should watch "High Fidelity" tonight to really make myself crazy in choosing music for my trip tomorrow. I'll need a separate suitcase for it.

Another thing I should do, when I get my CD burner fixed, is watch "High Fidelity" before a road trip and spend the rest of the night making mixes from my MP3s.

My thoughts are moving way too fast these past few days. I can't keep up and fully acknowledge all of them.

So I got a lot of work done today. I feel good!

I know I've been talking about cutting my hair for weeks, if not months. But now that I'm finally taking the time to do it, I sort of don't want to. I've gotten used to my long hair. Yeah, but it's a mess. I need to cut it. It'll grow back eventually...

Brook, the cool chick in my theatre class, gave me a short story she wrote to read this weekend. Think I'll read it in the tea house in College Park while taking a break from studying for a B&B test and working on my play.

Happy birthday Rebecca Gelfand (or whatever your last name is these days).

I made it down to Hunt Valley in 3 hours and 15 minutes! There was absolutely no traffic anywhere and no waiting at tollbooths. What luck!!

And I finally rented a car with New York plates.

Saturday evening, I went to Plato's Diner with Neil, Maxine, and Abby and Paula and Harvey stopped by to say hi for a few minutes. Then after everyone went to bed, I went to Santa Fe for a drink. I couldn't stay there long on a Saturday night- too many young, loud college students.

Abby's grown a lot! It was fun hanging out with her for a couple of days- and had fun hanging out with her parents too ;)

That night I had a strange dream. I wrote down some details when I woke up out of my stage 1 sleep, but they faded quickly- I couldn't write as fast as they faded, but this is what I wrote:
- staying at some hotel in Santa Monica called Royal-something, I think
- changed to a Hilton
- called the Lowes to see if I could change to there for a night but I knew they wouldn't let me only stay 1 night, so I told them I was going to stay for 3 nights- then I'd just check out early
- I knew the woman who answered the phone at the Lowes- Cheryl from Sun Trust Bank in Towson
- then I was hanging out in the lobbies of all the hotels (it was sort of like Vegas playing games- in fact, I think I was in Vegas and Santa Monica at the same time)
- Eytan was there
- Megan Henning was there (she was still around 12) and was on the phone talking to Hilton- she was having difficulty making sure her dad would get the points/miles added to his account for her stay
- I tried to help her but she didn't want my help
- then I was in a mansion talking to a bunch of people about how beautiful it was and wouldn't it be great to stay longer
That's it.

Sunday was fairly productive. I brought my notebook to the English Tea House and wrote half of Act One of my play. Then I went to get some lunch at Pizza Hut and almost finished writing Act One. I tried the new P'Zone since I had done some preliminary work on that product so I thought I should taste the outcome. It was good but a bit too greasy for me. While I was there, I got a flashback of going for lunch at the Blacksburg Pizza Hut with Eytan and Terry. Those really were fun times- in Blacksburg with Eytan and Terry. There was a table of students next to me talking about songs from "South Pacific"- an unusual topic for University of Maryland students.

That evening, Neil, Maxine, Abby, and I went to the new Chinese tea house for dinner. I wasn't too hungry which was good since they didn't have much in the way of food. I had toast with peanut butter and a milk tapioca tea. I liked that place and hope it does well. Something tells me it won't be a College Park hot spot.

That night I went to the Corner Grill. First I talked to a Math major for a little while. Then some people he knew walked in, so he hung out with them. So I started talking to the guy on the other side of me. He works for the Justice Department, while getting his Masters in Public Policy at Maryland, and seems to travel up to New York a bit for his job. He was slightly irritating but okay to talk to for an hour or two. He goes to the theatre quite often (or at least he used to), so we mainly talked about theatre. He's originally from Baltimore, so we talked a bit about Baltimore as well. I didn't mean to stay out so late or drink that much. Is some part of my brain psychic and mean? Every time I wind up drinking large quantities, I don't have much to eat beforehand. Saturday evening I had a large plate of French toast at the diner. Why couldn't that be my night of drinking?

Oh well. I slept a few hours. I almost overslept because the snooze button didn't work. But I managed to get to Towson with plenty of time before my eye appointment. I stopped by the office because Paula brought their tape of last week's SFU for me (since I never remembered to tape it so I could watch it again) and so I could give Eytan "Songs for a New World" (he liked "Last Five Years" so I told him he could borrow it).

My eye appointment was okay. I got disposible contacts and figured out that my deteriorating eye sight was actually due to my contacts being worn out. He told me that when he had other patients who lived in Manhattan, their contacts got worn out more quickly than his other patients. Mine were a year old and ready to get thrown out. Now I'm even more excited about the disposible contacts- when they wear out, they will get thrown away and fresh ones will replace them immediately. He was a little worried about my left eye since I couldn't read any of the lines (not even the big one at the top) with or without the contacts. But he checked it out and it's normal (as normal as that eye can be, anyway). I'm just not meant to see anything more than colour and blurry shapes out that eye. At least my right eye has crystal clear vision now with my new contacts he gave me to take with me (the others will be mailed later). He usually likes to schedule a follow-up visit when giving someone a new brand and/or type of contacts, but he said it wasn't super important since it's not that easy for me to get there. I told him I would be down at the end of June and he said I should schedule an appointment for then. I don't know why to bother then though. Either my eyes are fine with the new contacts or they aren't. Oh well, I'll go just to be safe. Guess I'll be renting a car that weekend.

The ride back was rainy and foggy- makes me a bit tense. Even with the slower speeds and the fact that there was a little more traffic than on the way down, I still made it back in 3 and a half hours (to the Avis- it took another 15 minutes to get home).

So Neil, Maxine, Abby, Paula, and Harvey are going somewhere in Europe in September for Neil's 40th birthday. It looks like that place will be Ireland. Classes are the only thing stopping me from joining them, and I just looked at the Fall schedule and it looks like I might be able to join them for a few days if they're going between September 10-17 (I could leave on the 12th and come back the 17th). And if they will be in Ireland on those dates and I decide to join them, should I bother going to Ireland in early June? I need to book a flight SOON (hopefully later tonight), so I need to make a decision soon. Maybe I'll just do Edinburgh & Stirling with Kristin, Christina, and Rebecca, stay in Glasgow for a few days with Judith (maybe do a night in London) and then come home and rest up and get business in order before starting summer classes. Travel plans can be so crazy.

Oh, Sunday night I had strange thoughts when getting ready for sleep. I was thinking about love and wondered if the reason I've never been in love was because I'm scared of it. Scared to get that close to a person because relationships don't last forever (mainly I was thinking about them ending because of death). Then I realised that I haven't been in love simply because I've never met anyone with whom I could be in love. So I stopped thinking about that and started thinking about other heavy things, but I don't remember what they were anymore. I was still able to get to sleep fairly quickly. I think it's when I don't have anything serious on my mind that it takes me forever to fall asleep.

Busy week, this week. Fortunately, I don't have much work... yet. Who knows what will wind up in my inbox tomorrow afternoon?. Wednesday I have two shows ("Modern Millie" and "The Man Who Had All the Luck"), Thursday I have a B&B test, and this coming weekend is the weekend Meital and I talked about going swing dancing.

I was already exhausted from the ride home in the rain, but trying to create travel plans and schedules for classes (summer and fall) really wiped me out. I didn't find anything ideal in either area. It just made me aggrevated. Flights are too expensive. Can't figure out where to fly into. Could use US Air miles but would have to fly them to London and then find another flight from London to Edinburgh and I can't find anything cheap enough (even with all those lovely budget British airlines to choose from). Classes are not at the times that would be convenient for me or they're not offered at all. If fall class schedule gets too complicated, I won't be able to join everyone on Neil's birthday trip. In which case, I should go back to the idea of going to Ireland after Scotland at the end of May. I can't look at this stuff anymore. Guess that's one more thing to do this weekend.

What I will do now is find something relaxing to do. Watching a movie sounds good, but I'm taping SFU in less than an hour. I guess I could watch those two episodes from 11-1. No, I should try to get to sleep early. I think I'm relaxed enough (or will be soon) to do that. I just need to find a quiet activity for a couple of hours. Maybe I'll goof off online. I haven't done that in ages.

I just had a little flashback of Skateland. I love when I have a childhood memory that other people will remember as well. It makes me feel like I really did live in this world (at least some of the time).

I finally have a chance to get some sleep (since I just can't seem to get enough brain power to do anything productive) and I feel guilty going to sleep when there is so much that needs to be done, so I'm staying up and doing mostly unimportant stuff just so I can feel slightly productive before I do go to sleep.

I got to sleep around midnight!!! And I slept until 8:00 (well, I woke up at 5:00 but made myself go back to sleep)!!!! Eight hours!!! That's the most sleep I've gotten in a LONG time! I feel good!

I'm a little nervous about the part of the B&B test on memory since I wasn't there for those classes and the girl's notes I borrowed don't explain things. I'm hoping the book will clear things up and not make it more confusing. I'll look at the book before I leave for classes today. That way if I still don't understand, I can look at someone else's notes for a few minutes before class starts.

I'm feeling less stressed this morning even though I still have the same amount to do that I had last night. Guess sleep really does help these things. I should try to get that much sleep more often. I really do like sleep. I just don't seem to need that much of it.

This is how non-stressed I'm feeling. I was just thinking about all the things I need to do in the near future, and decided that it wasn't so much that I couldn't take most of this weekend off. I can make a tentative class schedule for the summer and fall and firm up travel plans for the end of May (I'm going back to the idea of Scotland and Ireland now and not going to Europe in September- if I want to get away for a few days in the Fall, I can rent a car and drive up to New Hampshire or something) and the rest of the weekend can be for fun (swing dancing, watching movies...). In fact, I'm going to make Sunday, relaxing day. I'll read The Times and watch 3 episodes of SFU (the one from 2 weeks ago that I wanted to watch again, this past week's, and the new one).

Life is good! The Who's "I'm Free", which is currently playing, is certainly feeding this mood. I feel the way I do when it's the first Spring-like day and responsibilities aren't important enough to not go for a walk in the park instead. I can't do that today, but I can think about the relaxing weekend I'm allowing myself. It's not a sunny Spring-like day today anyway.

A long night of sleep, a relaxing weekend... I feel so decadent.

So. Anything else to say besides how relaxed I feel? I don't think so. I'm so relaxed I don't have 50 thoughts going through my head like I normally do.

A strange song popped in my head yesterday afternoon- "What Would I Do If I Could Feel" from "The Wiz".

I had a dream last night about my apartment on Cedarcroft Rd. It was run down and still had some of my old stuff in it (some I recognised, some I didn't). I saw my parents' dresser with some of my old clothes (and Paula's old clothes)- white shirt and shorts that Paula made, Paula's old bathing suit, my little off-the-shoulder, colourful top (still have that one)... I was wondering why this place still had my stuff in it and if I was still paying for it somehow. I was wondering where my old landlady was, then I remembered she moved somewhere else (I think she really did move somewhere else when I was still living there). Then I woke up. It was fun seeing that place again, even though it didn't really look the same.

I got 100% on my last jazz test! Guess I wasn't wrong about that one piece that I wasn't sure about. The other guy I asked about it was wrong, not me.

British Airways just offered their summer sale! Glad I waited! Now I can fly somewhat cheaply to London Heathrow and take the shuttle bus to Gatwick so I can fly from there to Edinburgh on Easy Jet. Then I can fly Ryan Air from Dublin to Gatwick and then take the shuttle bus to Heathrow to get back home. It's a lot of travelling, but it'll be worth it. I'm just glad I found reasonable prices for all the travel. I have a zillion things to do this morning before I leave for my day of theatre, so I'll book the flights tomorrow morning (while taking a break from studying).

In less than two hours, I'll leave to go see "Modern Millie". Then I'll find somewhere to study for my B&B test before heading over to the American Airlines Theatre for "The Man Who Had All the Luck". It'll be a late night since there's a party at the theatre after the show. If I had known our teacher was switching the dates for the test (it was originally supposed to be yesterday), I would have gotten a ticket for "Modern Millie" on another day. Too late now. At least I have almost all day tomorrow to finish studying. The only part I'm worried about is the memory part. I looked at someone else's notes yesterday and they were about as helpful as the notes I copied from the other woman. Oh well. I already have all the details on the sleep and circadian rhythm part memorised (that stuff just stuck in my head). The hormones stuff I can memorise with no problem. The memory stuff, I'll just hope the book and maybe some web sites will clear everything up for me. I'm not too worried. I really think it's less information than our previous two tests.

There's some major hammering going on this morning. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the apartment next to me. Loud.

I got an email from Bob last night. He's becoming an "overnight sensation" in the wood-working world. If anyone wants a high quality, uniquely designed piece of furniture, check out his work at Ortiz Studios. Go Bob!

Okay, back to work. Not much time today for productivity.

Woke up singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" (why?), which led to the "Hello" song that Abby taught me when I was down in Maryland last week.

Got to take a Zogby poll this morning.

More hammering this morning. I remember a bit of my dream last night. Someone (I think it might have been Jon) was showing me the AL East standings and it showed the Orioles in 3rd place. I was NOT happy! I guess that came fromthe fact that they beat my Red Sox two nights in a row.

So "Modern Millie" was fun. Everyone (especially Sutton Hunter) was wonderful, it was a cute story, and the technical aspects were great. I would have enjoyed myself much more if the audience wasn't all over 75. I'm beginning to despise elderly theatre-goers. They are rude and loud. While getting into the theatre (which is complicated at the Marquis with the doors and escalators, which don't always work, and stairs), I got pushed, shoved, and stepped on by several people. No apologies. Do these people think they can just push people around? Obviously. What is their rush to get into the theatre? The show wasn't starting for another 15 minutes. Now let's talk about their activities while watching the show. They discuss out loud all the things that are happening. During a dance number, they commented on the choreography, "Oh, she's a little waif- easy to lift,". And they commented on the action, "Oh, she's going to try again,". Someone near me was wearing absolutely awful perfume. The woman behind me commented on it saying that she couldn't breathe. I was going to verbally agree with her, but she was one of the talkers during the show, so I didn't want to identify with her. The woman to my left was talking to her friends during most of the show. Every time I told her to quiet down she either ignored me or told me to "Shush yourself". This was the worst audience I've ever encountered. Think I'll avoid matinees of big shows as much as possible.

After the show, I went to Joe Allen and did a little studying for my B&B test. I also tweaked a little of my play.

I was highly impressed with "The Man Who Had All the Luck". I really didn't expect to like it since I don't love Arthur Miller plays and don't care for Chris O'Donnell. Chris O'Donnell did a wonderful job as did everyone else. And I still really love Samantha Mathis. She's so beautiful (although I think she looks better as a blonde than a redhead). The show got me thinking about a lot of things: luck, life, love, death, lifestyles, choices, fate, destiny, control, paths, generations, history, age, time...

After the show was the party on the 5th floor. Most of the actors were there (didn't see Samantha Mathis which was the main person I wanted to talk to) and talked to us for a little while. I met a woman from Mexico currently studying law at NYU. We talked about travel and language for a little while. I had one cider and managed to feel a little sick from that. So I didn't stay long at the party. I came home around 11:30 and got to sleep shortly after that.

I've been wondering about this for a little while. What's with the dirty looking pants (pants with shimmery brown highlights down the front) that seem to be popular right now? Why do people think this looks good? I think it looks like they forgot to wash their clothes.

Now I'm leaning towards leaving for the UK on the 24th right after the theatre final (which isn't a final for me- it's for the people who chose performing for thier final project and we have to watch it). I'll arrive in London on the 25th and spend the day there before leaving that night for Edinburgh. It's cheaper to fly Easy Jet at night and if I did the more expensive flight on the 26th and get to Edinburgh then like I was planning originally, I wouldn't get to Edinburgh until around 3:00 PM which doesn't give me much time there. So I could pack Friday morning, bring my suitcase with me to school, and leave from there for the airport. Then I can spend a nice day in London and get into Edinburgh at 11:00 PM. I wouldn't get to the hotel until around 1:00 AM, but hopefully the others won't have a problem with that. I just sent an email asking them and so far I heard back from Rebecca that she's fine with it. I'm assuming it'll be fine with Kristin and Christina as well.

Okay, time to get cracking on the memory stuff for my test this evening.

Something about this (found on Moviefone- an AOL/Time Warner) bothers me:
"We were unable to locate information for this person. Click your browser's "Reload" button once or twice and the full star bio should appear. If that doesn't work, please check back later."
If they are bothering to write this message, it means it's a common problem. Shouldn't they fix the problem rather than making it our responsibility to do something about it if we really want to see the information. There are so many other places (Epinions, Amazon, IMDB...) to get movie information, including movie times. Personally, I will go to those other sites. I hope other people do as well.

Talked to Marcell last night. We're going to try to get together for coffee or something tomorrow. She stops radiation this Monday. Now she just has to make a decision on whether or not to take some kind of drug. I hope she makes a good decision and feels comfortable with it.

I listened to "42nd Street" around College Park last weekend. Now I can't the songs out of my head: "About a Quarter to Nine", "Young and Healthy", "Go Into Your Dance", "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", "I Only Have Eyes for You"...

Last night, I found myself thinking in obsessive-compulsive, Spalding Gray style: "And I just said a negative thing, so if I take it back 3 times, in 3 sets of 3, I'll reverse the negative thing,"- it's rather unpleasant thinking this way.

Everything today is all about a look or an image. Characters in movies are so clearly defined. They fit into neat little molds. People watch so many movies that they think people are supposed to fit in these neat little molds. Sometimes I feel like I should fit into a neat little mold. And then I remind myself that humans are so much more complex than fictional characters (or at least they should be), and then I feel better about myself.

When calling to get people to donate to your charity, please try and get their name right. At least figure out which is their first name and which their last name. I know some people have two names that could both be first names (Joseph Patrick, Michael Stanley...), but my names are quite obvious, which one is the first and which is the last. However, someone from my local fraternal order of police did not think so. In fact, he not only put my last name first, he mispronounced it. And it is not a difficult name to pronounce. Yet so many people mispronounce it. I don't understand.

Oh, the B&B test was not great. His questions are so ridiculous with all the "a&c", "b&c", "all but d", "all of the above"... I probably got an 80%, which is actually fine with me because of how he makes his tests. So, depending on how he grades the paper, I should get a B for the semester. Two A's and a B- I'm fine with that.

On May 6th, I had originally planned to have dinner at Nadine's with a bunch of people I don't know (part of my trying to meet people to go to swanky restaurants with once in a while), but now I got the opportunity to possibly see a reading of "The Glass Menagerie" at the American Airlines Theatre (thanks to Hiptix). I'll find out on Tuesday whether or not I got one of the free tickets. I really hope I did. I got lucky last time with their free tickets to a reading though (with Alan Cumming and Richard Easton in "The Dresser"), so can I get lucky again? If not, at least I'll have a nice dinner to go to (with two couples and one woman visiting from San Francisco).

I'm going to try to have a partly busy and partly relaxing weekend. Tonight I'll clean the apartment and go through the mail (maybe- I might save it for tomorrow). Tomorrow I'll get an early start with Marcell and then have the rest of the day for work, booking travel plans (if Kristin and/or Christina have a problem with me getting to the hotel at 1:00 AM they'll just have to accept it since I really need to book a flight already), figure out Summer and Fall schedules for school (and come up with a few schedule possibilities in case my first choices aren't available by the time I'm finally allowed to register- May 9th for the Summer and May 20th for the Fall), go through the mail if I don't do it tonight, go to Barnes and Noble to see if I can return something in person that I ordered online (they sent me the wrong item), research some things for my play, and start on research for my B&B paper. Then Sunday will be completely relaxing (hopefully). I'll read The Times and catch up on SFU. Maybe I'll watch a movie or read a book too.

I really need to get a new mouse. Mine is shot.

Woke up singing "Perfect Strangers" from "Edwin Drood".

And I've had songs from "Into the Woods" in my head today (actually these have been in my head on and off since I saw it last week).

And for the past two hours, I've had the little "Hello" song that Abby taught me. I think it's slightly better than "The Wheels on the Bus"- for now.

It irritates me when Sarah says "ex-cape" instead of "escape" on "Drawn to the Rhythm".

So this morning I woke up and met Marcell at Housing Works. She's so dramatic. I got there at 9:50 and she was there waiting with about 5-10 other people waiting for it to open at 10:00. She was carrying a bag of donations and asked if I could drop it off at the donation desk so she could go straight to the back to get first crack at the new stuff. She said it's survival of the fittest. Uh, it's just stuff, Marcell. Well, at least she's partially back to her old self. Between September 11 and then cancer, she's had a real tough period. Anyway, I got a few CDs, a vest, and a giraffe height chart for Abby- all for $15.

Then we went to Lenny's for some tea. She told me Josh (her nephew, my cousin) was now 22 and moving to Providence. I thought he was much younger than 22. Maybe I'll go visit him in Providence one day.

Today is a good day. The weather was cool but not too windy, the streets weren't crowded with obnoxious people, and I just felt light-hearted in general.

I forgot to go to Barnes and Noble today. Guess I'll go Tuesday before heading up to school early to print something and talk to someone in the theatre department about what is required for the theatre production class.

I woke up with my right ear clogged and while it went away for about an hour, it's back to being clogged. Irritating.

They were playing the Legendary Pink Dots at Housingworks. Nice to hear something this obscure in such a random place. I've only met one person who has heard of them.

The only productive thing I've done today is call the two theatres in Boston to get tickets (for "Passion" and "The Real Thing") and made tentative school schedules for the Summer and Fall. This evening I will book my flights for my upcoming trip and start researching the brain and sleep disorders. I think I'll wait until Monday to go through the mail and pay bills. It won't go out in the mail until then anyway.

Yesterday's theatre class was spent discussing "Waiting for Godot". I had several points (about the meaning of certain parts of the play and some design ideas). Michael impressed with me yesterday. No one else gets it.

When I was looking for my "Solace" CD, I was reminded at how ecclectic my music collection is.

I forgot to mention the other day- Sylvia called me from Israel. They went to a town with a shopping area one day, otherwise, they've stayed on the safe little kibbutz and they try not to read too much of the news.

My teeth hurt today. I think this wisdom tooth is still growing or something.

Okay, time to get out the credit card (which I can finally use again after the mini fiasco of things beyond my control) and book some flights.

By the way, is anyone still reading this journal? Let me know.

Last night I couldn't figure out time. I looked at the clock every once in a while and it always surprised me- always thought it was later or earlier. At around 7:00, I felt like I'd been home for either 20 minutes or 10 hours (I felt both of these equally at the same time). In reality, I'd been home about 3 hours, so neither of my times were correct. I really have the strangest concept of time. No matter what the time was though, it was nice to finally be home on a Friday night with not too much to do. I love relaxing-at-home Friday nights and it's been too long since I had one.

And I can't believe I forgot to mention this: Paula and Harvey are in Hawaii! They found out about this opportunity to meet an Australian client in Honolulu 3 days ago and they left for San Francisco yesterday (and then continued onto Hawaii today). Not much time to plan. And they're taking a couple of personal days after the business. How exciting!

I just decided that when I go down to DC for the Kennedy Center on June 29, I'll rent a car and stay for the weekend. That way I can drive through Baltimore on the way there and the way back and have snowballs!

I was in a strange mood last night. I had a great day and some time in the early evening, I started to have negative, existential thoughts. Life is meaningless, why bother trying so hard? So what if you eventually succeed at something? Then what? Why bother having goals? Why not just let life happen to you? I guess these thoughts came from "The Man Who Had All the Luck" (I was thinking a lot about fate and luck and choices while watching that show) and discussing "Waiting for Godot".

I was looking into plans for Ireland and sort of gave up for now. The main place I want to go in Ireland is Cork, but I don't want to stay there for 5 days even if it is convenient to go there from Scotland. So somehow I decided to look for cheap flights from Glasgow on Ryan Air. I came upon Belgium (Charleroi, to be exact). They have cheap flights there and as I started reading about it, I thought going there sounded like a good idea. I could stay there for a day or two and then take the train somewhere else and fly from wherever I wind up back to London on the 5th. I thought about going to Amsterdam from Charleroi. There were several things there that I was interested in and didn't get to see when I was there last year, plus their Historical Museum is the best museum EVER and I'd love to go back there. So I'll look into this more next week sometime.

I've had the SFU theme song in my head all morning. Guess I'm getting ready for this evening.

It's a dreary, drizzly day today. I actually like dreary Sundays when I don't have much to do (or I can sort of ignore all I have to do). I did go out this morning for a few errands. I tried to make a deposit at my bank, but they didn't have any deposit envelopes, so I'll have to go back some time next week. I got a few things at the drug store, went to Barnes and Noble to return the wrong item they sent me and get the correct one and after that I went over to the Buttercup Bake Shop to try their cupcakes. I'd been meaning to go there for a while and finally made it. All their stuff looked delicious, and I wound up with 2 cupcakes- red velvet and devil dog. And I'm just not a dessert person. Desserts always look better than they taste, in my opinion. They were okay, and the icing was good (I usually scrape off most icings), but I don't think I need to go back there unless someone wants me to go with them (like Paula- she sounded excited when I told her about it a while ago).

I still need to do some minor apartment stuff (put away clean clothes, put out the recycling), but I'll do those tomorrow.

I was looking through my mail to see how long it should take to deal with tomorrow, and I found an invitation from Kendra to her graduation from Virginia Tech. Wow- it doesn't feel like that much time has passed since she was in her junior year in high school. Time flies. It was a little depressing to know that I met her in high school, it doesn't feel like that long ago, and she's graduating while I'm still struggling to get through the first half of my college experience. I know everyone is on different schedules and paths, but it still bothers me that I am where I am and I'm still not going to feel much better when I finally do get my degree since it'll only be a degree in theatre (no point to it). But of course, what's the point to any degree? And what's the point of anything that we do? We're just like Sisyphus, doing the same repetative stuff for no reason until we die. I'm really having trouble with this these days.

But for now, I'm enjoying my lazy Sunday. Soon I'll watch the two SFUs I have on tape and then I'll watch this week's episode at 9:00. Billy's coming back this week. I was wondering when they were bringing him back.

I wrote these little tidbits last night:
- I love SFU because of the long scenes- most shows have much shorter scenes- that's why I don't want more characters, more characters mean shorter scenes
- And I love how none of the characters look plastic like most people on TV
- Sometimes I wish I could be a religious person and have faith all the time- it would make living much easier
- Christmas egg-nog. Yum.
- I want a nice dysfunctional family like the Fisher's.
- I like Nate and I like Benda, but I don't like them together.
- Claire is getting annoying.
- I think Ruth is the only character who hasn't irritated me yet.
- Ah, Lili Taylor's back- to add to the problems of Nate and Brenda that I just don't care about.
- I found myself watching SFU from all different points of view- the direction, the acting, the cinematography, the writing... That's why I need to watch each episode more than once- I can't catch it all in one viewing.
- Claire getting into photography- cool.
- Keith is getting scary.

Downloaded Sweet Honey in the Rock's, "Denko" last night. I hadn't been ready to listen to that song since I stopped listening to it in '92 (it reminded me of dance and after around '92 I couldn't dance anymore, so I just couldn't face that song). Well, I wasn't really ready to listen to it last night but did anyway. What a beautiful song that I guess will always fill me with sadness.

The Fraternal Order of Police- still calling me and still asking for me by switching around my first and last names. How many times do I have to tell them not to call back before they'll listen?

I've had a lot of energy today. Maybe because I had two long nights of sleep in a row? I know I don't need that much sleep, but I do need a few nights here and there with more than 5 hours of sleep and more importantly, I need a few mornings where I can sleep in. Sleeping in is a wonderful thing!

So with my high energy I did some work, cleaned the apartment, went through all the mail and paid bills, ordered some groceries (they should be here in about an hour), started researching sleeping disorders, and checked into more travel plans (contacted a few hotels and have either received news that no rooms are available or I haven't heard back yet). And it's only 5:30. Tonight I need to do some more work, do some more sleeping disorder research, maybe email Brian some questions about law for my play, and maybe look into some more hotel options if I don't get responses from the other two hotels I contacted earlier.

I got an email from Hiptix and I did indeed get two tickets for "The Glass Menagerie". Paula mentioned that she would like to go, so if she can get up here on Monday, then I'll have someone to go with. If not, I was just going to stand outside the theatre and see if anyone wants my extra ticket. If anyone reading this is interested, let me know (May 6, 7:30, American Airlines Theatre).

So going to see "The Glass Menagerie" means not meeting those people for dinner at Nadine's. Oh well, some other time, I guess.

My April resolution was to simplify my life. I think I did a good job on that one. I did very little this weekend which was very relaxing and I feel completely ready to face the week. I think I'll try to do that once a month if possible (have a weekend mostly at home). And I found other ways of simplifying my life- throwing away offers for various things that I don't have a definite need for, cutting back on theatre when I really don't have the time for it... For May, my resolution is to treat my hypothyroidism naturally. The groceries I bought today included: veggies, soup, yoghurt, fruit, and nuts- no spinach, cereal, or broccoli (I will miss my cereal- but it has way too much iron). Soon, I will go to an herbal shop and get some of the recommended herbs. If this doesn't seem to work, I guess I'll go to a doctor (which I know I should do anyway, but that's another story).

Just read that I shouldn't drink tap water. Wish I ordered some water with the rest of the groceries. Guess I'll have to remember to get some tomorrow on my way home or something. This one is a bit harder since I don't like to pay for water, but I'll give it a shot for a month and see what happens.

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