so i hope everyone who reads my page had a happy 4th of July :) I went to the commons to see the fireworks. it was hella crowded, but i saw a lot of the girls i used to teach in guard. they're so cute :) the fireworks display was nice... we were really close and they were like, right above us, so when you layed on the ground and looked up it looked like they were coming right at you. i love fireworks, this is always my favorite holiday. my favorites are the ones that sound like rice crispies and the ones that spiral and scream, oh, and also the ones that stay glittery for a while :) i used to be terrified of fireworks when i was little. i remember going to see them in pottsville and having cotten balls stuck in my ears because the big booms scared me so much. my 7 year old brother, Alex, was afraid of the fireworks, and when they first started he jumped and sprayed powdered sugar from his fried dough all over me :) there was a little girl right next to us who kept screaming also, the poor thing was terrified... then one of the huge fireworks that's supposed to explode in the sky went off on the ground, it was hella scary. it looked pretty cool, but it definately wasn't supposed to happen (i hope no one got hurt). after that i spent the rest of the time afraid that something worse would happen (although i tried not to look scared for the sake of my little brother). and then a piece of cardboard or something fell right next to that little girl who was screaming (which, evil me thought was really kinda funny...) anyway... spending the 4th with my family was a first for me in a long time. when i was growing up i'd always gone to my mom's ouse for the summer, and then after high school i was with tim and we would always be together for the 4th - either camping or at a picnic or something like that. i was kind of having a hard day yesterday. i guess all holidays are hard after a break up, but i didn't think that the 4th of july would effect me really... ah well. i miss the old tim. :(
i have to go to arizona this weekend. my step-aunt victoria, who i haven't seen since i was 12 or so, is getting married. i guess she also might have cancer, which is why the wedding is so sudden. my step-grandmother is dying also, so it'll be good for me to go. i haven't seen my step-grandmother since i was 6 or 7 when my mom and my step-dad (RJ) lived out there also. I'm not looking forward to this trip. With everyone dying, it doesn't seem like it's going to be too much fun. and i don't really know these people. i will get to see my mom, but she annoys the hell out of me. she never wanted kids, and she's a horrible mother (i know, that seems rough, but it's really the truth). she always seems so uncomfortable when she talks to me, it annoys me. and we were going to take the same flight from Pittsburgh to Phoenix, but she switched to another one because it was a "better deal". that's always the story with my mom... looking for a good deal. so she saves like $50 or so but misses out on 4 hours that she could have spent with me. she should want to spend that time with me, that should be worth more to her than money (and money is definately not a problem for her). whatever. she sucks. i hope i don't end up like her some day. i'll write more about her most likely when i return from my trip... i'm leaving right after work today and i get back sunday night... well, here's hoping none of my flights crash. morelater... ali
Friday, July 05, 2002
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Why am I such a wimp? I have such a hard time making phone calls. I've been calling around to see about apartments (unfortunately the apartment building that's right next to where I work doesn't have anything available) and I have such anxiety about it everytime I pick up the phone. And then when I have to leave a message I sound like an idiot. Blah. It'll be amazing if I actually get an apartment considering how wimpy I am. I'm so afraid to go see them, I don't want to go alone... I'm going to bring my digicam and take loads of pics so that I'll be able to get advice on which one I choose... Eric or Becky was saying something this weekend about how people have such anxiety about making phone calls that they'd rather give a presentation. I don't know about that... I keep telling myself that I'll get better at it the more I do it, and I'm getting better at work about making phone calls (today, I actually had to be like a collections agent and call people asking them where their payment was), but I'm still hella wimpy about making phone calls on my own behalf... blah... morelater
Monday, July 01, 2002
so i have my pictures from this weekend up at ofoto, you can visit them by clicking here. I had a great trip this weekend...
Friday:I drove out to Poughkeepsie to spend the night at Becky's new apartment. Unfortunately the trip took twice as long as it should have because of horrid weather and a dumbass who caused an accident. when i left friday it was pouring buckets outside. i opened the door to my house and had to edge my way along the garages to avoid getting water dumped on me by our failing drainage off of the roof. The water doesn't drain to the side of the house anymore, instead it just dumps down off the roof. it looked like the part of the river rapids ride in hershey park where you think you're done and that you might have survived the ride without getting soaked and then you round the corner and there's the sheet of water pouring from a waterfall that runs across the whole 'river'. so i just decided to run for the car... i had to run on the grass because the driveway had a couple of inches of water on it (the water just couldn't drain fast enough) and i ended up almost slipping in the mud. when i got into my car (which of course i'd locked earlier so i had to fumble around with my keys trying to unlock the door) i was soaked. it looked like i'd just been in the shower with my clothes on. i started up the car and flipped on the a/c (and froze cause i was so wet, so i had to turn it off right away) and started off towards the northway. the rain continued to pour down and driving was tough, and when i got to the main intersection in town the power was out and the streetlights weren't working. it was sketchy navigating around that intersection. i trust my driving, it's everyone else i don't trust... anyway, so i got on the northway and it took me about 15 minutes just to get to the twin bridges (normally less than a five minute trip) and once i passed them the rain completely stopped. it was real weird... anyway, so i got to the end of the northway and got on the thruway. since i was heading south towards the city on a friday, i figured that my trip would be quick and i could laugh at all of the city-dwellers heading up north for the weekend that would be stuck in traffic in the northbound lane. i was wrong. i hadn't driven ten miles before i passed a truck with a sign on it that said "be prepared to stop" and when i rounded a bend traffic was completely stopped in front of me. i sat in traffic for two hours. apparently a few miles ahead some dumbass woman plowed into the back of a truck and it was blocking traffic going both directions. it was awful. and to make it worse, my exhaust needs to be fixed on my car so everytime we stopped (which was like every other minute) smoke emitted from my car and floated past me. it was hella embarrassing... by the second hour i was getting a little crazy.. i can't stand to wait, especially when i have no idea how long i have to wait. i felt completely out of control (something which drives me crazy) and trapped (something which panics me). luckily i was able to talk to beck on my cell phone, otherwise, i think i would have just abandoned my car and run for it. by the time i got to poughkeepsie i was starving and after becky gave me the tour of her apartment (which is hella cute, and HUGE) she took me out to dinner at outback. we ate a lot (and i drank enough to get me a little drunk) and so when we got back to her place we pretty much crashed immediately.
Saturday:Beck and I planned on making the 10:30 train into Grand Central which would put us in the city at 12:19, but we were too lazy to get up in the morning... her bed (which is a beautiful sleigh bed) was just too hella comfy and neither of us wanted to get up... so we decided to take the 11:30 train instead... and we almost missed that one. we haven't once made the train out of poughkeepsie without just making it, and it gets closer every time... this time no sooner had we got on the trian than it started to pull away. the train ride in was uneventful. beck and i quoted Ghostbusters to eachother (as usual... for some reason, every time we get on any form of public transportation, we begin quoting ghostbusters to eachother) and made fun of this annoying woman who wouldn't stop talking to the couple behind her. by the time we got off of the train we knew that she was a teacher, got thirty minutes of planning time at work per day, and really liked to eat carbohydrates... when we got to grand central we found eric and sarah right away and then headed into the city.. we walked down madison ave so sarah could show us where her new job is (she started today) and then we ate at a little deli. beck and i got these great sandwhiches that had turkey, honey mustard dressing and brie cheese on it (yum). then we headed to brooklyn where eric and sarah live. their apartment is also adorable. their dining room is just too cute: they have an old diner table and chairs and then against the wall behind it they have a japanese-looking door panel from a sushi restaraunt that threw it out behind which they have christmas lights. it's a really cool effect. then they have chinese screens on the wall and a hanging that they covered the overhead lamp with. all of the doors in their apartment have crystal-looking knobs, and they have moulding on the walls and around the windows. in their living room they have a potted ivy that they've draped over a trellis in the corner - it's very pretty... we watched a great quality downloaded copy of lilo and stitch (i love that movie) and then had dinner (eric cooked us pasta and garlic bread). then we hung out, drinking screwdrivers and playing video games all night. it was much fun :)
Sunday:We decided on Saturday that we were going to go to the Bronx Zoo on Sunday because there were ads all over the subway for the baby animals at the zoo. Beck and I had never been there before, and baby animals are cute, so we were excited to go. We left the apartment around 10am and got bagels from a deli about a block away on the way to the subway. the bagels were delicious (hot with just the right amount of cream cheese). The commute out to the Bronx from Brooklyn took a while, but it wasn't too bad. The zoo was great fun. I took a lot of pictures of animals (see them here). The baby animals were adorable... one of the first animals we saw was a red monkey who was holding her little baby monkey. he was so cute, picking leaves off of the branch that his mother was holding and eating them. we also saw some non-cute animals. there were a lot of spiders there... and ohmygod they were gross. there was this huge tarantula that was actually on the front glass part of his cage. he was disgusting. there were some other ones that looked like overgrown ones that live in my house and they scared the crap out of me. i had to leave that exhibit cause i started to freak out a little (in fact, just remembering it now is making me freak out... my neck is so tight, i can't really swallow or move my head... have to stop thinking of them..)... the only drawback to the whole day (besides the horrible, horrible spiders) was that it was pretty stinky in some of the houses cause it was so hot out... the night world exhibit was the worst in that respect... they had signs warning you about how dark it was going to be, but i feel that they also should warn you about how badly it's going to smell... it really, really reeked in there... it smelled like animals (or people for that matter, it was really dark in there) had defecated all over the floors... We had a nice time walking around the zoo, and we lucked out cause it wasn't too hot outside, and although it looked like it was going to rain we didn't get rained on while we were there... we didn't leave the zoo till around 5, and we went directly to grand central from there. beck and i caught the 6:04 train to poughkeepsie which didn't get us back there until 7:45. i headed home almost right away... on the way home i stopped at a gas station and bought some oil cause my oil indicator light was on (i drove my car too hard on the way there... but really, i had to make up all the time lost sitting in traffic, so going 90mph was reasonable). I popped my hood and tried to unscrew the oil cap, but i couldn't get it off. i burned my thumb and pointer finger in the process (without realizing it). i couldn't get the freaking cap off... when i was about to give up and ask some guy for help i realized that the cap was unscrewed all the way, all i had to do was pull up to get it off. i felt like a dumbass... i'm just glad that i didn't ask someone to help me before i realized it, i would have really felt dumb then... anyway, so now i have a huge blister on my thumb because i'm a dumbass.
so it was a good trip, can't wait to do it again :) morelater...