one week

i feel like i'm having deja vu because i seem to remember writing a very similar blog about six months ago! but here i am again. i am leaving the country in one week on another adventure, and i have so much to do that i'm beginning to panic. but the truth is, the feelings of panic have a little more to do with my actual trip. for the first two weeks, i'll be traveling alone, and i'm getting nervous at the reality of having no one to spend time with when i really feel lonely. yikes... and i know i'll be fine and i know it'll be great, but i still feel nervous now and it'll still be hard then, so i think that's where i'm panicking.

the hometown funnies

there's this little weekly periodical around here called "the current," and it is your typical local county newspaper, highlighting spelling bees at the schools and football games against high school rivals. whenever i'm home in jersey, i like to pick it up and check out my personal favorite section: the police blotter. i always am curious to see if i know any of the people who've been making trouble in the area. well, this time around, i don't seem to recognize as many of the names of the troublemakers, but i do seem to know a lot of the police officers! apparently i missed the memo about all EHT high school grads should consider becoming an EHT cop. crazy!

the plan

alright...it's been brought to my attention that i haven't updated anyone on my plans regarding traveling. so, here it is:

i leave on 31 january for spain, where i will spend six weeks seeing the country and spending time with family. my friend phil and my friend shannon are each coming to spain to spend a week or so with me (at different times), so the trip is turning in to a nice mix of time alone and time with friends and family. i'm just in the process of figuring out where i'll visit and when, so if anyone has any spain traveling advice or tips, let me know soon so i can work it all in. i'll be returning back to the states on 14 march, just in time to start scheduling on campus job interviews (hopefully!)

and that, my friends, is my "plan."

time wasted

a funny thing i discovered this past week:

while in massachusetts, i realized that my blog looks entirely differnt when i view it on a PC rather than a Mac. so this finally explains all of the hours i've spent on my little powerbook trying to get the blog and fonts to look appealing to the eye. and all of that time, my font updates were actually working, just not registering on the Mac. so, for all of you Mac users out there, i apologize if the blog looks a little dull. but until i find someone who knows enough about this stuff to help me figure out what the deal is, bland it will be.

the door is ajar

despite the rain and the snow and my own stubbornness around asking for help, i have moved my belongings from amherst to new jersey, where they will sit in storage until i choose a next location. and while there are a few loose ends still blowing in the wind, for the most part, the door is closing on my life in western mass. and even though it was time to leave, it doesn't make the end any easier.

last monday, i took the train up to amherst. i love traveling by train, so i really enjoyed the trip. and the further north the train climbed, the more welcomed i felt by my new england surroundings. matthew picked me up in springfield, and as we crossed the bridge into hadley, my stomach tied in a knot because i knew i was home. as much as i know that amherst is not meant to be my home (whether currently or at all), that's exactly what it is and has been for the past three and a half years. it felt so nice to be there. i spent the next few days hanging out with matthew, rachel and keri. we ate and drank coffee and talked, and it was so nice to be surrounded by friends.

the moving aspect of my visit was not as relaxing. i picked the moving truck up on wednesday, and by wednesday evening was in tears. trying to move so much by myself was physically draining and emotionally taxing. when jessa called to tell me that she was coming out from boston to visit, i was basically sitting in a ball in the storage room with my belongings. like a good friend should, she told me all would be okay. i also gathered myself enough to give joe meagher (pronounced "marr") a call and ask for his help. he told me he'd come to my rescue the following day after work, and after moving a few additional things with the help of keri, it was time to take the rest of the night off.

fortunately, with the help of joe and jessa, the rest of my packing of the van was smooth sailing. after the truck was packed, we all went upstairs where rachel and keri had whipped up a yummy dinner and matthew had brought a yummy dessert. it was a lot of fun to just sit and chat and catch up with good friends. and later on in the evening, chase stopped by. getting a hug from chase is always good medicine, not to mention that he can make me laugh like no other, so his arrival was just the icing on my already yummy friend cake.

after a trifecta of horrible doctors appointments on friday (believe me, i was poked and prodded all day long... no fun!), i spent some last evening hanging with rachel, keri, matthew and jessa. the highlight of our evening was going to see "brokeback mountain," and if you haven't seen it, you must! what a fantastic film and a beautifully sad love story.

the end of my move was similar to the beginning...draining. first of all, molly broke my heart and stood me up for breakfast! (j/k molls...i completely understand your exhaustion!) it was torrential downpour all day saturday, so driving from amherst to atlantic city was slow going. by the time i got home at 9:30 that night, there was no way we were going to unpack. but when i woke up in the morning, and there was four inches of snow on the ground and everything was frozen shut, i had a second thought about unpacking the night before. oh well! besides that semi-major fall on the ice i took while carrying a bookcase, all turned out okay...thanks to my dad, mom, brother and niece (miss kayla was extremely helpful and so cute!) well, maybe not all was okay. i was disappointed to find that i went over the measely mileage limit that budget trucks gives you. grrr to more money spent on non-fun things!

so i guess that's it. when i drove away from amherst, i knew the next time i was there, it would officially be as a guest (regardless of what my driver's license says). and who knows...maybe i'll have a new location by then.

empty

in the early 90s short-lived classic television show "my so called life," angela says, "sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits into this empty place in your heart." this is one of my favorite quotes because it is so true...the smallest tokens of kindness and love have always had the biggest impact on me. unfortunately, i find that the opposite is true as well, and sometimes someone can say something really small, and it just empties your heart all together. and i hate feeling empty.

so now i will curl up in bed, watch some mindless television and hope that sweet dreams will fill my tomorrow, even in the smallest way.

to blog or not to blog?

so, besides my very quick welcome to the new year, i haven't really written a proper blog in a while, and i've kind of had an internal struggle about it. now, let me be clear...it's not that my "readers" are so torn up by the lack of substance to satisfy their blog-reading needs. the struggle comes more from my realization that i really like to blog, but i don't live an exciting enough life to justify frequent blogging. so, many a day has gone by when i've been eager to jump on to the computer and rant a bit about what's going on in my life (or more accurately, the lack of what's going on in my life). most of you know me well enough to know that my brain is always going, so there are many a thought that passes through my cerebrum that i think about dissecting for all of you, but then i get caught up on my own flip side...the side that gets annoyed by the people who feel the need to leave AIM away messages that say, "in the shower" or "at tom's" (see previous blog for my inner-most feelings on this topic). so if i blog about the mundane nature of my existence, am i just as bad as those away messages? and if so, what makes my draw toward blogging so strong and what makes it feel so different than the annoying away messages?

part of me thinks that the draw of the blog has something to do with the writer in me or maybe the introvert in me or maybe a bit of both. in a way, blogging makes me feel like i'm communicating with others, and while it can never take the place of a phone call from a friend, it has a way of filling that need to have someone to talk to when the chaos of daily life gets in the of good old fashioned chat time. of course, i've never been very good at that good old fashioned chat time cause the crazy lady in my head has always convinced me that nobody is really interested in listening to me babble anyway. again, another reason why the blog is such a great tool (not that i listen to the crazy lady inside my head anymore, but sometimes she's louder than i want her to be ;-) )

wow...a whole blog about why i've been holding myself back from blogging. poetic, really!

happy 2006!

i hope everyone had a great time ringing in the new year!

here's a pic from my evening:


another year down...another year ahead to make the most of...

so what's up for 2006 that i haven't already mentioned: last week, i went out for dinner and drinks with a couple of friends from high school, and they reminded me that this year marks our 10 year reunion from high school...crazy! they also reminded me that as a senior class officer, i'm partially responsible for making this reunion happen. good thing i'm unemployed, cause clearly i have big things to take care of! ;-)