Let's Try Zen

Wednesday night Sean and I made our first foray into Buddhist meditation at a Zen center in New Haven, housed on the second floor of a charming old-fashioned house near the hockey rink. The school is a part of the Korean Buddhist tradition (I'm learning in seminar just how different Buddhism can become as it moves among geographic regions in Asia) and its founding teacher, a monk, lives in Rhode Island but travels about to the various centers so that he can speak with people looking for guidance.

I was quite nervous when we arrived, because it seemed suddenly very foreign and uncertain. There was only one woman there, an older, gray-haired woman named Mary, who was very pleasant. She took us into the teacher's room--which definitely had the air of being inhabited only rarely, and then by an ascetic--and we settled onto some cushions for a general introduction to Budhhist meditative practices.

When meditating, you sit on a small round or rectangular pillow that is placed on top of a larger cushion. You can sit cross-legged, as I did, or with your legs tucked under your as you sit on a pillow or a small stool. You can sit in a chair, too, if you want--it doesn't seem to matter exactly how you sit as long as you sit.

A certain kind of body alignment is also advised: back straight, but not rigid; head up, earlobes centered over the shoulders; hands in the lap, palms upward, left over right (the right hand is considered to be the more "discursive" material hand and is therefore being silenced by the left, which doesn't really apply in the case of a lefty like me, I should think) and the thumbs meeting about an inch below the belly button. A feature of Korean Buddhism is that its adherents keep the eyes open, cast down on the floor in front of them, rather than shutting them.

After the physical orientation came the mental. Mary advised us either to count our breaths up to ten, starting with one again any time we found ourselves distracted, or to use a mantra. As you breathe in, in your mind you say "Clear mind, clear mind, clear mind," and as you exhale it's "Don't know." Every time you find yourself drifting, which she assured us we would very often, you have to bring yourself back. I was interested to learn that meditation doesn't involve blocking out the sounds that are going on around you, but rather welcoming them; Mary said that when she meditates, she listens to the sounds outside the room, then the sounds inside the room, and then the sounds directly around her as a way to focus.

So after we've been sitting with Mary for about forty-five minutes, we put on robes of pale gray and go with her into the meditation room, where the rest of the people who have come for the evening have already been chanting for a while. The room is completely different from the rest of the apartment, obviously redone with light, highly polished wooden floorboards and columns. A gold statue of the Buddha, to whom you must bow as you enter and exit this room, stands on a pedestal at one end. On the floor in front of it are a circle of cushions with pillows. Sean and I sit down and try to make ourselves comfortable, one of the others knocks a wooden bell, and for the next half-hour we're in silent meditation.

When I say silent, I mean silent. You could hear every tick of the clock, every person swallowing, breathing, and making other bodily rumbles, every rustle of fabric. Er, well, I was actually the only person rustling. Mary had told us if we got really uncomfortable to get up and stand for a while, but I was too embarassed to do so even after my left leg completely fell asleep. It hurt like a bitch. Up until that point, I was doing fairly well, despite having chosen the seat facing the window, so that the movements of the people in the window right next door kept attracting my eye, despite my attempts to keep it focused on the floorboards. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, but I was sure it wasn't longer than fifteen minutes--then the bell was struck again. A half hour had actually passed. Sean's legs had been so uncomfortable that he actually had a little trouble standing at first (at least he didn't rustle in vain to relieve the discomfort!). After 30 minutes of sitting meditation, there's a short period of walking meditation, during which time Mary drew us into the kitchen, as she had only indicated we should stay a half hour our first time.

Meditation is really, really difficult, both physically and mentally. Mary advised us to try only about five minutes a day at home, to get your body used to the idea of it. She also stressed that regularly joining a community is important, because sometimes you don't make room in your daily life for extended meditation. Joining is free; you can leave donations if you want to. When we left, I was immediately resolved to come back the next week; Sean a little more hesitant, but he promised to try it at least once more.

The past few days I've done little five-minute sits in the morning. I need to try out more positions and find one I can comfortably maintain for more than fifteen minutes. It makes me feel good, though, and I want to keep going. Fingers crossed that I won't rustle so much next time.

Sigh

The couple who looked at our house left me a voicemail this morning to let me know they decided not to put in an offer for it; the wife said she decided it was too much to take on a new house when their daughter will be going to college soon. I can't pretend I'm not disappointed--it would have been such a relief to be able to sell the house so quickly--but it really was almost too much to hope for that they would take it off my hands right away. However, I'm glad I signed up with the realtor, rather than waiting and hoping on these people. Also, I'm a little relieved that I won't have to handle the deal myself when it does happen, even if I do have to pay the realtor a commission.

It's ironic--now, when I'm close to selling the house, as has been my objective from day one, I feel rather wistful about the prospect of keeping it.

Signorelli, Lorenzetti et al--

What is this sudden distinction between "New Blogger" and "Old Blogger" one is now forced to make when logging in? Apparently it's meant to make anyone who hasn't switched over the the 'new' version feel like they're sorely missing out...but I like the simple format blogger has. I'm not really interested in dressing up my posts with any fancy-pants-ness, anyway.

Today marked not only my first day of classes, but also my return to working in the slide library after a whole year's absence between Florence and then being Dr. Escobar's nominal research assistant. Filing the 15th and 16th century slides was particularly depressing, since a year ago I could have been standing in the Brancacci Chapel, or in front of Donatello's David instead of squinting at it on a scrap of plastic. I could have wandered into San Marco or the Accademia on my way home this afternoon, instead of fighting the wind up past the townhouses--dull, dreary, homogenous things! But, as I often chide my roommate, dwelling on past glories doesn't help any; it just makes the present seem that much less livable.

Sean remarked a while back that this is our first spring semester spent jointly at Fairfield since we've been dating: sophomore year he was at UMASS, and last year I was gone. Now that we've been triumphantly reunited in the January deep-freeze, we celebrated by entertaining Popham with a grade-A faux-squabble in the cafeteria--he compared me to me a buffalo, I destroyed his new paper airplane, and it all ended in detente when I had the salt shaker raised and he the pepper. Hahaha. Love is grand.

Nerves

In a few hours I will be returning to the house I just recently left, in order to show it a second time to a couple who just may, god willing, want to make an offer for it. They came on Friday and did seem interested, but when they hadn't called me back by Sunday morning about seeing it with their kids--as they knew I was going back to school Sunday--I kind of decided they probably weren't interested. Then they called in the late afternoon, and we arranged to meet today so their kids can see the house.

Seeing as I've never sold a house before, I'm a little nervous. I don't know if they'd make me a verbal offer today, or maybe one in writing once they've talked it over privately with their children--I'd hope for the one in writing, because it would spare me having to negotiate a price immediately and in person. I feel at a disadvantage with the wife, who is clearly the one in command, because she knows, obviously, why I have to sell my house, and that I'd like to do it as quickly as possible. She also knows that I'm younger and have no experience with this. Linda warned me that buyers usually try to 'lowball' the seller at first to get them to come down a lot in price out of sheer surprise and panic--another reason I'd prefer a reply in writing. Gives me time to think.

I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well. If I sell the house myself to these people, I don't even have to pay the realtor anything, which would be sweet. He tried to convince me over the phone yesterday that he could handle these people for me if I would agree to pay his commission as though they were buyers he found himself, and I declined. A few trips up to Windsor in gas money is much less than the fee I would have to pay him.

The New (and Last) Semester

And so, quicker than I ever would have thought possible, my final semester at Fairfield begins. Winter break terminated a day ahead of schedule for me; Heather couldn't make it up to hang out with Carla and I tonight after all, so we decided to come back to campus early. We ended up going to the community theater to check out Stranger Than Fiction (not half bad) with Mike, and afterwards enjoying some amaretto sours safely in the embrace of our wonderful little townhouse.

It was very bittersweet, closing the door of my house when I left this afternoon...The past three weeks have been a frenzy of cleaning, as I emptied out and shined up the house to put it on the market. Before I went home, I had accepted that there was simply no way to get the house in shape in less than a month, especially while working forty-hour weeks at StubHub. I surprised even myself.

It turned out that returning to customer service was hell, especially when I went home every night to the thousand responsibilities and tasks that needed to be done with little energy and even less optimism. So, I told them them I'd only be staying two weeks, not three, and then I proceeded to vigorously not care about my performance the second week of my employment. (I correctly figured that since a., I was only staying a very short while, and b., I had been previously acknowledged as an extremely good employee they were always happy to see back, that no one would really be checking up on me and how much work I did. Bingo!)

Ridding the house of excess furniture was much easier than I had expected, thanks to a little divine intervention that brought us to Betty and Alan, a pastor and his wife living in Manchester in an apartment with no furniture and only a blow-up bed to sleep on. We had everything to offer and they needed everything, so they took a great deal: my mother's bed and furniture, my sister's bed, tables, recliners, a couch, the kitchen table, the dishes and cups, the towels and sheets, an extra TV and phone. They came to the house on a Thursday evening to look at everything, and Alan returned with a UHaul the next day while I was at work, with Sean deputed to stay at the house. In under an hour it was done, and the house was eerily bare.

As unsettling as it was to be in such a stripped environment, to not even have a kitchen table to eat at nor anywhere really to sit besides my own bed, it made cleaning a lot easier. Once the furniture was gone and I had left StubHub for good (thank god) everything proceeded at an amazing pace. By the time I left home, I had had the house appraised, shown it to a couple who knew my next door neighbor, and signed a contract with a realtor to put the house on the market. As of today, my house is up for sale.

When I stopped by the convent to see my mom's coworkers yesterday, Sr. Sally and Sr. St. Henry asked me if Jen knew the house was up for sale; "hmm...I left her a voicemail about it, I think." They were a little surprised that this wasn't a collegiate effort, but Jen has proved to be a little less than helpful in the cleaning department. She was mainly concerned with getting her own things organized and moved to New York rather than actually being of any use. I asked her to do a few things, like take a carload of trash bags, most of which had emerged from the cleansing of her own room, to the dump--she not only complained, she demanded I reimburse her for the ten dollars she had to pay there. Two days before I'm ready to leave home she mentions over the phone that she is not, after all, taking most of the furniture she had previously laid claim to--furniture I didn't let Betty and Alan have because it was for her. It gave me no small amount of satisfaction to warn her, upon her final departure with her loads of junk earlier this month, that I would no longer feel compelled to consult her before disposing of anything in the house--it kind of lets me understand why our dear president finds unilateral action so appealing.

But that is all behind me for the present, and with the house on the market, the keys in the realtor's hands, and my mail forwarded to school, I won't have to be running up to the house every weekend like I had unpleasantly anticipated. I can enjoy my senior year for a litle while, before I get to start the usual freak-out over a place to live and gainful employment.

Think--I may never spend another night in the home I grew up in, the home where all my memories live. It's a vague sort of pain, but there nonetheless.

The New Year

I haven't posted here in almost a month. Things got fairly crazy at school as the semester came to a close; however, after a particularly harrowing week that saw me racing to finish two ten-page papers while prepping for the modern art exam that our teacher decided to hold on the last day of class, the actual two exams I had to take, in women's studies and physics, seemed somewhat less daunting.

I did find myself stressing about the results of both the art and women's studies exams, though, something I almost never do--art because I knew I had gotten one ID wrong out of six, and I wasn't certain of my final essay, and Women's studies because I needed the final exame to make up for the C+ I got on the disastrous two-question midterm. After the exam, Dr. Hohl told me that if I got an A on the exam she'd discount the earlier test, which both relieved and terrified me--what if I didn't ace it after all? As it turned out, my worries were unfounded. I got an A in modern art, an A- in women's history, and an A in everything else. At first I allowed myself to be a little disappointed at seeing the "minus" sign next to the A for women's studies, but then I recognized that even with two A-grade papers and a hopefully-fabulous final exam, a professor can't outright ignore a C+, no matter the circumstances. Therefore, I'm very grateful that I managed to get the A-.

My grade-craze this semester had a couple of motivating factors. This was one of the first semesters where I had more than one class that I was a little uncertain about--my internship, for one, where I worried not about my workplace evaluation, but about the stupid paper we had to turn in about our new-found wealth of experience. The C+ in women's studies was the first I had ever gotten on a college midterm, and it really freaked me out. Plus I just hated modern art, and I worried that that would show through. Mid-December also witness me undergoing the realization that I DO want to go to grad school--just not for English--and hence maintaining my GPA took on a further importance.

Underneath it all, though, was the desire to prove to myself and, I suppose, in some supernatural way, to my parents, that even under the stressful circumstances in which I found myself this semester that I could still maintain the kind of grades that they had always expected of me and which I have long since come to expect of myself. In this I can say I succeeded; I'm very proud of everything I was able to accomplish this semester, including some papers that, I feel, rank among the best I've ever written.

The end of the semester brought new challenges, naturally--my painful return to employment at StubHub, for example, which thankfully ends this Friday, as well as the depressing tasks associated with emptying out and cleaning out a houseful of memories. Not that there haven't been bright spots--my first Christmas with Sean and his family, exchanging gifts with my friends, New Year's celebrations in New Haven, and, this upcoming weekend, my two-year anniversary with Sean!

In the midst of everything, there are always blessings.

After a Bad, Bad Day

Sister Rosalie sent me a Christmas card today, and wrote at the bottom:

Your mom and dad keep all of us safe now,
and I dance with them on earth for the day when!"

The last line only makes sense if you heard her memorial service at my mom's wake--she pointed to my parents' wedding picture and said she envisioned them dancing together forever in heaven.

That helps, a little.

Ahhhhh

So some jerk just decided to prank call our house, and being the only one home I picked up and heard, in a weirdly distorted voice, "What's your favorite scary movie?" Creepy! However, I kind of automatically assumed that it was Sean or TJ, even though moments later I realized they would never, ever do that, because prank calling just isn't their thing--so I just replied "Oh, shut up!" and he hung up. Once I realized that wasn't one of my friends, then I got creeped out, because I WAS all alone and Katie had left the front door unlocked when she left in the afternoon, so I had to go down to lock it and then pelted back upstairs and locked myself in my room. Rationally speaking, I know it's just some jackass on this campus a little tipsy early in the evening, but it frightened me nonetheless. I almost had Sean come up, but then I called Meredith and found out my other housemates were like ten minutes away. So now I'm just waiting till they get back, with the door locked, even though that wimpy hollow-pine door wouldn't stop a housecat if it really wanted in here...

Long Time

I haven't posted in quite some time, a fact stemming from a frustrating incident involving the loss of a very long post at the beginning of November concerning my grandfather's funeral, combined with an increasingly hectic schedule as the semester draws to a close. Thanksgiving passed largely without incident, although the two-hour drive up to and back from my aunt's house with Jen riding copilot was a none-too-pleasant vision of what winter break will be like (hint, lots of squabbling, some crying--on her part, not mine). The dinner itself was fun, and I think I've decided to go back up there for Christmas. I had previously considered going to Sean's, but then my sister morbidly announced that she would stay at home alone for Christmas if I did so...yeah. Plus, I realized I do enjoy being around my family. It's a good feeling to remember that there are still some flesh-and-blood relatives in this world, and better still to hear stories of my dad and grandparents that I've never been told.

My executorial responsibilities continue to be a rather onerous burden. I finally got control of my mom's bank accounts and made sure that the house had mortgage insurance, so that's taken care of. I haven't paid off her credit cards yet, but today I mailed out a check for $400 to Metlife--the last installment on home insurance that I have to pay till next April, whoot--plus one for $250 to the Hartford Courant for her obituary because yes, they make you pay by the line or by the word or some such crap. Ripoff. I finally had to realize that there's just no way that I'll be able to get the house into any condition to sell in the brief three weeks that I'll be home over break--especially considering that I'll be working full time at Stubhub starting the 26th. I wish I didn't have to work--really, REALLY wish--but the reality is that someone has to quite literally put food on the table this time, and I can't in good conscience make my sister, who doesn't have a job in New York, pay for it. (She will, however, be the worker bee when it comes to the incredibly long list of tasks I've got written down, since she won't be working and won't have a car, at least not after I've sold my mom's van). It's hard to look forward to the end of the semester when I contemplate everything I've got waiting for me at home. It's depressing.

A lot of the time I find myself with less interest in other people's problems, at least the problems I hear complained about over and over again. Sometimes I look at them and think, do you even know how hard this has all been for me, how hard it is every day, and yet you want me to sit here and listen to this and pretend like I feel sorry for you?

It's easier to be happy in the daytime because there's so much to distract me, always so much to be done, but at night I lie in bed and I think about everything I've lost, I think about my mom, remembering the things she did and the way she talked, the way she laughed or scowled when I made her mad, the gleeful grin she'd get when she tricked me into something like forcing me to come along tag-saling, and I feel so alone. And the worst part of it is that I can't even cry like I'd like to because Carla's there trying to sleep, and I don't want to wake her up and make a fuss. I miss her at night most of all. The strange thing is, I don't feel the pain of my grandfather's death at all; or rather, whatever pain there would have been has just been completely eclipsed by the grief over my mom to the point that I have to remind myself that he passed away, too. A month ago tomorrow.

I know it's only time that will make this better, I know it because it was true last time and will be true again. I rarely cried for my father in the past few years, even when I thought of him with sadness. It's only been two months since she died, two months! Time passes so slowly.

There have been bright spots, of course. Sean, my eternal knight in shining armor, has been the mainstay of my support, even though he himself is struggling under heavy burdens. We had a great time at Thanksgiving weekend participating in the Richardsons' scavenger hunt, and our team (Richardson, Kim, Pinto, and us) actually won! This past weekend we went into Brooklyn, visited Heather's apartment, met her friend Melissa, and then went out to dinner in my sister's neighborhood with Heather and almost-genuinely-old-man Cody. My sister's apartment is really great, despite its complete lack of decoration and smell of fresh paint. Plus, I got to see my cat, Sapphire, dear old Fatty Lumpkin, and she recognized me and purred, and I petted her and it reminded me of all the old times. I wish I had her to sleep with these days. So many things can be eased by a happy cat purring next to you.

Sean and I spent whole days recently on the cat-after-marriage debate, which is based around a. Sean's allergy and b. Sean's hatred of cats in general. At first, it appeared Sean would only permit me to have a cat if I took his name, which I refused out-of-hand; then, he tried to compromise and offered to let me have a cat if I hyphenated my last name. I was tempted, I tell you, till he re-entered the caveat that it would have to be one of those new, $4000 hypo-allergenic cats they've recently come out with. Ha! I'm not selling myself so cheaply as all that, especially for an investment that could be destroyed with one quick trip in front of a car's tires. Pffffft, I say.

Again

Yesterday morning, as I was zooming along I-91 headed home to collect my mail and visit Rae/Cinnamon, I flipped open my phone to see that I had two missed calls, from my grandfather's house and from Jen. My grandfather has never called me, nor do I think he even had my cell phone number, so my first thought was, "Oh please don't tell me something happened to him." My aunt left a quick voicemail asking me to call her back at Poppa's, but my sister, ever-tactful, left a sniffly message telling me he died in his sleep that previous night. So, Death strikes again.

I pulled the car over, and cried for a while. There's something strange about sobbing in a car, because the closeness of the space amplifies the sound, it sounds very alien. (The day I went with Sean to pick up my mother's van from where she'd left it on Palisado Ave in Windsor, I drove it home and I don't think I've ever cried so hard in my life. I'm amazed I didn't get into an accident).

After a while I called Sean, who was resting at home, woke him up and told him the news. I called Carla, too. My aunt I saved for last (I couldn't even think about talking to Jen, not till I had ahold of myself), and talking to her I was just so reminded of how similar she and Janice are to me and Jen; she said Janice hadn't stopped talking to the policeman who'd been there for an hour, but that she needed to DO something so she'd been cleaning and doing his dishes. Exactly how I felt when I got to my house that day. She said she'd told Janice that they had a hard act to follow after the way Jen and I handled everything, and I laughed. I don't know what other way we could have done it than the way we did; if we hadn't been able to, who would?

She said that Janice had gone to visit him that morning around 9, and when she saw his paper still outside she knew something had to be wrong. The man was always out of bed by 6am. She found him in his bed. It's amazing that after having had a wife, son, and daughter-in-law all die of heart attacks, he got to go out the way everyone dreams of--peacefully, in his sleep. It fits the pattern of his life, because he was a man who never really worried about anything, who went with the flow and let himself be borne up and over the storms of life when others, like my father, worried and went under. It figures that he of all people would be granted the easiest of deaths. I have to try living life his way. I'd like to die his way, too. Four months shy of 90, no alzheimers, no cancer, no real physical debilitation--what a record!

Tomorrow night Carla and I will drive up to Massachusetts. We're not going to the wake--I'm so tired of wakes--but we're going to the funeral Mass on Wednesday. We'll be staying in my grandfather's house. I can hardly bear to think of that house having to be emptied out and sold--strange, that I can more easily countenance the idea of getting rid of my own home, but not his. That's where my dad grew up, where my grandmother cooked us animal pancakes and told us stories that were mostly lies, where I explored a thousand illusions and adventures in my childhood. My grandfather designed it, built it, filled it with the products of his crafts. I can't imagine never seeing that green shag carpet again, never pressing the button of the intercom that ran to the basement just to hear its fragile "beep". I think I have more beautiful, happy memories of my childhood in that house than in my own, if only because there was always so much to stimulate a child's imagination.

Part of the reason I think I've dealt so well with my mother's passing is because I recognize that my sadness is purely selfish, and that she must be so much happier in heaven with my father than she could have been alone on this earth. I want my mom back for my sake, not for hers, because I want to still have a mom and not be so alone. The same with my grandfather; can anyone begrudge death to an old man who's seen his wife and his only son die before him? He had such a full life, so full of stories and love, and it was just time for him to go. So the tears I cried were only for me, because his was my last grandparent and now that he's gone, I feel more alone than ever.

That said, I'm really goddamned tired of death. I'm tired of being a victim, someone everyone has to feel sorry for. I'm tired of having to carry the bad news to people like Dr. Bridgford and see their faces fill up with pity at the girl who's just losing everyone. How come no one else loses anyone? Why does this always fucking happen to ME? I've had enough. The next time condolences are in order they damn well better be for someone not myself. I always say that I wouldn't wish the death of a parent on anyone else, and I still won't, but I'm wishing that Death will just pass me and my family over next time and alight on one of you other people. Let other people see what it's like. I KNOW; I don't need any further reminders, thank you very much.

Reminisce

I've been rereading past entries from this journal and oh, how I laughed at some of them. I've been such a silly goose at times, such a drama queen at others, even while I was trying to hide it behind my words. I was gratified to read entries where I was purposely obfuscating (there I go again) my real subject, probably because it was Greg or Sara or Meghan and I was worried they'd read it, and still be able recognize exactly what I was trying to say. Example, the entry where my friends and I had decided we would try kissing girls, that was a laugh.

There's just so much life in all these pages! And there must be literal tons of them, there's been 806 posts by now and some of them are long, long, long. So many emotions have gone into this, so many choices have been chronicled here--and not all of those I'm proud of, either. Certain entries make me wince, whether at my immaturity, sheer stupidity, or just an unfortunate inability to see what was coming. Other entries make me fondly nostalgic; most of the ones about Greg do, and probably always will. Greg-the-person aside, Greg-the-symbol has become for me emblematic of a simpler, pastoral-idyll of a time in my life, where we're all shepherds and shepherdesses and the sun is always shining. I think it's because the other major figures from that time, except Meghan, have remained with me, and I've seen them change and grow, but since Greg was never really part of my life after coming to college he stayed behind in my memory, preserved like he was then.

My entries the past few years have certainly seemed more calm and less hyper-enthusiastic than they used to. I'd like to credit that to growing up, I suppose. I do feel so much older and more stable than I did the first two years of college. Being with Sean has aided that a great deal; just like our relationship profiles said, I need him to keep me grounded, he needs me to rock the boat. Haha. Oh, I love that boy.

I'm glad I started this journal, and even more happy that I've kept it up. I need to be reminded sometimes of where I've been, both the good and the bad. But the good feels so much better to remember.

Halloween

Today is my mother's birthday; she would have been 55. It's such a small number when you think about it. If you average my mother's and father's lifespans together you only get 52. If I hypothesized that that was to be the extent of my life as well, which is improbable but certainly not impossible, then the midpoint of my life will be reached by the age of 26. My sister is 24 now, two years short of that imaginary mark, and she tells me that she is very worried that she'll die at 40. I'm sure she does have that fear, but she was also trying to make the case for using as much of our inheritance as we want right now, since who knows if we'll be around for our retirement. She gets upset thinking that our mom saved and economized a lot, and was always working, and here all the fruits of her labor are left to us and not to her to enjoy. I pointed out that a., if Jen dies young and unmarried I get all her money, and b., if she dies and has children then she'll have provided for them just as well as our mother did for us, which is no mean thing. Perhaps the first option sounds cold, I meant it jokingly and she knew that, but she also knows that right now she would inherit all my money as well, so it goes both ways.

I do have to update the will which I created prior to going to Italy. Jen tells me that it was only valid because I had no estate to speak of; now my will would require an actual lawyer and witnesses, not just Rae, Heather and Sara signing their names. Also my mom was the executor and I left everything to her discretion, though I did have Jen and Rae as co-executors if she had predeceased me. I joked at lunch the other day that I would leave Sean as co-executor with Rae, but he pointed out, sensibly if a little less than romantically, that if we broke up for some reason, it would be really weird years down the line to have to go deal with his college girlfriend's will. ! Of course we both know that that's not how things are going to work out; the recent instability of my life has left me even more convinced that Sean and I can make it through anything if we're only willing to work at it. We haven't shied around long-term discussions for a really long time now, although it still becomes a little awkward to do so in front of others. Privately, though, we talk about what we want to future to be, and it's each other.

It was a beautiful day today, though Daylight Savings meant the day was much shorter. I'm in my empress costume as I type, for I'm shortly headed down to Barone for dinner with my friends and then out to see The Prestige (I hate Christian Bale! He's totally unattractive! There, I said it.) and then back here for a Halloween party.

I love this Yeats quote:

"I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams."

Another

The other day I realized that I could remember the day I first became truly conscious of my mother's mortality. It was the summer after sophomore year, she had a night off and wanted to go out to dinner, somewhere other than the three usual places we would go, so we decided to try this restaurant she'd heard about near Enfield. It turned out to be on the road to Popham's house, I don't remember the name of it, but it was pretty much crap. I was bubbling over with Italy plans at the time, and I remember that evening because I had been trying to convince her that if I went, she would come over to visit me and we'd travel together. Somehow we got to the topic of her recent checkup and she told me about her cholesterol level and triglycerides and how the doctor really wanted to get them down, he was worried she'd get diabetes. At that time she was still borderline. For the first time I really felt this kind of fear, one that was related to but separate from the frequent worrying about her getting into a car crash or being mugged or having some kind of accident. I realized then that she could get sick, and ever after I made sure to ask questions after every doctor's visit; of course, not that that helped, in the end.

It's somewhat easier to comprehend her having a heart attack now that I think back on her years of being an anorexic, from when she was a teen up until she met my father. Anorexia does a real number on the heart. Maybe hers just wasn't very strong anymore. Yet every once in a while I just look around me and think, how the hell could the same thing happen to me twice? I see all the people with two parents and I can't help thinking, couldn't fate find someone else to pick on for once? Most people never even have to make do with one parent at my age and here I've gone and lost two. Sometimes I could just scream from the sheer unfairness of it all.

On Saturday it'll have been just a month since she died. Sean and I are going into the city to see Heather and then to have dinner with Jen and Bill. My dad was right all those times when he warned us that we'd only have each other someday. I just never really expected that having no one else would come quite so quickly.

Three

Three weeks now, and it gets easier, superficially at least. Still the awkwardness of unsolicited, but well-intended sympathies, advice, offers of counsel by professors and acquaintances. Still the shock that comes back at least once a day when I remind myself sharply (lest I forget) that I have no parents anymore.

When I took my senior pictures on Tuesday the woman guarding the front desk wanted my parents' phone number. I gave her my cell, and she interrupted me with "no, your PARENTS number"--and so, with two people standing behind me I had the joy of telling her that they're both gone, so no, there is no applicable phone number anymore. Maybe I should have just given her the home number. A sad image--the phone ringing in an empty house, then the interminable beeps that remind no one in particular to check the messages. Naturally she answered me with the requisite "ooh, I'm sorry", but then decided to continue with that "yes, that's hard" speech, as if she really knows me or has any reason to give me advice. I momentarily had the urge to slap this woman across the face. A few minutes later, waiting for my turn, I saw Dirk coming down the stairs from the top floor and looking in my general direction, and the situation just became funny/embarassing (funny how seeing Fusco or even Deconti never inspires that kind of feeling; only thinking of Tommy and Dirk, because those are the only two times I've really been ashamed of my foolishness after the fact. At least I never owed Tommy an apology).

I finished reading "Inside the Third Reich" today; it's the autobiography of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later Minister of Armaments. He was one of the only Nazi officers to accept responsibility for the administration's crimes at Nuremburg, and spent 20 years in prison. It was a really good book--one of the few recent reads that I wanted to spend every possible minute reading, even between classes.

Days

Today it is only two weeks since my mom died. How can that be? For six years I've been wrestling with a sense of relativity that made my father's death seem alternately recent and ancient, but no matter how I felt, it had been six years, and the immediacy of the loss was dulled. Now of course it's back twofold, and once again I have moments of feeling that it all happened so long ago, when it's only been fourteen days in a world without her.

In terms of separation I guess my mom made it as easy as it could have possibly been. We were never 'friends', never chatted daily on the phone, and she was never one of those moms who was really involved in the day-to-day of her daughter's life. She trusted me to be OK and to do my best, without feeling the need to check up on me or tell me what to do, so I don't feel as at a loss as I might if I had been more dependent on her companionship. I wasn't even very financially dependent on her, besides trips to the grocery store and to Walmart. As my aunt said of my cousin Sara, a sophomore who always has her hand out, if this happened to her she'd be in all kinds of trouble.

Despite all this, despite knowing she's in a better place, despite no longer having for fear for her (last night there was a terrific thunderstorm and I knew that a couple of weeks ago, I would have been watching the clock until 11:30, when I could call the house just to hear her pick up and know she got home safely), the loneliness of it all is immense. Every time I have a funny story to tell or a little something I'm proud of, I realize there's no one to call. Of course there's people, there's my friends, my sister, my aunts, but no one listens to your stories and your minor triumphs like a parent does. I would always feel so proud when I could point out some accomplishment to her, even though I knew she was proud of me all the time. Yesterday, for example, I called Dr. Bayers from work to discuss the draft of my paper which I had to finish up for today, and the first thing he wanted to know was if I was planning to go to grad school after college. I explained my situation and he understood, but he said he thought I definitely had the skill to succeed in a graduate program. It's not that he's the first person to encourage me in that direction, but I was still flattered and proud, and then I really wished I could call her and tell her, even if she didn't really get how much it meant to me, because I don't think she really ever understood the whole grad school thing. And I was sad. I still have people I want to be proud of me, but none of them are my parents, and never could be.

Dr. Rose sent me a very nice note today. She said her mom died directly before her senior year too, and that it was hard for her especially because everyone was in a celebratory mood. Her advice, handed to her by Schwab and Eliasoph years ago, was "don't forget to eat" and "throw yourself into your work". Well, there's not much chance that I, of all people, would forget food, and as for work, I don't need to throw myself as much as it's hurling itself at me. It was a kind note, all the same.

In the Swing

I'm only the slightest bit overwhelmed today, despite having two exams tomorrow, only one of which I have prepared for. I haven't been able to do any research for Jesus this week, I've been so swamped with catching up with work and dealing with the estate. However, yesterday I attended a lunch hosted by Phi Beta Kappa for a professor who lectured on campus last night, and it was a lot of fun even if I could have spent that time working. I turned out to be the only PBK student who showed up, so I shared a table with the professor, three of the art history faculty, and our president Father von Arx. I managed not to embarass myself, despite being forced to eat a concoction of shrimp and mushrooms over a bed of lettuce.

The other night listening to Sean's friends talk about spring break I realized that not only do I want to go somewhere, thanks to my mom I have the financial wherewithal to take us somewhere--so we're going to Greece together! I'm so excited. One of the art history professors, Dr. Schwab, is a Greek art specialist and she travels there frequently, so she said she'd be happy to help us figure out where we'd want to go. Athens is of course a must, but we also want to go to Mycenae, to Delphi, and to Crete. It'll be the end of their winter season, so it shouldn't be too cold, but it won't be Bahamas weather either. That's OK, because I prefer a brisk temperature.

I'm going to GREECE! Wheeeeeeeeeee!

More

This is the first weekend Jen and I have spent in the house by ourselves. I had to escape to Sara's yesterday afternoon because she was driving me nuts, and then thankfully her friend Kristin was here when I returned. My sister has always grated on my nerves, even under the best of circumstances.

I hate bills. Just gathering up all the utilities that have to be paid, including cell phone, lights, heat, water, and insurance, totalled over $600. Sigh. I'm in charge of paying all of these, which I'm glad for because if you've ever seen my sister's organizational capacity you would fear for us. Fear for us greatly. Her system consists of pulling absolutely everything from every drawer, shelf, and compartment, and piling it in the middle of the floor. This pile can be expected to remain for several days before being shifted into smaller piles which may or may not disappear. Last night, she took everything from my mom's room and piled it in the kitchen. This morning, every one of her perfume bottles is still in front of the (unplugged) toaster.

I saw one of the grief counseling services people the other day, more because I knew I should than because I felt I should. With two parents down, I've got to need some kind of therapy. After listening to me talk for an hour, she said that it sounded like I was one of the kind of people who just need to tell stories about the person who died. I do like telling stories about her, because she was a character, just like my dad.

Among my mom's things we found a tape labelled "Michelle and Jenny, 1984-1986". I'm only 1 year old on this tape, and my dad is patiently encouraging me to say "Papa" except I'm just making these gurgling sounds that my sister commented sound like they caught me hacking up a furball. The strange thing was, when we turned the tape on, neither of us recognized our dad's voice, and barely our mom's. Maybe it's that this tape was made 20 years ago when they were younger and stress-free, maybe it's that my mom didn't have it in a case and it deteriorated and changed the voices slightly, but suddenly I had the fear that I'll forget her voice like I've forgotten his. On a happier note, I watched the video I had made of my grandfather last winter (when I worried that he might die, what a laugh! The man will outlive us all), and aside from "Joan, you think you're homely", there's my mom, laughing and hiding her face behind a Coke bottle. I never thought that video would be a record of her.

Night

Last night I had my first dream about my mom. I was surprised it took this long; somehow, the nights after her death I slept very soundly and dreamlessly. Unlike so many dreams about my father where he never really died, just went away for a long time and then showed up again, my mother had already died in my dream. Somehow, time jumped backwards a few days and my whole family was there partying it up at a place that was half our house, and half the weird, creepy mansion where I had been having a horror-movie style dream right before this one (the ghost of a little girl was murdering people, don't ask).

Suddenly I realized it was Thursday, the day she would die again, and this time we wouldn't be able to go back. I started crying, and she hugged me. She knew, in the dream. Then we're in my kitchen and she's slyly asking me if she should have another bag of popcorn. At first I say yes, because it's her last day and she should have whatever she wants, but then I see the box and it says each back has 130% cholesterol, and I try to stop her from eating it with a sudden hopefulness that maybe I can stop her from having a heart attack if she avoids it. But she takes the popcorn and leaves, and I'm left there with Carla, crying and complaining that it was the nightly bag of popcorn that was her undoing.

Then we're in a room with a table, and I'm there with Carla and my dad, who is yet again having a cameo as not dead. My sister is not in this dream at all. I'm watching the clock which is hitting 1pm, and I realize that I don't know exactly when she died; the death certificate called it at 2:13 PM, but that's probably only when they got her to the hospital, she was probably dead in the car before they found her. Then she comes in and hugs Carla and says something to her, I think asking her if she understands, and Carla nods. I'm crying and she puts her arms around me. My dad doesn't seem perturbed by this at all and he smiles. Then I woke up, just as she was going to have to go.

When I got up I went and looked at a box of her popcorn in the pantry. The cholesterol level was 0%. I'm not sure why I had this dream; maybe as a chance to say goodbye, except I never did say that.

Going On

The sheer mountain of tasks to be accomplished after a death is daunting. I didn't understand that when my dad died because I was only 14 and had no responsibilities. Looking back I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been to her, trying to figure out how to pay bills and manage everything after my dad's income was gone, planning his funeral and all that with only my aunts to support her, not really any close friends like Jen and I have the benefit of, and the whole time just grieving for her husband being gone. My heart just hurt for her, thinking of how burdened she was, and how she had to hold up under such pressure for our sake. And she did, so very well.

The difference now is that we have no experience in managing bills and assets, but we've got to learn. Just obtaining her will was a trial because we had to get a court order to open her deposit box, and then we had to get it started in probate court, which can take up to 1 year. My sister is insistent that we do all things together, even though so many things would be much more easily managed if one of us (meaning me) took care of them. I mean when it comes to selling the house I'm deferring to her wishes, we're waiting till January to even list it because she "needs time". If I had my choice it'd be on the market tomorrow, because the housing market is only going to get worse, and it could take forever to sell. It's true we grew up in that house and, as my sister has weepily proclaimed several times, our father died there, but there's no way I'd want to live for any length of tiem in that place with my parents' ghosts. In a perfect world I would have been able to keep my childhood home for years, decades even, but that's just not how the cookie has crumbled.

Further

My sister and I are very different people; always have been, always will be. My sister's reaction to calamity is extremely emotional, and she prefers everything to move slowly while she grieves. I'm not a public crier in general, and when something bad happens I need to be on the go, keeping my hands busy. I didn't really want Jen's friends to help clean for that reason, because they kept trying to do dishes and run loads of laundry when really, I wanted to be doing those things. When my dad died we came home from the hospital and went into my parents' room and started cleaning out his things. We had all his clothes bagged up and donated by the next day. I must have inherited that kind of tendency from my mother, because Thursday night I was already bagging up her novels and her shoes, since Jen got hysterical when I went near her clothes.

My sister loves crap, and she quickly made it clear that she intended to save as much of my mom's crap as possible, including her clothes. When she had finally sorted through it all, she had covered an entire couch with the items she planned to keep and possibly wear. I saved one of my mom's tshirts and her work sweater. Her uniforms we bagged up to bring to the convent, along with some things she had stored up in our garage to bring it--a walker, adult diapers, two birdcages for her friend Lissette.

We brought these on Saturday night, when we had a meeting with Sr. St Henry, Sr. Sally and a few other sisters to discuss the funeral mass. They had called and told us that they would be honored to have her mass in the chapel at the convent, and we knew that would have meant far more to her than St. Gabriel's in Windsor. I brought Sean and Heather to the meeting, leaving Cody, Sara and Rae at my house (along with Jen's retinue of oh, about ten people). The nuns were wonderful. As we said later, it really reminds you of the goodness of people that exist in the world, even if you're Protestant like heather haha. After we decided the songs and readings, we sat there sharing stories about my mother and laughing, really laughing. Especially the bat stories! Oh man, nuns go wild when there's a bat in the house. They turn murderous. Of course my mom was the one to do catch-and-release rather than beating it with a tea tray.

We had met with the folks at Carmon Funeral Home on Friday to discuss my mom's burial arrangements. I was all for cremation, which is what she wanted, but due to some difficulties with getting the permits on a weekend, it wasn't feasible, and then my sister went into hysterics and started moaning "Don't burn her!" which really is just a little much, and then my poor grandfather who still thinks you won't be resurrrected if you get cremated is mouthing to me "No cremation". So we decided to bury her instead. I'm a practical person, as was my mother, and the physical arrangements of a burial don't matter much to me. The body in the casket isn't them any longer; it's a shell, and shells don't need to be interned in a $12,000 casket (which is possible, P.S.). Nor do they need a choice between silk and velvet lining, or an extra pillow. We picked a nice casket, a simple one. I liked the finish.

Update

I abandoned this thing for about a month, either because I had nothing to say or I was too lazy to come write it down. But boy, do I have updates now...

Thursday, September 28th circa 240 PM, a knock comes at our front door while I'm getting ready to go meet Sean for lunch. It's security and they ask if Michelle is home. I look past him to my car and immediately wonder if somehow, some way, I parked illegally. I ask if there's a problem and he says yes. He comes in and asks me to sit, I ask if it's my mom, knowing it has to be her or my sister, but not really expecting him to answer "yeah, it's your mom". Then I ask him if she's dead, and he he nods, and says she didn't make it. And just like that, I had no parents anymore.

The hours from there are a sort of a muddle. The school grief counselor and one of the priests came over, and when Sean called, answering my repeated dials, I couldn't tell him. I had to hand the phone over to the counselor to tell him she was dead. Sean came and we talked with the counselor for a while. I was crying with the big hiccuping sobs that prevent you from really getting out more than two words at a time. Then the phone calls began, endless calls to my sister, my aunts, the social worker at the hospital, the cop who found her. My sister was with a Brooklyn cop who said she was too hysterical to come to the phone. She'd gotten the news from our next door neighbor, Mrs. Long, who'd had two cops come to her front door looking for info on how to reach us. My aunts had been told by the social worker. The social worker told me that she had called my mom's work looking for information on us and that Sr. St. Henry, my mom's boss, and Sr. Sally the provincial were on their way to the hospital to be with my mom's body, even though she told them they weren't allowed to come. The cop told me they'd found her pulled over on Palisado Ave, in park with the engine running, unconscious and not breathing. He said they tried to revive her but they couldn't. They didn't know what it was at the time, but they said probably a heart attack.

It was decided that Sean would take me home that evening. Waiting around with my friends I alternated between absolute terror and normal laughter. I was worrying about so many things--what happens to the Tahoe which is in her name...do I have health insurance anymore...what are we going to do with our house...a million freaking-me-out-worries. Then I had to call my other friends. Sara and Rae got voicemails telling them she died (sorry guys) but I reached Heather, and she cried like only Heather can. I had to laugh when I remembered my father's wake--Heather had never met him and she cried more than I did. I didn't call my grandpa; my aunts said they were going to go over and tell him that his daughter-in-law was dead.

The ride home was pretty bad, I just kept thinking of thing after thing that reduced me to tears. Then the phone rings and it's the organ donation people, wanting to know if they can use some of my mom's tissue. I said yes, because she was a registered organ donor. Because she didn't die in the hospital, they couldn't use actual organs, but they took her bones, her skin, her eyes, just like my dad. We got a letter from them once about a woman in CT who couldn't see until they transplanted one of my father's corneas into her eye. The process of OKing the organ harvest took 45 minutes, answering every question from 'did she ever take money or drugs for sex' to 'had she been exposed to SARS'. Then we're home.

Going into that house was terrible for me. You wonder sometimes if the dead know it's coming, and seeing that house and the shambles she had left it in made me sure she had no idea. Everything looked as though she had briefly left--her checks on the table, her craft project by the chair in the living room. Her makeup left in my bathroom, her bed rumpled. Her teacups, her sneakers on the floor. And poor Rocky, so happy to see us and unaware that she's not coming back. My sister called, on her way with her boyfriend, and told us two of her friends were already outside the house. We let them in, which was kind of awkward because I'd never met them (one was Camilla, her old roomie, I forget the other) and the house was a mess, as my mom was prone to leaving it when we weren't around. They helped us clean up, and I tried to remove every sign that made it look like she had just been there; I didn't think my sister could handle it.

I don't remember my sister's arrival much besides meeting Bill, her paramedic boyfriend from NYC. For the next five days Bill and Sean were our lifesavers.

September

The school year is now in swing. It's nice to be back; I really like our house this year and Carla and I are in our biggest room to date. The campus is beatiful, the weather has been excellent, and even Sodexho seemed welcome. I'm trying hard not to be one of "those" people who come back from study abroad and think everything on this campus and in the country in generally is inferior to what they had before. There are perks on both sides. I do miss Italy. Sitting in my classes today, though, I remembered what it feels like to be academically challenged. And, better yet, to actually understand all the words coming out of the professor's mouth.

Tomorrow I start my internship at Greenwood. My boss told me I could wear jeans on Fridays, which means I only have to dress up once a week (this feels me with indescribable joy), and they're taking me out to lunch my first day as per their tradition. I'm excited to try it. Next week I start the graduate school process--I've put it off from this week so I can just enjoy settling in. I also started my job for Jesus as his research assistant--so far, I spent a couple of hours trying to track down biographical information on a Spanish bureaucrat who wrote an obscure book about Baroque Art in Madrid 1918. It felt like detective work--I found out he was the secretary of the Spanish Alpine Club in 1912, and wrote articles decribing the Los Gredos mountain range, but aside from that he's pretty much a cipher.

Rejoicings

Today is my last day at the Stub--originally I was going to work for another week, but as I quickly realized I was becoming depressed and going stir-crazy while my summer was whittled away, I decided to beg off and leave today. Oh, the joy!! To make things better, Sean came up yesterday and dropped by for lunch, and then took me out to dinner after I got off work. I love just being able to talk to him. We always have great conversations but yesterday was just so much fun. We talked about all the places in the world we'd like to see, and whether going to Italy or Egypt would be a better idea for an entirely hypothetical honeymoon (I'm divided; on the one hand, Egypt would be amazing and it's best to go while you're young and can take the heat, but that would also be much more of an on-the-go honeymoon, while Italy, since I've been there already, would be more relaxing). Sean wants to see Venice and Naples and the Cinque Terre. I wouldn't mind getting a chance to visit the Capitoline Museum in Rome, or the Doria Pamphili gallery...and yes, the Cornaro chapel, my greatest regret.

After dinner we went home and Sean made his bastardized version of my mom's blueberry muffin recipe: he ignores the blueberries and makes just the batter, which we have officially dubbed as delicious as crack, and then makes it as cookies...so they're just basically sugar cookies but with a muffiny texture. We watched tv together like an old married couple and Sean battled the Pod, my mom's futuristic vaccuum cleaner which is, as I predicted, too much for a mere man to handle. He couldn't figure out how to get the cord out of the body and was hitting the "retract cord" button over and over. Then Sean made valiant use of the Pod to vanquish a spider so he could sleep in safety. My hero.

Links

It stills feels too soon to let them go. They're all clustered there, taking up space, and my fingers go right to the delete key and then hesitate. Packing lists, at least three of them. The hostel association. Ryanair, in all its banana-lemony cheapness. Oh, and Via della Mattonaia, Sara's Italian blog. All remnants of my eager preparations for something that is, all too swiftly, becoming one of those "did I really do that?" memories. The blandness of office life is wiping away the reality of those brilliant, shimmering months of Italy. I knew it would happen--just not this quickly.

I'll let them linger a bit longer.

Diversion

Last night I had my friends plus Sean and Cody over for dinner. I used the dining room, which I will never live down in Sean's eyes as I had long argued that it's obsolete. This was only the second time I've ever had dinner in there. However, this morning we semi-compromised and he said as long as there was a dining room I could paint it whatever crazy color I wanted, included RED which is exactly what I would paint it. I still dispute the necessity of a hutch filled with useless show pieces and "good china". Ugh. Why show off crap that you're afraid to touch?

Reading "The Age of Innocence" and Sinclair Lewis novels has transported me somewhat back to the days when people really 'entertained'. It would be so much fun--if one only had servants. Stupid labor laws. Speaking of, I hereby revoke my condemnation of Edith Wharton, given after being forced to read "Ethan Frome" in high school and discovering that though I spent the book wishing for the main characters to die, they DON'T despite their romeo and juliet suicde attempt at the end ("gee darling, we can never be together because you're a servant and my wife's a bitch--let's ride this sled right into that big tree and die in each other's arms!"). That book still blows bigtime, but "Age of Innocence" is an entertaining read, and I love her language. Perhaps I just hate books about the bleakness of New England. New York society life circa 1870 is much more diverting.

Upshot

As an addendum to that previous entry, I don't really feel as sorry for myself as I may sound. I've got it pretty good, a fact of which I'm well aware. I'm proud of the job I have, perhaps not out of fondness for the service we provide, but simply that I got myself this job and have done so well at it. Perhaps the onset of PMS made me more emotional last night, but I was saddened almost to tears at the thoughts of summers past and how carefree things always seemed to be then. Now I'm hemmed in by schedules and responsibilities and it's hard to get used to the idea that I'll never be that free again. However, never in a million years would I trade StubHub for Sofia's, no matter how unfettered I was in those days.

Of course, the mother-voice in me wins, and I'll be working overtime tonight. Haha.

Moving Forward

Last night I felt so old. Sean was telling me about his day lounging at Pinto's pool, and then mentioned he was going out again, and my first actual thought was, "Now? But it's ten o'clock..." and then I realized how OLD that sounded. I go to bed at 11 because I get up at 6:50 every morning. I guess I'm getting a real taste of what adult life is like--soon you don't even want to stay out late, and you're surprised by people who do, and then before you know it you're like countless parents falling asleep by ten o'clock! This was my day yesterday: I woke up, worked 8-4:30, went to the gym, came home and swept the garage, ate dinner with my mom, washed the kitchen and bathroom floors, showered, read for a while, talked to Sean for a few minutes, went to bed.

This is how I've spent my summer, and unlike most people I'm working up till the Friday before school. Yes, this seemed like a good idea when I signed the contract in June. I'm sure my mom would be on me if I didn't, though--last night she was harassing me as to why I'm not working overtime on every day it's offered. I answered, honestly, because it's boring and makes me miserable to work 8-5:30 for a measly $18 bucks extra, and she scoffed at me.

This morning I got paid, which supposedly reminds me why I do this, except my paycheck had to be halved because our lovely accounting department had been failing to take out federal taxes from my paychecks previously. Now I have to deduct lots so that I don't wind up owing the government come April. I get most of it back anyway, I don't know what the big deal is. Sigh.

I guess if I had tons of free time I wouldn't really know what to do with it anyway, besides perhaps prep for the GREs, which I find it very difficult to focus on after a long day of work...I've been working on my merit project pretty steadily, and I have about seven poems that are OK to turn in...I've lined up my internship schedule for the fall, working 12-5 on Wednesdays and 9-3 on Fridays, which is a good deal less than I thought I'd have to work...I've been in touch with Jesus about working on his book, which is about Spanish architecture under Phillip IV...I haven't blown money on a single thing this summer--my most extravagant non-gas, non-food, non-entertainment purchase was the Ligabue cd. Overall I'd say I've been very responsible and adult--and it's extraordinarily defeating.

Stuffed

Friday night Sean I went to the carnival at St. Bernadette's, just down the street from his house. It's so pleasant to actually be able to walk to a place from your home, whether it's to the sea wall or Krauser's or a carnival with all its shiny things. I met more people who had only glowing words to speak of Sean, and we chatted for a bit with his uncle Donnie and his roommate Gary, who is like a hilarious alter ago of Donnie except that he's black and Donnie's white. He made dirty jokes and said I was pretty--he's a winner in my book.

Saturday morning we woke up sort of early, after a night filled with some difficulties--sheet entanglements, Sean's rage towards a malfunctioning ceiling fan, me accidentally popping him in the nose in the middle of the night--to go hike up to Gillette Castle. I finally saw the lily-pad filled pond which Heather had told me about years ago, and the castle, which boasts a stunning prospect over the river but is itself rather unattractive, I thought. I didn't like the roughness of it, it looked purposely unfinished. That evening the fun continued--we had had such amazing weather all day, and it was a favorable evening for watching a play in Edgerton Park. The play was "Robin Hood" by Alfred Noyes, author of "The Highwayman", and the performance was excellent. The set was really cool, and it had a three-story tower from which Robin actually rappelled down at one point. They used real arrows and metal swords, and the fight coordination was really good, in comparison with the crap featured in Macbeth at Fairfield last summer. The main way in which the play differed from a Shakespeare play was the lack of bawdy humor and farce, which I rather missed. It was light-hearted at points but never truly funny.

Funny was this afternoon, actually, when Sean and I took in "Little Miss Sunshine" at the Criterion in New Haven. I highly recommend it as a movie actually worth paying 9.75 to see. The number of laughs in it are surprising considering the number of sad things that happen in the film--hopes being crushed, death, etc. For once the critics were right in all the glowing things they said of this movie. Afterwards we walked around New Haven for a while, such a gorgeous day it was, and then went for an early dinner on Wooster Street. I'm still stuffed two hours later. All in all, this has been one of the most fun weekends I've had all summer. Could I have asked for a more wonderful person to spend it with? I think not.

Times

Recently I had the opportunity to keep working for StubHub while I'ma at school. I got called into Todd's office, nervously of course, and he pitched me the idea--remote access to email from school, and my regular pay of $12 an hour. It was a tempting offer, mostly because it'd be so much easier than the job I already agreed to do, which is work as Dr. Escobar's research assistant. I tried briefly to convince myself I could do both, but with spending two days a week at Greenwood Press, and this being senior year and me being lazy, that would never work.

However, I was on the brink of weaseling out with Jesus so I could make more money at StubHub, when a fortuitous conversation with Sean made me realize how much better for myself and my nebulous future plans working for Jesus would be. So yesterday I turned Todd down, and heard back from Jesus about the work he'll be working on-- "Spanish Architecture under Phillip IV". I don't know anything about Mr. IV, but I was a big fan of Mr. II. I know I saw IV's coffin at El Escorial but that's beside the point. Anyway, I think I made the better choice, and StubHub will be awaiting my return in December anyway.

This has been a particularly lengthy week. My schedule shifted from 9-530 to 8-430, which in itself is no problem; however, a recent tripling in call and email volume has prompted them to request we work an hour or two overtime every day. I did it three days, and it dragged. I said NO for today, because it's Friday and I'm going to be free, and see Heather and go down to Sean's and sleep with my boyfriend in a queen bed...ahhhh. Tomorrow morning we're going to hike up to Gillette Castle, and tomorrow night we're going to see a play on the green in New Haven. Summer is ending but there's so much fun left to be had--Carla's coming down in a couple of weeks, too, and we're going to help out at Sara's craft fair and hawk scarves in the heat.

My reading list has taken a turn for the classical lately. I re-read Babbitt and finally read Madame Bovary, which was excellent. For my lit class in the fall I read "the Professor's House" and just finished Fitzgerald's "Beautiful and Damned" last night, which was a shoot-me-in-the-face experience because it's set in the Jazz age, bring on the flappers, and the characters are just semi-rich, utterly useless people who drink and bore themselves to death and mental instability. Whoo. Now I've moved on to another Sinclar Lewis, Main Street, and I'm dreaming of finding Lolita actually in the library for me to borrow. A bunch of books I wanted last night were 'there' according to the computer but missing--The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, Sister Carrie, some others.

I've been reading all summer, naturally, but of late I've felt a tangible thirst for literature, and a realization of how small the fraction of what I have consumed is in relationship to what's on offer in libraries and bookstores. If I had a week of real summer vacation I would find a sunny spot and just read and feed myself grapes. Sean likes to point out I had four months of vacation in Italy, but you know what, I was severely lacking in books over there! I can't count the number of times I re-read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Lamb, or the number of times I stepped hopefully into the Paperback exchange in search of a good read, only to be turned off by the crazy high prices on even used books. I did find a couple books worth buying there, Hibbert's Medici book and my oft-mocked Tacitus, but I lacked the freedom that public libraries here provide. I love libraries. Wherever I settle one day, a well-appointed library will be an absolute prerequisite of the town itself.

Update

Have I really not posted since July 19th? I guess it's due to having rather annoying internet at home, coupled with the fact that I spend my day in front of a computer equipped with superfast internet doing sneaky things. As of today, my work shift is 8-430pm, which is nicer in a way because the first hour is quiet and goes by quickly, but sucks because it's darker when I wake up. Last night I had one of the dreaded "you're pregnant" dreams and woke up, if not in a cold sweat, then very disturbed, at 6am. Shudder.

The past two weekends have been road trippy--first to Wellesley to see Rae, just as I promised I would do prior to graduation, go me. Their campus is ridiculous. There's a lake! Dolan Pond just can't quite compare, although watching guys wade in there looking for a ball or something else they've lost while gingerly trying to avoid duck poop is a diverting sight. Anyway, it was cool to get a picture of what Rae's life is at school. We even saw the lab where she is slaving away her summer, which was a less than pleasant reminder of chem lab in high school. A trip into Boston included the Garment District, thrift store mecca extraordinaire, and the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum, which made me miss Italy a great deal. This past weekend we went to Philadelphia to welcome TJ home from seven months of exile in Freiburg, Germany. We didn't really do the historic tour of Philly as much as play mimigolf on a course that featured historic landmarks on each hole. Plus we watched National Treasure, which was largely based in the city. Sara came along for the promise of a trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum, but we were cheated when no one else wanted to go. Sigh. I was kind of expecting that. However, I did get to see Anna, whom I had dearly missed, and we had good times in the car with Sean at the helm, the four of us girls packed in and Sara snoozing in the back seat as always. The trip home was extremely long--first to Yonkers to drop off Anna and see the Stabile nest, then to White Plains for Meredith, then to New Haven, from which I drove Sara home and then joyfully arrived at my own demesne a mere seven hours after leaving TJ's house. That wasn't all driving, of course, as we did have a couple of stops, including dinner at Sean's, but I'm still feeling quite tired this morning. It was worth it, entirely.

Now we're in the home stretch before school starts. My textbooks, purchased mostly off Amazon, have started to arrive. Yesterday I was incensed to discover that my history of astronomy book was previously owned by a smoker, which of all things is the thing I hate about used books that I can't give the sniff-test to. I have four weeks left to accomplish a great deal, and in addition to decide whether I will work for Jesus as his assistant as previously agreed upon, or keep on working for StubHub remotely from school, with easier work and much higher pay. I was flattered that they offered, and am very tempted. I can't decide. Speaking of which I should get started on those 1200 emails which piled up over the weekend. Alas.

Lil' Bit

I give this post my nickname here at StubHub, or at least my nickname according to Sheena, as I'm furtively typing this in the morning before I clock in and am technically owned by the company...I bought Ligabue's Nome e Cognome CD on ebay last week and am now eagerly anticipating its arrival...ahhhhhhhhh love that music!

Summer's rolling on, and we've passed the halfway mark. Last weekend Sean got the inimitable experience of joining my mother and me on a visit to my grandfather in Massachusetts, crazy old bird that he is. I was happy to see that Sean simply found most of his antics amusing, and my grandfather loved him--he invited him to return anytime, with or without me.

Other updates: TJ returns to the States in a couple of weeks, poor Carla has the mono, Anna destroyed yet another of my copies of Lamb, and Sara has a sort-of-Italian "friend" named Antonio. The adventures continue.

Carnival, Pirates, Oh My

Sean was here again this weekend, teasing my cats with his presence since he's unable to pet them. Sapphire he originally re-named "Fatty Lumpkin", due to her constant begging and piteous claims of near-starvation, plus the fact that she rarely stirs from the food bowl, outside or in. This weekend, however, Fatty's title was shortened to a command: "Feed Me!" uttered in this horrible voice that puts one in mind of a very large butch lesbian. Heehee. Makes me smile just thinking about it. Fatty herself seems to be taking the insults quite well, since Sean has also been careful to ply her with milk.

We went to a carnival Friday, and I had the exciting idea of buying these $15 bracelets that let you ride the rides all night. However, I hadn't banked on the weakness of my own stomach, which Sean claims is due to a lack of extensive carnival rides as a child (it's true, we were much more of a games family than a rides family). So I wind up terribly nauseous after our second ride, the appropriately named Flying Bob. Bah. The upshot was the fireworks later in the evening, which we watched from the trunk of the Tahoe.

We also saw Pirates 2 on Saturday with Melissa and Heather, their boyfriends, and Charles. I didn't really like it. It was nowhere near as funny and original as the first one, it was much more of a basic action/adventure with a couple of funny lines and mannerisms thrown in. However, we lacked a consensus on the issue, as Heather considered it as good or better than the original, and Melissa liked it a lot too. The nature of the ending was such as to force you to pay an ever-higher price of admission next summer to watch the finale. I tell myself that I'll resist, that I'll wait for it to go to video, or at least for someone to get an illegal copy, but I'll probably just fork over the cash next summer too. Hollywood.

Ah, but did I mention that I cooked this weekend? Twice? I made my spaghetti pie, sinfully delicious, along with hushweii, the remains of which I'm still feasting on after sending Sean home with his own tupperware container. Suzy homemaker, that's me.

I must not forget to mention that Friday was our 1.5 year anniversary. Beyond all jokes about how it seems to have been forever, it's been a wonderful time with the best of men. Meow.

1.5 Years

Today marks one-and-a-half years since Sean and I started dating! Tonight to celebrate we're going to go eat fried dough and watch shiny lights explode in the sky. Heehee.

It Was Vacation While It Lasted

Four glorious days of doing next to nothing, which is just about as close as I've come to a vacation this summer. This year I didn't see any real fireworks, beyond what the Richardson clan was setting off in their driveway, nor did I eat any barbequed food items, but it was still a great four days--time with Sean, the family, and even the girls plus Cody last night. I feel relaxed--or rather I would feel relaxed if I weren't so tired my eyes keep closing at my desk. Not even ten AM and I've already downed a Diet Coke, eep!

Oh, and we saw Superman Returns this weekend, which was good by my standards, even though I knew nothing about the Superman mythology besides what I saw in an A&E special on its history. The actor who played him--delicious. However, move aside Brandon Routh because this upcoming weekend will witness my reunion with the true on-screen love of my life, Johnny Depp, as we triumphantly return to theaters to see Pirates 2! I'll be the first to admit that my interest in Johnny Depp is completely shallow. I don't even like to hear him speak in interviews--he's simply not that interesting. Men that beautiful should be seen and not heard, lest they ruin my rose-colored vision of them by realistic flaws.

The final bit of movie excitement is that tomorrow evening, Sara and I will indulge a years-old passion for a certain spiky-haired video game character by renting Final Fantasy: Advent Children, which stars none other than Squall and Sephiroth, those old dears. Be still my beating heart.

After this weekend, my summer is alarmingly planned out. Sean, my mother and I will make the pilgrimage to Massachusetts in a couple of weeks to initiate him into the mysterious insanity that is my grandfather. The weekend after that we're trying to plan a Fairfield gathering in New Haven, and the last weekend is both Our Lady of Pompeii carnival and our putative trip to Lovely Lollipop Lesbian Land, aka Wellesley (lol sorry Rae but alliteration, so tempting!) The first weekend in August is of course TJ's triumphant return-to-the-States party in Pennsylvania, and then the next couple of weekends feature Shakespeare performances and craft fairs. I suppose the good news is that I'm still free the 26th, the last weekend in August, haha. It's quite the change from last summer, when it felt ike there was too much time and too little to do in it. Now the reverse is true, and I find myself wondering how I'll fit in everything I had planned for this summer. But I'm having fun, and that's what counts.

Also, can I just note what a freakishly accurate memory Sean has? Last night he told me what we both ate on our first date, which was January 7th 2005. Hey, I'm excited when I can remember the name of the restaurant we were at (Geppi's). He's just unnatural. Coincidentally, this Friday will mark a year and a half of being together. Meow!

Music Makes My Mind Dance

At work lately I've been using a website called live365.com, which has gazillions of little radio stations with everything a heart could desire. The two I listen to most frequently are, believe it or not, stations that play "Sean's music"--big band and swing. I used to complain that it's too perky, but amid the dullness of an office it's entirely welcome. Today I found a station from France that plays gypsy music, and a Spanish station that plays flamenco--they're such vibrant rhythms, so different from the hollowness that permeates a lot of pop music here.

And I've been monitoring an Italian station, waiting for it to play Ligabue...Zero Assoluto...Negramaro? Anyone? Sigh. I kind of wish I'd paid the 20 euro for Ligabue's new CD before I left. I miss listening to "Le donne ha sanno" as I walked down Borgo San Lorenzo to wander yet again through the warren of back streets around the Duomo.

On my lunch breaks I'm rereading "Rise and Fall of the House of Medici", wishing I were one of them. To go back, to see the Palazzo Medici Riccardi when it was just Lorenzo's house, when Savonarola was at San Marco just down the block, when Italy was full of counts and condottiere! What a dramatic world to be a part of, even as a peasant; how much more amazing to be a Medici. When I was younger, the name Medici had an echo faintly like that of Borgia--sinister, surrounded by poison and intrigue, not a good thing to be compared to. Unholy. How different I found them to be!

Vacation Day

Yesterday, after being mysteriously sick at 5am and blearily sending Sheena a text message saying I wasn't coming in, I found myself magically gifted with a vacation day, not to mention the only day in the week when it did't rain. I felt perfectly fine when I woke up again, and my mom wasn't working, so we spent the day together--gasp! It wasn't the kind of day that plays in montage while sappy mother-daughter music fills the background, but it was still a really good day...we went shopping together, something almost unheard of. She even bought me a new bra at the Vicky's semi-annual sale, and that after agreeing to get a Vicky's credit card because she "felt bad" for the shopgirl who was hawking them. The $15 bra I appreciated but the card I thought was a bit much; after all, I only shop there when there's a sale on, and she's never consented to actually pay for anything there before, but she claims she enjoys the fragrance section. *shrug*

However, the fun didn't stop there--she had to go to her nail salon to get a nail repaired (yes, my mom is one of those who hates having her fake nails break, although at least hers are very short and natural looking) and I half-jokingly suggested she buy me a pedicure. And she did. If you know my mom you know that such magnanimity might almost seem suspicious, but apparently she was simply in a friendly mood that day. She didn't seem to think anything of it, almost as if she lavished such treatment on me every week, which is far from the case. Perhaps it's best enjoyed in such small sips.

Rainy Day

The world is marvelously wet today, and there's nothing to do except maybe work on the Italy scrapbook which is thus far only in my mind--but it's a wonderful day, too, because Sean is here with me, eating the muffins I made, working on his German, scrupulously avoiding the cats to which he is allergic and generally being the love of my life. Rainy days aren't so bad when you have a Sean to share them with.

Today

A funny thing happened at work today--not humorous but in the sense that for the first time at StubHub I felt uncomfortable about something someone wanted me to do. I was working on emails all day since about 600 had piled up over the weekend, and a ticket broker emailed in to say that because of the incredibly rude treatment he had experienced at the hands of one of our representatives, Brent, he was removing all his hundreds of listings from our site and putting them up on Ebay. This is of course bad--bad enough to lose one of the guys who basically makes all our money for us, doubly so if we lost him because one rep was rude. This guy Brent is our age, recent college grad, the brash and kind of obnoxious guy who loves sports and heavy metal bands and has a picture of Slash as his computer background. I've seen complaints about his brusque manner before. So I of course send this guy back a very apologetic email trying to keep his business, and inviting him to call in to discuss this with management.

As I usually do in sticky situations where you want to know exactly what each party said, I copied and pasted the text of his email into the notes on his user account and forwarded all of this to Sheena, my manager. The text of the email of course had Brent's name in it--a mistake, apparently, as Sheena immediately IMed me "bad, bad, bad!" She told me I should have paraphrased the seller's email rather than putting Brent's name in. I was immediately suspicious of this, because I ALWAYS copy/paste on something like this, and so does Sharlene, who oversees the emails. Did I mention that Brent is one of Sheena's favorites in the office? I went to Sheena's office a little while later and asked her about it, why I shouldn't have had the name of the rep who was specifically mentioned in a complaint. She said it was because the next person who looked at the account would 'connect' the name too much to the email and be prejudiced against that rep, and I, annoyed, replied, "That's pretty much just covering someone's ass for them, isn't it." And she nodded. Sigh. I like Sheena, but I seriously lost a little respect for her in that moment. I did tell her that I wouldn't do that, and that I would always copy/paste. That's not to say I "took a stand" against my boss or anything; I just said it, and she shrugged, and I walked away.

Even if it does make someone annoyed to put a name in there, I'm not too concerned. I'm one of the best reps they have, and they know it--even the new HR lady told me she'd heard how excited the management got when they heard I was coming back. Daily stats for the past couple of weeks, I average about 94 "contacts", or calls and emails, per day, while the rest of my dear team is struggling and failing to meet the required average of 60. So I'm not worried about getting in trouble, really, it's just sad to think that a person I like would compromise themselves, even in so minor a way, to save someone else from being censured for their error.

Father's Day

In honor of the holiday, this is something I found while cleaning out a file cabinet that contained all of the cards and letters we received after my father's death. I don't know the man who wrote it, although his name rings familiarly in my ears; I do believe he sent it to my father's email address after he died, as I remember printing a number of condolence letters from friends of his who lived at a distance. This is what it says:

Although I worked closely with Joe only a relatively short period of time, maybe three years or so, I quickly began to admire his dedication, honesty and core values. After working 23 years in the industry, I have only met a handful of people with standards approaching what Joe demonstrated day in and day out. His efforts made all my efforts worthwhile as we shared a common bond to do things right, in spite of all the artificial management and subordinates around us claiming to do likewise. Joe always "told it the way it was" regardless of its content. What a refreshing and inspiring trait! Although Joe was sometimes a bit rough on the edges, he wasa role model to me in many ways, and to many others--that I am sure. I am glad we crossed paths but saddened to hear of his passing. Feel comforted that part of him lives on in the many others he has affected.

Sincerely,
Al Cizek"

I think that's the best thing I could do on Father's Day--to read that and remember my dad the way others remember him, as a good man.

StubHub Half Day....Almost

The power died almost as soon as I got into work this morning, phones and all, meaning for a couple of hours everyone in the call center was outside lounging and playing softball. I opened up the back doors of the Tahoe and curled up to read the book Sara lent me last night, "The Secret of Staying in Love", which we once read for HILL class. Written by a Jesuit--go figure!

Unfortunately, the power resumed right before they were going to send us all home, so now we have 15 calls in queue and a whole lot of angry people who think "sorry, the power was out" is NOT an acceptable excuse for having to wait on hold for twenty minutes. Why am I blogging, you ask? Because it seems like every other person is putting me on hold for some reason or another. What's wrong with these people? You don't put Customer Service on hold, they put YOU on hold! I have to say I greatly enjoy doing that, especially to angry people. Let them stew in it for a few minutes and maybe they'll be less rude.

June presses on, and it hasn't even been terribly hot and humid yet--knock on wood. I've already accomplished one of my "summer goals", climb Sleeping Giant, and will now move on to other tasks, like creating my Italy scrapbook. GRE studying has taken up a good deal of my time, as just reading through the word lists alone is lengthy. Per Sara's request I will insert the word "contumacious" here. It means disobedient, did you know that? I didn't. As much as I love words, sometimes there's just so much redundancy, little words we don't use or care about and that have no particular aesthetic value. Emendment, for example, means correction, but who would bother using it?

I'm glad I have a job that occupies me forty hours a week, even though it can be terribly dull at some times and depressingly cruel at others. I do prefer to have something to do rather than a lot of free time during the week. Luckily, I also manage to incorporate a lot of non-work into work, such as reading, studying for the GREs, email correspondence etc etc.

In terms of reading I've been glutting myself on all the joys of the recently refurbished Windor Public library. I re-read the massive "Duchess of Milan" in two consecutive evenings, both because it's a familiar read and also because for once, I had an extremely lucid understanding of all the Italian courts involved, which as you may guess made me really excited--like when they mentioned in passing the giant equestrian statue Leonardo was going to make for the Duke--not only did we write an essay on the final on that horse and its political significance, the Leonardo exhibition at the Uffizi made a cast of the legs and chest of this thing, and it was monstrously huge. Sadly, the Florentines only made a passing appearance, in the ignominious surrender of Piero the Gouty to the French King's forces when he was passing through Italy, effectively turning the city into an unwilling barracks for the entire French army for several weeks. Could you tell Piero was none too popular with Florence after that little debacle?

Now I'm reading a book on the mystery of the two princes in the Tower, and whether Richard III was really responsible for their deaths as later historians made him out to be. It's written by a lawyer and very interesting. The new library is absolutely delicious but I do have pangs of nostalgia for the library I grew up with, which is now almost completely renovated. Ah, well.

June 6th

At work today everyone was talking about today being 666 and the re-release of "The Omen". No one mentioned that today is D-Day, too. Maybe I was just thinking about it because I'd watched "The Longest Day" for Memorial Day. As with every time I watch it, I was amused by the near-melodramatic pathos imparted to the German officers-- especially the way their characters repeat certain key lines that the real men probably wouldn't have, like the field marshal who comments about his wife's birthday being "tomorrow, the sixth of june. the sixth of june" as he leaves Paris and the command of the army in someone else's hands. So it's easy for me to remember which day D-Day took place. There won't be a D-Day in the war we're fighting now. No one in the future will ever look back on this and feel the surge of pride that Americans felt, and still feel (I certainly do) when thinking of the vast array of forces that assaulted the Normandy beaches six decades ago. Instead we will look back on episodes like Haditha and feel shame that other Americans perpetrated such acts of violence.

The other day Sara told me that the twin brother of a girl we were friends with in high school, Sandy, died in Iraq recently. I looked it up on Yahoo, and he was a Marine, enlisted right out of high school. I never met him, but in his photo he looked so much like her. The article quoted their father on his pride in his son's actions, and for his sake I'm glad he's proud of his child, but I could only think how enormously betrayed and bereft I would feel, not only to lose my son but to lose him fighting a war with seemingly no end and, two years into it, no more good cause. The death of someone close by, even someone removed a couple degrees of separation as he was, made all this a million times more real to me. He made his choice, of course; at least he wasn't drafted. No one who thinks of those who died in Normandy can say that they died in vain. I wish I could think of the same of him, but I can't.

Update

Right now I'm stuffed full of chocolate cake and Sailor Moon love. Sara and I just spent probably six hours watching some of the 30-plus hours of SM delicious she recently purchased, including two full seasons and all three movies *drool* We intended to make a Luna-version of my mom's famous Halloween catcake but this plan floundered when the cake stuck to the pan and fell apart. Whatevs, it was still a joyous time which we've only been dreaming of since, oh, 8th grade or so. So glad I had another dork to share it with!

Things have been pretty hectic since I got back. Work has begun, and I'm glad to be able to say that Stubhub is even more fun now than it was before. The atmosphere is still really chill, and most of the new hires are younger people in their mid to late 20s, so there's so much of the time spent cracking jokes and having a good time, which the powers that be don't seem to mind since everything gets done. My former supervisor Sheena is now a manager and my boss (no more Maritza for me, who was much more formal), and her friend Jen, who was in my training class way back when, is my supervisor. It's fun to have a boss who you can argue with and poke fun at on AIM! I do miss Rob as a manager, but he's probably happier back in SF. Oh, and the hammock remains, and I returned to it lovingly. I was even lucky enough to get a cube right next to my old one, so it doesn't have the high walls that the newer ones do. I personally like to be able to see and chat with the people around me over the walls. In addition to the requisite picture of Sean in his sexy black suit, I added a postcard of the Cinque Terra to brighten up my little work spot.

I can't wait to get paid! Gas is so expensive, bleh. However, I don't have many other expenses, so I really shouldn't complain. If I had to tack a mortgage and some younguns onto this car's wallet-draining capabilities, I think I'd be sunk.

Rae is gone once again for the summer, back in the labs at Wellesley. This summer I'm determined we're going up to visit her. I WILL see Wellesley before we all graduate! Speaking of, turns out our graduation day, May 20th, is the same as my sister's from law school. My mom therefore has the joy of seeing two kids graduate from higher education on the same day, and the issue of deciding which one to attend! Luckily my sister told her outright to go to mine, since she would just probably be grumpy about going into New York anyway. Jen did say, however, that she expects us to come into the city after my graduation to celebrate. She can't come home, because her bar review class begins the very next day. I'm not excited about the idea of leaving everyone right after we graduate to run into New York, but we'll have to work it out. I do feel bad that she got screwed out of her college graduation due to rain and Simmons College being so stupid as to not have a backup plan, and now we can't attend her second one.

Missing Italy is somewhat of a given, I suppose. Food prices are really frustrating, when even a lemon costs double what it did there, and tastes worse! Sara and I had some fresh mozz today and it was terrible, absolutely flavorless, where in Italy even cheapie Conad mozzarella was so delicious I could almost eat an entire ball before dinner. Today at celebrate West Hartford, there was a craft fair, and booth after booth was offering matted photographs of exotic European locales, mainly Tuscany and Provence, and Sara and I just flipped through them sighing. But we were comforted by other photos showing the beauty of New England in the fall and winter. Every region has its charm, and I do so love the fall when the leaves are changing, when they skip and skitter through the streets like lost kites. Everything is radiant and full of promise, everywhere I look.

I'm trying to retain some of the lessons I think I learned abroad, especially when it comes to not wanting so many things. Going to Sara's I thought about the mall, where I haven't been in a long time, and I realized there's really no point in going there unless I specifically need something. The mall is entirely designed to make you covet things and to make you certain you'll never be a happy person until you have them. I don't want to be like that. Conspicuous consumerism invades every aspect of daily life, and I don't like it.

Home Again

I'm back now, and have been for a few days, despite already having contrived to spend two nights at Sean's house. It feels good to be back, although at first it was crazy, especially since in Italy I had huge open spaces and 20 foot ceilings with very little stuff to occupy it, and here I have much smaller rooms, especially mine, with so much stuff in them. I already started throwing out as many things as I can bear to part with.

Yesterday I had an internship interview at Greenwood Publishing Group in Westport, CT, and I got the job as an intern for the fall semester! I'm really excited. The women I met were very friendly, not even fake friendly, actually nice, and they gave me a ton of stuff, including bobblehead dolls of Jane Austen and Chaucer which they use as marketing promos. Last night was our pot roast/sailor moon extravaganza, even if we only watched three hours of the five Sara had brought with her. It was still deliciously wonderful to be back with the girls again. Everything just seems so complete, and yet still so hysterically funny, when we're together.

But the best thing about being back, besides seeing my mom, blah de blah, is being with Sean again, and having him be REAL and not just a voice over the telephone. It's like I didn't really understand how much I missed him until I was with him again.