"endless summer"

It's funny how you can use something once and then decide that you'll never use it again, even though it's perfectly good. It just isn't right to use something with that much emotional value again.

For instance, I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm noticing the three-quarters-full Endless Summer Moisturizing Mist and Linen Spray on my window ledge. I'm thinking about the fact that I used that spray so excessively at camp, and I'm thinking about the words "endless summer," and what a lie that is, and I'm thinking about my view of the city from my window, which is perfect, but no one else can see how perfect it is because when I show them how it looks in a picture, they just can't tell. (I'll upload my view later, because right now Blogger is being uncooperative. You can't tell, but actually, people who make postcards would totally pay to set up their tripods and whatnot in my room because it's so amazing.)

Seems to happen a lot. Something is really incredible, but others just cannot see it from the pictures. It looks meaningless to them.

Oh my God. I really need to delve into my drawings or something. Listen to me.

I'm going to go sketch something now. You better hope it's not more eyes--for your own sakes.

ciao
the smart one

more about hair (hey, I'm bored)

Well, once my mom gets out of her close-to-the-end-of-the-summer-school-session faculty meeting, we're going to go into town and possibly get the dog groomed. Mom keeps asking about whether I remember the name of the groomer, and I keep reminding her that I didn't even know there was a dog salon here. Then tomorrow, I'm going to get my hair cut, yippee! I have miserable split ends. Weirdly enough, there are about six different spas, salons, etcetera here in this miniscule place. I guess little New England towns have to really have everything right there within a one- or two-mile radius, because when it's winter, you're completely snowed in.
That reminds me of my mom's friends. They've lived in Brooklyn for years--one of our Brooklyn friend-families--but they just recently decided to move to a tiny town in Canada. They have two small children and a yippy dog. They've also got an amazing house. (In fact, it turned out to be such a good investment that the father stopped working.) I wonder if they realize how totally removed from the rest of the universe they are going to be from about November to March. I mean, that's a long time to be crammed together in what looks from the pictures like a very small house with a screaming 9-year-old, 2-year-old, and puppy.
Not to be morbid, but the puppy may die.

Speaking of New York, I've been harboring this weird wish to move there. I mean, it would be a two-hour commute to school, but especially considering the fact that I have to wear a uniform, it would make me really feel like a student, which I like to feel. It would be like, oh, I'm getting up at 5 a.m. and leaving the house at 6 so I can catch a bus, look at me, in my plaid skirt and polo, I'm so devoted! I would love to feel that way.

All right, obviously I need to calm myself. Ooh, Nilla Wafers. Yum. Bye.

cycles of addiction

Unfortunately, I'm in health for the last quarter of the year, so today we learned about inhalants. The only thing that stuck for me was the term "cycle of addiction," which, although it's about something serious, strikes me as funny whenever I say it or think it. For instance: cycle of addiction!!

Doesn't that make you laugh? No? OK.

I have a confession to make: I've been a bad Jew. I've chewed 2 pieces of gum, eaten 2 Tootsie Rolls, stolen 2 chips from my friends' lunches, and had a piece of cake made by my friend Katy that was absolutely to die for (hate the expression but had to use it, sorry).

I feel so naughty.

Also, there's something else I have to rant about--that's what this blog is for, anyway, ranting. I hate it when other people get me into trouble. My friends have gotten me yelled at by my advisor three times in the past two days, and it's definitely not fun. Also, in French class today, the girl behind me kept kicking my chair, so I kept moving up my desk, until the teacher finally singled us out and scolded us because she "had to talk." I'm sorry, but she's lecturing all class; does it kill her to say something else? And it was the other girl's fault. It just was. If you're reading this, Olivia, I am totally going to get you kicked out tomorrow.

Just you wait. All of you...mwahahahaha...

Just kidding.

Hey, guess what? I got a 16.7 on my 100-meter today at the track meet. It was fun. Some people said I was fast. Also my friend lost her tiny stud earring under the bleachers in a moment of brilliance. Yeah, I do hang out with some smart people.

ugh so sick

Hi...

I'm sick once again...no surprise this time, I'm sure, as you all--I guess I should say "y'all" there--are used to hearing me lament about how miserably bad my immune system is.

It could be the 4-hour track meet in the freezing cold wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt, which was immeasurably stupid of me. It could be the gross multitude of chocolaty food left over after the post-bat mitzvah brunch. It could be eating salad that tasted like fish--don't think it was supposed to taste like that. But whatever it is, I've been bedridden for four days, and I'm missing several assessments, a piano lesson, a track meet, and a dance. That's great. Just great. And to top it all off, my horoscope has been jabbering on about how great my "love life" is supposed to be this week, especially today. Well, unless I'm going to have a miraculous recovery or they're talking about my recent affair with Jolly Ranchers, chocolate, seltzer, and Gilmore Girls, they're barking up the wrong tree.

Then again, I guess I should have seen this coming. In November maybe, as I'm supposed to look out (doc's orders) for the fall and eating too much candy on Halloween. But the weather's been switched around, warm in fall and cold in spring, plus I ate very little candy on Halloween and there was so much bat mitzvah crap left in my house that I've been compelled to eat a truly horrifying amount. So it was bound to happen.

But I really do believe in my horoscopes, so it does kind of suck that it would sound so good today. If only my lungs didn't hurt when I breathe.

M&Ms, maturity, and lots and lots of money

Although I may have supposedly reached the age of responsibility, maturity, and all that jazz, the bowl of M&Ms sitting seductively on my living room table, left over from the after-the-fact brunch, still lures me to the point at which I cannot help but get up every 5 seconds to grab a few.

There is enough "Jewish Mother" gum in my mouth for the US Army to chew. In my mind, chewing this gum keeps me away from the M&Ms and other threatening puddings, cookies, cakes, candies, pies, pastries, quiches, and bread on the first floor of my house right now. It's very difficult not to shove it all down my gullet, but I've experienced enough food regret this weekend to force myself to know better.

My family and I will be eating cake for the next year and a half or so, I expect. As you can see above, Colette Peters created a sick cake for my bat mitzvah. Simply sick. My mom and I met with her a few months ago for three hours, deciding finally on this design (the books are my favorites). She in turn made this magnificence materialize. In fact, many years ago, she created the groom's cake for my parents' wedding. We have a thing going, us and Colette.

So, I have to say that the expected--and certainly real--relief is overtaken by complete disbelief at the fact that the whole thing is over. Not just the service and the party, not just the day itself, not just the bat mitzvah itself, but everything that went into it. I will never practice again. I will never read my Torah portion again. I will never stress about who is seating where and whether or not Kaitlyn or Darria or my dad's important colleague, who sent me a tzedakah box that I didn't recognize as a tzedakah box until after a week.

Incredibly wonderful as it is, it's also slightly disconcerting.

Then again, who am I kidding, I'm thrilled. I'm ecstatic. And I've got the thousands of dollars, gold earrings, sign board, and "life cycle portrait" to prove it. I couldn't have imagined a day more ridiculously perfect.

Someone up there likes me...not to mention Uncle Lenny and Aunt Rhoda, who sent me $724.12 to boot.

burn baby burn

I guess it was going to happen sometime. Everyone burns out eventually, right? Just because I get a B doesn't mean that much. As Mark Twain once said, "Don't let school get in the way of your education." Amen, brother.

Is there anything fun about godforsaken Extended Day--as my friends and I call it, Extended Hell? Seriously, I don't want to come here and stay after school, and when I do have to come here, I don't want my blogging to be interrupted by people who think I'm too shy. I'm not shy. I just don't talk to people I don't like. If you think I'm too shy, that's really your problem.

And, my last firey topic, I just read here about the Wednesday afternoon blaze in a 25-story Brooklyn building. I guess it happens all the time, but this was in the New York Times, so this is the one I'm interested in. Turns out three firefighters were injured in my old town. Yeah, I know it's severely uninteresting, but it reminds me of my friend Aidan's dad. Aidan's father, a firefighter, died in 9/11. Aidan's grieving mother, Marian Fontana, wrote a bestselling book, Widow's Walk, about her husband and his death.

Sad, huh? And the kid, being my age, was only five years old when his dad passed away. Talk about tough.

French fish fiche

Today was an interesting one in terms of April Fools' Day. I have my own take on it: I don't know what to do. My sister is very talented at playing April Fools' jokes on people; she once came back from spring break on April 1st and told everyone that the "splint" on her finger was from slamming her finger in a car door over break and that she was getting it off that afternoon. So the day after April Fools' Day, when the finger was once more bare, no one doubted that her joke was true. In fact, she came out from the whole fiasco with a vigorously signed false splint.

However, I was never able to come up with a good one. Even my mother is better than I am. One April Fools' Day, she convinced my father that he had a tick. Of course he was terrified, but even though he didn't know it was a joke until later, he wasn't all that freaked out because his entire family--they're from the country--has Lyme disease anyway. Not to be mean, but he'd just be fitting in.

Luckily for me, though, this year's All Fools' Day (did you know it's sometimes called that?) put forth a widespread joke opportunity: French class. I'm pretty sure all of the French classes in my grade had a worksheet with fish on it to color in, but I'm also pretty sure that only my class got so into it. Granted, people from other blocks were sticking fish on my back, but that's beside the point. My fish was covered--my own brilliant handiwork--in MY INITIAL! It was extremely fantastic. Even when there are no fish to color and cut out--and hopelessly mangle--we are an enthusiastic bunch.

So if anyone except me is looking for something to get out of this post...I bet you didn't know that April Fools' Day used to be New Years.

blogging articles

Sorry this took so long, but there have been many small children in my life lately, and you know how that can be.

Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal
Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog
So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?
After Suicide, Blog Insults Are Debated
Washington Doesn't Sleep Here

Wondering about the above list? For your information, it's just a few recent--from the past 30 days--New York Times articles. They're all about blogging, in fact. And the Times isn't the only newspaper that's picked up on the blogging phenomenon; many other publications are too. I only picked the NYT ones because I wanted to emphasize the magnitude of the amount of articles out there recently.

Amazing, huh? Check out the book deal one--it's about one of my favorite edgy blogs.

spring cleaning (can you say ick)

Dear everyone,

I guess this is why we pay $10,000 in taxes every year: our garbage collectors ROCK. Our public schools? Honestly, we could use some more tracking. But the trash guys--and gals--kudos to you.

This morning, while I was still blissfully asleep, my mom apparently called up the garbage collectors and asked them if, for two hundred bucks, she could have them pick up anything we wanted to dispose of. They agreed, and at 10 in the morning, she was standing in front of my recently woken-up self with a looming box of Hefty bags, saying, "We have a project."

Well, we then spent over two hours (until my mom had to go pick up my brother and sister from their half day) pulling out dirt-covered sleds, wooden planks, too-small clothing, and other equally pleasant items from a garage, where we had to stop when it started raining; attic; and sunroom slathered in useless stuff. Yes, I feel like I've accomplished something, but I also have the horrible urge to vacuum.

See, a couple of months ago, I discovered our cleaning ladies had stolen not just several hundred dollars from me, but also a gold ring with a good-sized ruby and six small diamonds. It wasn't the kind of thing you can replace. My mom found it on the streets of New York City years ago. So even when my advisor kindly offered a gold ring with a ruby and diamonds that she "didn't want," it wasn't the same, and I just couldn't take her jewelry.

So my mother fired them, and, long story short, my stairway and room became dust hell. While in a cleaning frenzy a couple of days ago to make my room acceptable before a friend came over, I pulled a rather unfriendly-looking wad of dust out from under my overloaded and tilting bookshelf. It's disgruntling to see layers of the stuff sitting around the place where you live, especially when your little sister has horrible asthma triggered chiefly by dust mites.

I have to go--my sister's got two friends over, my brother's got one, and I've got up the motivation to vacuum.

Adios amigos.

retail therapy

My brother's been having some health-related issues, but I won't get into that here for a few reasons:

1. I'm sick and tired of explaining it
2. All my friends know about it by now
3. It would sound tacky
4. There isn't a reason to

Instead, I will discuss Target, every suburban girl's dreamland. (I hate to exaggerate, especially in sexist and classist ways like this, but this particular stereotype is so fun to say and I really do need a picker-upper--and it includes me, so honestly I don't think I'm trying to offend anyone here.)

I went shopping there earlier this week with my mom and brother to do some "retail therapy." I got one hoodie, two swimsuits, and two pairs of shorts, in addition to various bat mitzvah shenanigans that I didn't even consider, like centerpieces, which I realize only now is kind of vital.

Well, I'm getting tired. So that's all for now, thanks and come again.

confused

There are a lot of confusing things around. For instance, people are confusing because you can't tell what they're thinking. Sharpies are confusing because they wash off everything in time but your nails. And Ginger Rogers is confusing because when you see one of her movies on TV but forget the name of it, you browse a Wikipedia list of all of her work, and you find out her real name was something like Hildegaard Vinderlet Smitty...or something equally confusing in its non-resemblance to "Ginger Rogers," anyway.

murder on the orient express

I'm hungry. Hopefully the carton of strawberries I'm working on eating will suffice.

My sister's dress rehearsal for her play, my mother's adapted version of Murder on the Orient Express, went interestingly today at her school. I sat behind the 8-by-8-foot sheet, stapled to a wooden frame, projecting this image onto the sheet throughout a production that was slightly over an hour long. Around me were four fifth-grade boys, walking back and forth in front of the projector, irking me to no end. Everyone kept forgetting their lines and speaking in mouse tones, but all in all, it was pretty funny, what with all the stuff they improvised.

Hey, if I get a chance, do you think I should try to go for middle school president?

sick on break

Hello literate beings of the world:

I'm sick and miserable, with my stomach killing me, as well as my throat and ears. I have a relentless cough, and even when I clear my throat, the congestion comes back immediately.

Anyway though...I truly do apologize for not posting for a week; this time it wasn't of my own accord. I had a punishment that stated I wasn't allowed on the computer because I've been so mean to my brother lately. I'll try to be more consistent.

Is anyone else on spring break? Tell me about it--unless you're one of those people who are actually going somewhere on vacation, like everyone else I know.

By the way, it's been a great week for my mom. She got a promotion and a brand-new, bright red, shiny set of laundry machine and dryer! (YES)

regrets and updates

Dear browsers,

Sorry sorry sorry for not posting for over a week or responding to your comments or updating any HTML or anything. My life has become completely crammed with stuff between social problems, fluctuating grades, bat mitzvah insanity, midterms, the school play, piano, and the fact that I am now restricted to one hour a day--with supervision--on the computer because I put videos on YouTube, which I was not supposed to do.

My bathroom recently got revamped. My dad got new curtains, a rug, a caddy with frosted glass in the door, a soap dispenser, and towels. The whole thing looks really coordinated because everything is white and therefore matches the walls, bath, toilet, sink, floor, and each other, but also the dark trimming on the curtains, large mounted mirror, and towels all match in this really great way that I just can't pinpoint.

Perhaps the best way to say it is that the perfectionist in me is deeply excited.

Has any portion of your house/tumbledown shack by the old railroad track/apartment/whatever else you've got gotten redone?

our domain

Aha, they've finally printed it: girls are more technology-savvy than boys. Especially in the blogging department, where the numbers are very feel-good towards me and other teenage girls.

The only area in which male use surpasses female is that of video posting, and that's not because women lack the technological talent, but because video posting is more about impressing others than expressing oneself. Teehee.

Check out the Times article:

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain - New York Times

To all my female blogging friends, blog on!
And thanks once more to Dad for showing me this article.

movies

Hello losers, winners, and those of you in 2nd place...and apparently, thanks to Megan at http://lablover12.blogspot.com/ , hello to President Bush and his FBI. (Shout-out to Mike at the White House.)

Sorry I haven't posted for almost a week; there just hasn't been too much going on. But a great artist, especially a great writer, can make something out of nothing.

This week turned my crew for the school play into something dismal. What used to be a seemingly vital job--props for Macbeth--has become basketball with the gym teacher. "If you want to join the guys," he says, and play basketball for an hour, the other two girls in Props and Painting and I are welcome to do so. Otherwise, we can just sit there and watch the kids who are actually in the play rehearse. It's only kind of amusing, because the director guy yells so FRICKIN loud whenever he gets a touch angry about something, and then everyone is completely stiff.

It's embarrassing.

the miracle worker

Sorry, I forgot to tell you about Saturday. I'm not going to blab on and on about my sister's friends, one of whom stayed with us until 4:30, or the party I went to that night with my friends from my old school (well, the girls' school I went to last year). Instead, let me talk about The Miracle Worker.

On a whim, my mom took me, my sister, and my sister's best friend to the nearby Paper Mill Playhouse to see the aforementioned play. Reviewed by the New York Times as being "profoundly moving" and "unforgettable theater" by Time magazine, it's the amazing and sometimes hilarious true story of Annie Sullivan's work with Helen Keller when Helen was but a troubled and tantrum-throwing child in the 1880s. The acting really is brilliant, and I'm not a sentimental person, but I'll say it: this account is touching. Check out the link I've provided--it's work your time, and you just might get sucked in.

By the way, my excruciating stomach pain and fever have returned to finish with me. I type this from my bed, just after having been sent home from school by the (albeit extremely weird) nurse.

pie

I could really go for an apple pie right now. Fresh, hot, crisp, juicy. Know any good recipes?

I made the most stunningly cool drawings for my French homework; this class and teacher are going to worship me. I can see it now--a roomful of seventh- and eighth-graders bowing down to me, the Goddess of Art and All Things Beautiful and Brilliant, as if I am some kind of Allah or something. Plus, of course, the round little teacher left speechless.

Just kidding, I'm not really that egotistical. Only about French. Believe me, I've suffered a blow since getting back my Algebra midterm and discovering I may have a stalker or two.

love,
love me do*

P.S. what do you think of the fact that this has been the first December in 130 years that NYC hasn't gotten any snow?? I think it's pretty insane.

*that's a bad Beatles pun right there if you get it...if you don't please just ignore my quirks

it's finally february...

...and I have a restaurant to crush.

Usually, St. James Gate is a perfectly respectable place to dine--they have good food and a much better ambiance since smoking in New Jersey's public places was outlawed. But I just don't know what happened tonight at this Irish pub. Maybe it was just the waitress.

When I finally got my coffee--unfortunately my first caffeine of the day--after roughly 15 minutes of waiting impatiently, the milk that came with it, not to mention the coffee itself, was almost impossible to make out. There was close to none in that little tin pitcher thing they bring. I mean, what is it, the Depression again? Time for ration tickets and "organizing" more food by way of trading your gold watch? I can't get an effing decent cup of joe because it might deprive the soldiers or something? That's just a disappointment. (By the way, I'm still feeling sluggish; that pathetic excuse for a cup of coffee was not only cold, but severely lacking in jolt).

At last the waitress deigned to come by again, once the large party of young and annoyingly boisterous table of people next to us who had come fifteen minutes after us and gotten served already. We immediately ordered. Luckily, after 25 more painful minutes of waiting, my potatoes and vegetables came, along with my mom's wings. During that waiting period, I had taken my sister and her two rather giddy, gossipy friends--who came with us and are sleeping over tonight, ugh--to a store up the street, No. 165, to pick out what they wanted to buy after dinner.

The food was good--my tongue is still scorched from that unfortunately too-hot bite of mashed potatoes--but the waitress never did bring my potato leek soup, water, or the burger my mom ordered exclusively to be brought out sooner so it could be taken home for my little brother. But at least we weren't charged for those.

Finally we escaped to shop at No. 165 (no website and thus no link, sorry). I needed something for my friend's party tomorrow and ended up getting boots anyway, so it was a good deal. Never have I been happier to get out of an eatery in my life.

nightmares

It is very possible that I am going to burst into madness right about...now.

This is like some horrible Arthur rerun.

My bat mitzvah and the bat mitzvah of my friend from my old school are on the exact same day, at the exact same times. And of course, our lists of people to invite are nothing if not identical.

Ohhh I really don't feel good now.