I present to you, Burning From Scratch. Enjoy.

Day Eighty-Five: Still Fightin' the Good Fight...

Although move-in weekend was quite warm, it was unseasonably so. Now, it's back to 50-some degrees, and my apartment is chilly. I'm also getting quite sick of crock-pot leftovers and having to drive ten minutes to a hot shower, but such is life. It's only been three days -- you'd think I would have more endurance than this. However, I don't.

I'm off to make up my sofa bed and watch some prime-time major network television from the ten channels I get on my TV.

I'm really very lucky. But heat is one of those things you really don't think about until you don't have it. I'm not FREEZING, but I am uncomfortably chilly.

PECO had better turn my gas on on Saturday, or I'm going to drive down there myself and kick some ass.

I swear, the decent writing is coming.

Day Eighty-Four: Still Truckin'

I'm still dying. I spent all day unpacking and I physically cannot stop moving. I think I have an illness. I can't sit still for more than five minutes, because I find something else to do.

PLEASE SAVE ME.

Day Eighty-Three: So Tired

I have moved, and I am exhausted. I have internet, as there are many connections around me. This is good. I scratched my car and I won't have hot water/gas stove/heat for a week.

Stories to follow.

Must sleep.

MUST.

Day Eight-Two: A Dry and Barren Land

I warn you, dear friends and sparse readers, that I will be without internet for a week, beginning tomorrow. So I may not be able to post everyday, but I will still be writing everyday. I still might be not writing quality reading, because I'm losing my mind and I've lost my dedication to this blog (but my new one will be FABULOUS), but I will be dedicated. I vowed to write everyday for a year, and I will do that.

I will write SOMETHING everyday.

Today, I'm writing to say a tentative goodbye, as I travel away to a dry and barren land, devoid of internet.

Goodbye, readers! (Few readers....no readers....)

Day Eighty-One: I Have to Wonder...

If Julie Powell had been moving WHILE she was in the middle of cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, would she have fallen behind? Probably. Then again, she also didn't cook every single day.

I, on the other hand, am writing every single day. It's annoying. And in the middle of moving, it's feeling like more and more of a chore. There's no joy left. I can't wait to start my new project and actually get some feeling back in my creativity. This is just so damn stupid, at this point.

I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm dirty. I've packed, I've gone up and down stairs for an hour, and I've packed all my crap up. I want a snack, a conversation with my boyfriend, and sleep. I'll probably get one of those.

Day Eighty: Thanks, Spring

As much as I love spring, I remembered today why spring and I so often do not get along as well as I would like. Today at around 3 PM, I got one of those stubborn, unwielding headaches that can only be cured by a couple Sudafed, possibly a few Advil, and a good, solid nap. Unfortunately, I had only the Advil.

With spring, plants grow. Grass grows, flowers grow, and pollen, seeds, and whathaveyou float freely and lively through the air. And they float up my nose, into my head, and make my sinuses swell. Spring has sprung, and so have my allergies. Stupid, stupid allergies.

So I'm sitting here trying to concentrate, when all my body wants is bed and a book, because the Advil wore off, and the Sudafed was too late (or may not have worked at all). Oh Spring, you are a double-edged sword...if that even makes sense.

Day Seventy-Nine: This is Really Stupid

At this point, I'm only continuing to write this simply because I promised myself I would, and for ONCE in my life, I NEED to finish something. I'm too tired to care, at the moment, I have nothing of interest to write about, because my entire life is consumed with moving and thinking about moving, and I've already written about that about six times.

I'm stuck, I'm annoyed, and I'm doing it for the sake of doing it. I'M certainly not interested.

But, as I mentioned before, the point of doing this was the journey, and that I needed to finish something, not the actual progress of doing it. I discovered another outlet for writing, and as soon as I get it up and running, I'm going to make that the haven of my daily writing ritual. But until I'm settled in my new home, there isn't much I can do except continue to write here and hope that I can fill a few paragraphs, stay conscious, and keep my promises.

I'm holding on for dear life, but I'm holding on. Only a few more days of pointless drivel...

Day Seventy-Eight: Daylight Savings Can Suck It

As much as I'm currently enjoying it being light out as I'm sitting here writing this, an hour after I've gotten home from work, I hate spring daylight savings.

For an extra hour of light, somehow the world manages to need a shift in the clocks at certain parts of the world, in order to function property. I, on the other hand, need that hour of sleep I lost. Even if I go to bed an hour earlier, the change in light level in the morning when I wake up still screws with my head enough to make me exhausted by four PM.

My clock needs that extra hour of darkness it was accustomed to. Maybe the world can easily adjust to being off by an hour, but I sure can't. So here I sit, exhausted at 7:00 PM. Hurray.

Day Seventy-Seven: It Needs to Stop Raining

It has now been raining for approximately forty-three hours. Trees have fallen down, mailboxes and street signs have uprooted themselves and died in a rather undignified manner beside roads and on people's waterlogged front lawns. Everything is so beyond wet, it can't even be called "wet" anymore. Soggy, liquified, and saturated are more accurate words. My boyfriend's bathroom has flooded, our backyard has a lovely brown stream running through the easement, and my dogs are tired of coming in damp smelly. Hello, spring.

While I'm definitely happy that spring is here (finally!), all this rain is a little concerning. Why are we having so much damn precipitation this year? Is THIS what global warming is doing? I don't understand, nor do I really care to, because it's sadly not going to keep me from using plastic trashbags or driving my non-electric car. But to think, that only a month ago this ridiculous amount of rain would have been an absolutely obscene amount of snow is a little too much to bear. And for that, I'm very, very thankful. But apparently, we're supposed to have ice here next week, and the temperature is still a chilly forty-five degrees, so spring isn't here in full-force just yet.

But the animals have come back into sight, and many of them seem to be enjoying being able to get out of hibernation or migration, or whatever it is that they do. And as a result, my dogs are barking at every little critter that wanders by the window, whether it be a bird, a rare squirrel, or another dog walking down the street, soggy from RAIN.

But FINALLY, spring is here.

Day Seventy-Six: Why Am I Doing This?

I was doing my laundry today, and in the middle of frantically putting pants out of the washer and throwing shirts into the dryer, and fishing for hangers, I mentally groaned and remembered that in addition to having to change my address, finish my laundry, pack most of the rest of my belongings, file my taxes, get changed for the concert I'm going to tonight, answer texts from my cousin, answer a thousand questions from my mother about absolutely nothing of importance, pack something to sleep in tonight, and get a moment to breathe, I had to WRITE.

Frankly, I'm out of crap to write about. My standards have gone down substantially since I first started posting, I doubt anybody actually reads it, and it's not getting me anywhere or any form of satisfaction, aside from actually finishing something for once (which I am a long way from doing). Maybe it's because I thought of a new and easy blog that will be focused, entertaining, easy to keep up with, and always easy to add to on a regular basis, without having to struggle for content. I'm considering, at this point, in discontinuing this blog and breaking new ground on my new one as soon as I start working on it.

I really think this could work. My topic, although I will not divulge it, is the type of thing that will allow me to write every single day, as it's something I'll have to do every single day, or almost everyday (to me at least, the topic now seems pretty obvious. But I still won't tell.) Would I be abandoning my project if I'm still writing everyday? And on the days that I happen to NOT write in my new blog, if I don't need to (because in reality, the only thing we really NEED to do everyday is wake up and eat eventually), I could write in this one.

Would I be a failure, or would the blog have served its purpose? This blog was started to get my creative juices flowing, and it has done just that. I've been somewhat inspired, partially by writing regularly. What do you think (if anyone's still reading?)

Day Seventy-Five: That Vacation Itch...

Although I'm not directly in front of a window at the moment, I know that it's raining. It might not be raining steadily or violently, but it's definitely raining. And sadly, it's going to ran not all day, but through next week. Although last weekend in it's sunny, balmly glory was a nice reprieve from winter chill, not every free day can be a winner.

So this weekend, I will be driving through the rain for forty-five minutes to see my insurance agent, back home, thirty minutes to Ikea with my dad to pick up furniture, and back home. I will be hauling numerous cumbersome boxes into my front door, damp and tripping over dogs. I will watch the yard fill up with water as I do my laundry and pack what's left my room into wet, soggy boxes. I will sit and watch it rain as I notify every annoying little company, organization, and government branch that my address will be changing. I will do my taxes, as it rains. And finally, I will trudge into the unknown basement of my new apartment building, through the mud and the muck, led by a seventy-five year-old man to locate the circuit breakers in my building.

This is not going to be a fun and exciting weekend.

Because it's just starting to get a little warmer, so the cold isn't bitter, but is utterly tolerable with a moderately-heavy light jacket, and the smell of awakening plants and soil fills the air, that I find I really, really want to go on vacation. I'm itching for the possibility of summer, when for some unknown reason, it seems easier to leave life behind and venture somewhere different and a little more exciting. I want to make new memories with people I love. I want to see places I haven't seen before. Which is ironic, because I'm not seeing grass and plants in my own hometown that I haven't seen in months.

Although my financial situation is about to get a lot tighter and more strict, I can't help but think about where I'd like to go on vacation this year. In past years, my boyfriend and I have gone and stayed at a characteristic pink-and-green motel in Wildwood, where the pool is hand-dug and painted blue, the beds are rock hard, and the owner is extremely sweet. Last year, it rained for days before we got there, and through the first day of our visit, flooding the streets like I have never seen roadways flood before. We left a boardwalk movie theater to pouring down rain, and ran along the boardwalk and through the streets, flooded two-inches high in some places. We arrived at our favorite Mexican restaurant with its trendy decor and lounge-like feel absolutely soaking wet and probably not appropriately attired. We didn't care. I bitched a lot then, but now I look back on it fondly. I want to make more memories like that.

I considered, perhaps sometime in April, going to visit my friend in California. We could go to wine tastings and ride bikes up near Napa Valley. But unfortunately, I'm not sure a plane ticket is really in the cards at the moment. But regardless, I want to go somewhere, even if it's not far at all. I'm sure at least once I'll go visit my cousin in her newly-acquired studio condo along the boardwalk, and I'm sure she'll come visit me in my not-so-studio, not-so-condo, and definitely not-so-along the boardwalk apartment.

Maybe, since I'm finally getting my affairs in order, it's not a bad time to start thinking about saving for a little vacation. Where should I go?

Day Seventy-Four: Strive for Perfection

From the time that I was very young, I was taught to try my best at everything. I was taught that to give your all at everything you do means to live your best life, and take advantage of your full potential. I was taught to get the best I can, too: the best opportunities, that is. But the more I learn about life, I wonder how hard I should try for the best opportunities in life. At what point are we supposed to sacrifice something that's good, and try for something better?

There are plenty of people in the world who live in mediocre relationships, and have mediocre or somewhat good jobs. They're not 100% happy in their relationships, or maybe they like their jobs for the most part, but not all the time. Is it more important to look for a better opportunity, and search for a job that makes you 100% happy all the time? Although it's extremely difficult, a lot of people live their lives like that, striving to be 100% happy. But is it really possible? What's wrong with being 80% happy, or mostly happy? Is it possible for anyone to be 100% happy with the person they're with, all the time?

Call me pessimistic, but I don't think so. I don't think it's really possible to be 100% happy with every situation you're in. A lot of people may like their jobs, but they don't like certain things about it, or certain situations that arise in their jobs. And a lot of people may really love the person they're with, but almost everybody gets annoyed with the person they're with sometimes, or not like certain things about their partner.

So maybe, it's okay to have a life with flaws. A wise person told me not to long ago that if you're happy in the moment, it doesn't really make a difference to try to plan out your future. If you're mostly happy, and mostly content, why give up something perfectly good in your life because something better might come along? I don't think you should.

Day Seventy-Three: March of the Irish

Quite quickly, that joyous time of year when green adorns the doors, windows, and clothing of every person of Irish heritage approaches. We’ll cook up our ham and cabbage and nosh on Irish Potatoes. But many people, more likely those who don’t work on Thursdays (but many who do) will engage in that raucous activity that the Irish are so well-known for: drinking.


There will be parties, bar crawls, various types of “fests”, and more Guinness than I would ever be able to stand. People of 100% Italian heritage will put on plastic green beads and stumble drunkenly with pints of heavy beers in hand. Because apparently, on St. Patrick’s Day “Everyone is Irish”. Personally, I think this is a load of crap.

I don’t want any misunderstandings here, please. I am not opposed to a holiday that urges people to drink copious amounts of alcohol and bond with others in the fashion of singing and toasting, but why do it at the expense of the poor Irish? I’m not offended by the holiday, I just wonder how it got to be a celebration of drinking and debauchery. I’m about half Irish, yet I have never participated in a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, nor have I ever really had a strong desire to. Sure, it might be fun to go out once, but how would it be unlike any other Saturday night at a bar, except more crowded, and they’d dye the Miller Lite green? It seems like not that great of a time, anyway. It just gives many people an excuse to start drinking at 9 AM.

How the Irish came to be known as heavy drinkers, I will never know, which may be a poor testament to my Irish heritage. Maybe, I should know, but I honestly don’t. Not to say they’re heavy drinkers, but why don’t Italians get a day? Why Chinese-Americans get a day? I guess I’m happy that the Irish get a day, but why is it surrounded by mascots, rainbows, marshmallow cereal, beer, and small plant-life? How did we get so marketable? Ok, so Italians have Little Caesar and Chef Boyardee, which aren’t really great cultural mascots, but really, how did we get stuck with a little man with red hair?

Again, I’m not offended, just interested and slightly amused. Where did these come from? Did the Irish get the cartoon mascots and products because we were, at one point, one of the more populous of the heritages in the United States ? Do they have Lucky Charms over in Ireland ? I’m willing to bet not, but it would be an interesting thing to note.

Well, anyway, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Day Seventy-Two: I Am Officially a Renter

After a tedious thirty minutes of initialling and signing and being explained that there was possibly lead paint under twenty-seven coats of non-lead-based paint and that I shouldn't lick the walls, I am a renter. I handed over two-thousand dollars and a smile, to receive a handshake and a pending phone call.

I'm moving out. And it feels pretty damn weird, but a good kind of weird.

The realtor man who works for the owner of the building, who happens to be an Asian dentist, is a very nice old man who used to be an engineer. But aside from conducting business and making phone calls, he is painstakingly slow. My father and I watched as he read over text, flipped pages, and re-read them again over the course of ten minutes. In between pages, he asked my patient and tired father what he did for a living, where he worked, how far his commute was, where he went to school, and how long he'd been in his career. With as much patience as he could muster, I'm sure, he answered his questions as I willed him to move just slightly faster. We weren't in a rush, but considering as we met him at ten-after six, I would have liked to eat before seven PM. All we had to do was sign five pages and hand over a check. It was not a process that should have taken over thirty minutes.

But nevertheless, he's a very nice man who does things efficiently, although a little slowly, and who allowed me the opportunity to rent my first apartment. So now I wait for my key, and then I can move in. It's been a long, and emotional process, but I've made it. I'm moving out!

Day Seventy-One: It's So Hard to Find a Good Restaurant These Days...

One of the first things my boyfriend and I bonded over was our love of Mexican food and flavors. If it has some sort of cheese, diced tomato, and chilis in it, we will eat it and love it. But despite our love of flavors South of the Border, we are hard-pressed to find a really good Mexican restaurant near us. But thankfully, a lot of people love Mexican food, so there are plenty of restaurants near us...unfortunately, none of them are good enough.

My favorite Mexican restaurant is a staple in my life. My parents have been taking me there since as far back as I could remember, and I always loved it. I love the atmosphere, the delicious Tex-Mex flavors, the music, and the free mints they give you when you're done eating. And it makes it even better that it's a local, home-grown business, devoid of any outside chain influence. The best part about the place is that completely by coicidence, I will be living exactly one block from it in two weeks. Beautiful.

Unfortunately, my Mecca of deliciousness is a bit pricey for anything more than a special occasion. And, unfortunately, my beau has a stubborn streak with restaurants, and one bad experience is enough to scratch it from his list of eateries. He once went to the bar on the first floor (the restaurant is on the second) and was thrown a snide comment about tipping (which he always does more than adequately), which was enough to make him angry. Thus, my favorite restaurant is not somewhere we can go together. Lame.

We've had bad service at a few other places, and others are simply too far to drive to. But we finally thought we found the perfect spot for us to go when a new, large, very authentic restaurant opened up about ten minutes from us. So we've been there a few times now, and all has been well. We had maybe one bout of bad service, but the food is so good and so affordable that we set it aside. But last night, after a lovely meal, we got a free gift with our meal that is never welcome and lasts a lot longer than the lingering, delicious taste of guacamole and chipotle peppers.

So, do we go back?

I'm seriously beginning to doubt it. But if anyone knows of a good, affordable, independent Mexican restaurant in the area with a good track record and a nice reputation, PLEASE let me know. Because I'm getting desperate.

Day Seventy: Reality is Setting In

I stumbled into my house this morning in pajama pants and a little bit of sleep under my belt, and took to separating my clean clothes from my dirty ones from the night before. Almost immediately, my phone buzzed energetically. Much to my dismay, it was the realtor I've been dealing with about my apartment. While he is a very, very nice man, and quite efficient, he bothers me incessantly. I'm convinced he thinks I am running around in circles with absolutely no sense of time-management or responsibility. Although he almost always gives me good news, he calls more more times than not to bug me to do something that is going as quickly as possible, or something I haven't forgotten about that he is convinced I have.

"Hi Kristen!," he said. He went on, asking me (two weekend days after I picked it up) if my lawyer has had the opportunity to look over the copy of the lease we gave him, and when we could set up a time to sign. My lawyer, who also happens to be my uncle, had gotten the lease in his hands not two hours before my realtor called me. I was not pleased.

I told him patiently that he was reviewing the lease, and that when he got back to me, we could set up a time immediately to sign the lease. "Well the owner goes away for the weekends," he said warily. "We need to get it to him by the middle of the week, I would think, so he can sign it by the fifteenth." I was slightly annoyed. He could have gotten the lease to me a little sooner, or at least warned me that it was an extremely pressing issue, before calling me and bugging me for a day this week. But regardless of the phone conversation, the shock hit me after I got off the phone: I'm going to have a new place to live the middle of this week.

Although I knew it was coming up, it snuck up on me incredibly quickly. I would sign the lease this week, and move in next week. NEXT WEEK. Next week, half my belongings will be in another place, and this time next week, I will be living in a completely different place. It's a very weird concept. I am very ready, but psychologically, it's going to be extremely weird. I will not be living in the place that I have called home for the past twenty-four years of my life. I will have a new home. I'll use a different shower, cook in a different kitchen, and sleep in a different bed.

This is going to take some adjustment.

Day Sixty-Nine: The Wonderful World of Ikea

This afternoon, in a depressed and "damn-it-all" state, I drove for thirty minutes to my nearest wonderland of furniture, Ikea. Ikea and I have had a long and joyous relationship, and they never let me down. Granted, I have gone to Ikea to window shop and write down things I want to buy someday more times than I have actually gone to Ikea to buy anything, but it's a fascinating walk-through Please-Touch museum of buyables and ingenious household items for Walmart prices. It's trendy, it's colorful, and the best part is, it's instant and you get to build the furniture yourself. I love Ikea.

Most people don't want to be hassled with pulling a cardboard box heavier than themselves, full of various pieces of fiberboard that they have to piece together themselves with a set of Lego-like instructions and an Allen wrench. I'm assuming, that most people go to Ikea because they can get nice-looking furniture at insanely cheap prices. I, actually, love building Ikea furniture. On several occasions, I have said that if I ever fail at all other things in my life I want to acheive, I will become a professional Ikea furniture assembler. I love piecing pre-cut wood together to create furniture I can actually use. To me, it's a grand project that gives me tangible and proud results. So I entered the epic theme park of furniture with a coming sense of accomplishment.

As I steered my huge cart in and out of crowds of wandering parents and screaming children, I collected a scarf rack, a couple lamps, a set of kitchen tongs, five sets of curtains, two oven mitts, a small saucepot, and a kitchen tool canister, and a mirror for $100. Although it was absolutely insanely crowded and I wanted to run everyone down with my cart, I still enjoyed the experience, and got a lot accomplished.

I did not, however, buy any furniture. And it was this trip to Ikea that gave me a good idea of why people might possibly hate buying their own "assembly required" furniture.

As I dutifully walked my cart up the appropriate aisle for my small, light, and affordable coffee table and stopped at the designated bin, I surveyed the size of the box holding my bits of table, and then the size of the cart. Although the cart was huge, the box was huge-r. And although the coffee table was small and light, the box was not-so-small, and definitely NOT light. I tugged at the box in vain, moving it only a few inches off it's stack of friends. I could not do this myself. I would need to return with a strong man, and possibly a sport utility vehicle. A dark cloud loomed over my sense of handiness.

So although building my furniture might be fun, I'm a little frightened about getting it home...and up three flights of stairs, for that matter. Building it will probably be fun, assuming I don't screw up and end up with a Picasso-esque coffee table and dresser. But I am becoming more and more grateful that I inherited a side table, a TV stand, and a couch. But I suppose we'll see.

Day Sixty-Eight: Marshmallows

As is probably evident to anyone who actually reads my blog by now, I am a somewhat adventurous eater. I will try almost anything once if it can be eaten, unless it comes from an animal that I can't bear to look at either alive OR dead, or from a part of an animal that I feel is absolutely not meant to be eaten. I will not, for example, under any circumstances, ever try eyeballs, tripe, or bone marrow. But aside from that, I'm open to a lot of different foods, I just haven't had the opportunity to try a lot of things (mostly because I'm too poor to go to restaurants that serve unconventional foods, or I don't know how to cook them myself). But there is one food, and actually the ONLY food, that completely grosses me out: marshmallows.

I. Hate. Marshmallows. Texture is a huge thing for me when it comes to eating. I love crunchy, I love melty, I and I love velvety. I do not, however, love the undescribable texture that is marshmallow. To me, although it tastes simply of sugar, the texture is a gooey mess that immediately adheres to the inside of the mouth as soon as it comes in contact with saliva, and clings like a spider monkey to your gums and tongue. To even think about it sends me into mental convulsions. When I eat a marshmallow, I feel like my mouth is being assaulted by a sugary, slimy, napalm that attacks my senses and feels like culinary nails on a chalkboard. Needless to say, I avoid it at all costs.

Unfortunately, it puts me at a culinary disadvantage. I don't eat Rice Krispies treats, several kinds of ice cream and a bunch of kinds of candy. It hurts my heart when perfectly good and delicious foods, like hot chocolate, cereal, and sweet potatoes are marred by a food I consider as inedible as an insect. And naturally, the Easter season makes me queasy.

Stores are lined with walls and walls of colored sugar-covered birds and rabbits, that while appealing and colorful, are deceitful. In rare cases (twice in my life, in fact) that I have attempted to eat a Peep, I have taken a small bite and given the rest to my Peep-addicted mother. I watch in disdain as she sets packages and packages of Peeps out weeks in advance to stale just slightly, so they get a mildly chewy texture. I have tried, in vain, to do my own doctoring to Peeps such that I might find them tolerable, but all methods have failed. Staled peeps still get slimy. I've tried to put Peeps in the microwave for a very short amount of time, with the hypothesis that the microwave will suck the moisture out of the Peep and make it crunchy. Instead, it just got untolerably chewy and brown (I never was very good at science).

Although my tastes have evolved slightly throughout my life, such that I now eat things I have not enjoyed in the past, such as asparagus and coffee, I still cannot enjoy a marshmallow. I don't know if I will ever not hate them, but I did successfully eat a single mini marshmallow in college on a dare without gagging. But at least during this Easter season, marshmallow and I are still in an epic battle. I hate them, and they taunt me.

Day Sixty-Seven: We Can't Save the World

I have been fortunate enough in life to not have to see much tragedy. I've seen some: a boy I went to high school with died in a car crash, I've known people who had terrible childhoods. But I've never actually seen real tragedy and sadness up close. I've been lucky enough to not lose anyone who didn't die of old age, or watch a pet die of the same. But not long ago, I saw real tragedy occur as close to me as I ever had.

Sometimes, situations can't be helped. But to think that somehow in the process of watching something innocent and sad happen to an undeserving being, we could have done something to prevent it from happening, it's a thought that can't be easily pushed away. Could I have done something better? What about the situation could I have changed? And once we realize that there may not have been anything we could do to change the outcome, we still feel guilty. And that's where I am now.

And it's terrible. It's difficult. And I don't know what to say about it.

Day Sixty-Six: I Don't Know How To Argue

One day at work, while sitting and enjoying lunch with my two friends, an uncomfortable conversation ensued. One of my friends, who is a practicing Catholic, was complaining that she couldn't eat a cheeseburger because it was a Friday, and on Fridays during Lent, Catholics can't eat meat, as part of it being a sacrificial season. My other friend looked at her in disdain and said, "MMM, boy, this meat is REALLY GOOD." This is not a new topic of disagreement between the two of them. One thinks she has no say in the matter, and the fact that she is Catholic dictates her actions such that she must fast in such a way. The other, who I am inclined to agree with, thinks that she has absolutely no right to complain because it is a choice she makes as part of her religious beliefs, but she is not at all obligated by any force outside of her control. She may not be able to control her beliefs, but she can absolutely control her actions, and if it weren't difficult, it wouldn't be a sacrifice and that would defeat the purpose.

In any case, I was tired of being in the middle of this bitter point of contention between the two of them. "We are not having this conversation again," I said briskly, trying to avoid the awkward situation that had already occurred twice in the past two weeks.

My Catholic friend looked at me and said, "you really don't like confrontation, do you?" In a state of shock, I thought for a moment. "Well, no," I said. I didn't. But I also didn't want to be put in the middle of another argument that I did not want to be a part of. "You know what bothers me about you?," she asked me. Startled and shocked that she was annoyed at ME at that moment, I defensively protested. "You don't know how to argue."

I didn't know how to argue? My other friend looked at me in an effort to elaborate. "You're not Italian, are you?," she asked. In truth, I'm about 1/4 Italian and had an Italian grandmother, but I didn't have any characteristics of being of strong Italian culture. I asked them, in piecing the conversation together, if that's just naturally how Italians argued, then. They both agreed.

Apparently, Italians can argue for hours on end without having feelings of actual anger towards another person. This is completely foreign to me.

How can you have a point of annoyance towards someone and not feel slightly angry towards them? I was utterly confused.

But apparently, I don't know how to argue.

Day Sixty-Five: No Time to Write

I have currently reached yet another landmark in the wonderful world if writing daily that I have not encountered before. Today is the first day in sixty-five days that I, honest to God, do not have time to write. I didn't have time at lunch, and I am going to a concert tonight immediately after work, where afterwards I will crash at my boyfriend's house in an attempt to get enough sleep to make it through work tomorrow without stress or discomfort. So that leaves me with now.

While I feel both guilty and rushed that I have to piece together points of my day when I can fit in a few sentences, here and there, unfortunately there isn't much I can do. I suppose, in hindsight, I could have gotten up earlier, or I could stay up later this evening, but of course, I didn't think of that. I'm also pretty unhappy with my choice of topic, but it seemed appropriate, since it is the only thing I'm really capable of focusing on at the moment. So here I sit, writing about writing once again.

And, as usual, writing about writing isn't interesting to read, I'm sure, so instead, picture me sitting in front of a computer, sweaty and frazzled from doing twelve other things, tied to my desk for a second. In between answering a ringing phone roughly every forty seconds, I'm typing furiously in order to get down a paragraph, or even a few sentences before I lose my chance. It's 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, I'm hungry, I'm slightly stressed out, and I'm writing. And it's times like these when I really don't want to be writing but would much rather be sitting and collecting my thoughts and my sanity for a moment when I feel most proud of myself, because as mentioned before, I never finish anything.

So sixty-five days in, I may be writing about writing, but I'm writing just the same. I'm busier than a rat at a carnival (get the Charlotte's Web reference, please), but I'm writing. And for me, that means something pretty spectacular. It means that maybe I am capable of actually finishing something, and maybe I am capable of following through on a commitment I make to myself. Sure, I don't eat healthy all the time even though I promised myself I would, and I didn't cut out all refined sugar for a month, like I promised myself I would, but two months into writing, I'm still doing it. And I've still done it everyday. And that's pretty spectacular.

Day Sixty-Four: Bad Food is Delicious

Within this epic health-kick I have going on, I made a few minor errors. For one, I had a couple of Bloody Mary's on Saturday night and topped them off with a greasy, delicious, authentic Philadelphia cheesesteak. And yesterday, after making my peanut-allergic boyfriend some oil-saturatated Chinese food (because he'll die if he eats the real thing, more than likely), I bought a bag of Hershey's Special Dark Minatures. And although I felt guilty about the Chinese food (because I'm not a huge fan of Lo Mein), the cheesesteak and the chocolate were delicious, which just shows me that no health food, no matter how good it makes me feel, is a replacement for good, amazing junk food.

There's a reason so many people eat junk food: because it tastes amazing. Sure, it might make you feel pretty terrible and possibly gain weight, but it's so delicious, that every once in awhile it just absolutely has to be had. I still enjoy my Kashi products, and eating good, lean meals make me feel more energetic and lighter. But there's something about a juicy, greasy, cheesy sandwich at midnight that just makes you feel alive and happy about life. Would I want one everyday? Probably not, because I'd feel terrible. But eating delicious, greasy food while I'm having some fun just makes the experience a little more fun. I love granola, but I also love nachos. I love carrots, but I also really love dark chocolate.

So I came home from work, at a sensible, well-portioned meal, and then ate five pieces of candy. And you know what? I don't feel bad about it. Eating some bad food every once in awhile is not going to kill me. Eating it on a regular basis, however, will. But it's the little things in life that really makes it worth living. If I were fifty and diabetic, I might have to eat like I do. But I don't, and that's what makes it better. I have the youth and the freedom to choose how I eat without having serious consequences. So sit back and eat some chocolate and a cheesesteak every one in awhile.

Day Sixty-Three: Gnomes

Since I am currently in the process of packing my stuff up to move out of my house, I am finding a lot of things I completely forgot I had. So in the midst of packing up four boxes of books, a box of CDs, and
two boxes of DVDs I completely forgot I had, I found the only thing I really ever collected: gnomes.

I never really did understand why I was so drawn to garden gnomes, with their cheerful, peaceful expressions, their wisened, grey looks, and their red and green clothing. But as a teenager, as other girls
were collecting teen magazines, I was collecting little happy yard-dwellers.

I have five or six gnomes now, of all shapes and sizes. One is riding a turtle, one's got a book, and one is a wee one-inch tall. I used to place them in corners of my room and in strange places, seeming as though they were peeking out of their hiding places. For some reason, they felt like little talismans, that protected me from forces of evil.

But when I left for college, my mother dutifully collected them all and lined them up in the top of my closet. "They creep me out," she said. It was understandable.

But now as I'm going to be entering a new place, I'm looking forward to be putting my happy little gnomes back where they'll be hiding in corners of my room.

And yes. I realize I'm extremely weird.

Day Sixty-Two: The Wonder of a Cheeseburger

So I wrote a couple days ago about possibly starting a food blog, like the cheeseburger blog I saw. I also mentioned that it made me really, REALLY want a cheeseburger. What I didn't mention, is that my quest for a cheeseburger has not waned since then. I had a serious jonesin' for a beefy, cheesy goodness.

Despite the fact that I've eaten pretty much nothing but fruits, vegetables, and whole grains for the past two and a half weeks, I was definitely willing, although slightly sad, to break my health kick for one beautiful, loaded, drippy cheeseburger. So I set aside the salad I packed myself for lunch on Friday and got the cafe's Kobe sliders for lunch instead. They were minature morsels of cheeseburger joy, with little potato bread buns. But upon biting into the well-prepared small plate item, I was supremely disappointed. The cheeseburger had not been nearly as good as I remembered it.

I sat in dismay, disappointed that I had broken my good eating for something so unsatisfying. Yet, I was even more disappointed that I still had an extreme craving for a good, juicy burger. So I knew I would have to follow the old saying: if you want something done right, do it yourself.

So I traipsed to the grocery store and purchased a pound of mostly-lean ground beef and a pack of whole-wheat buns (there's no reason to not make a good choice or two, right?). I walked home, and faced a mild fear I have: cooking ground beef. I always grew up learning from God knows where that ground beef, if not cooked through, would probably kill you. And I heard from many cooking shows that cooking a burger brown would probably be disgusting. So with the little cooking practice and high enthusiasm I have, I had to somehow cook a burger perfect enough to quell my craving. So I seared the patty, let it sit a few minutes on each side, and watched as juices ran out. After about ten minutes or so of eying the meat suspiciously, I took it off the skillet and let it rest for a few minutes. Then, I began the burger-building process. I toasted both sides of the bun, layered some sliced onion, laid down the brown burger-y goodness with a melty slice of American cheese on top, then added a tomato and a pickle, ketchup and mustard, capped it off, and admired its beauty.

And then I ate it. I ate it in five minutes, and it was glorious.

Although the meat was a little overcooked, it wasn't dry. It had all the glory of a good burger, and although it was greasy and fatty and drippy, I felt only slightly unhappy about my unhealthy choice. And I really, really hope I don't want another burger for another long while.

But when in doubt, always eat the burger.

Day Sixty-One: Oh, Walmart...

To me, Walmart is one of those places I always associated with terrible, horrible things. When the first one opened up in my town when I was still a wee youngin', my mom and I went to check it out, and were amazed and shocked by the sheer size of the place. And then, as others found out about it, it became not only the most crowded retail location in the entire town, but also became a hang out and haven for the strangest and most unsavory of characters within a ten-mile radius. Keep in mind, I do not live in the Boondocks -- I live about forty minutes outside of a city center, where it is uncommon for us to raise pigs, and we definitely do not eat rabbit. But regardless, Walmart became a loathesome, brain-damaging place.

But every once in awhile, as years passed, by my mother's suggestion, we would venture out to one of the three Walmarts in the area to either look for something we think they might sell, or something my mom needed that the Giant Warehouse of Doom carried at a heinously cheap and annoying Rollback Price. But with a shudder and a sense of hope and slight optimism, I would accompany her to Walmart. But as predicted, after fifteen minutes of navigating around families of ten who left mammoth shopping carts in main thoroughfare aisles without care, and bargain-seeking, resourceful immigrants yelling loudly to each other across my path in languages I couldn't comprehend, I got claustrophobic and ran from the store in a panicked frenzy, swearing never to return. And finally, after about six months ago, I finally squeezed the last ounce of hope that Walmart experiences would get better out of my person, and hadn't been there since...

...until today.

After hours and days of looking for bedding for my new apartment that I liked enough to spend too much money on, I finally found the perfect set -- at Walmart. As the website stated it was only available online, I breathed a sigh of relief, and enjoyed the fact that I would be getting an entire set, including sheets, for forty-five dollars. I was ecstatic. That is, I was ecstatic until it was never in stock, EVER, because 10,000 other people were just as ecstatic as me. And then, magically, as if a gift from God, a nearby Walmart carried my bedding. I didn't think twice about venturing into the terrible hurricane of consumerism to get my coveted comforter.

But where I ended up was not just a Walmart. It was a twenty-four hour SUPER Walmart. It had a full grocery store, plenty of space, lots of neat organization, and aisles and aisles of cheap. And better yet, because it was open all the time it was NOT CROWDED. I could have spent hours in there, easily buying item after item without ruining my newly required budget. I have actually, for some strange reason, become enthralled by a Walmart. I feel slightly lower-class, but still excited.

I could spend HOURS and HOURS in this particular Walmart. I could go at 2 AM on a Saturday, when there was no one there, and go grocery shopping. It's a glorious concept. And while I'm still terrified of Walmarts, this Walmart is my friend. I am actually, dare I say it, looking forward to going back to a Walmart.

Who have I become? Or has someone, SOMEWHERE, actually improved a Walmart?

Day Sixty: Who Cares!

While at work today, I came across a wonderful, amazing blog called "A Hamburger Today". After reading about and looking at probably a hundred hamburgers and cheeseburgers over the course of an hour. I REALLY wanted a cheeseburger. I also wanted a food blog. And so, I want to do something similar, just for the hell of it. While the food I'm going to write about will remain a mystery, it's a project I'm going to start probably this weekend. It's going to be informal and fun, without time constraint or minimum posts. And in thinking about my new, fun endeavor, I had another one of those epiphanies I get.

I've started trying to not put as much pressure on myself lately, in terms of my future, where I want to be, what I wanted to be doing, and who I want to make happy. And strangely and miraculously, I'm finding it easier to be creative. Doing simple things that aren't meant to impress anyone seem like fun to me again. I'm feeling happier already. And it's pretty pretty amazing.

So today is hopefully the launch of a new bout of creativity. Hopefully I will have more to offer and share, and with that, I cut things short today, because honestly, who am I trying to impress? I'm writing to keep the habit up, which is good, but there's no reason for me to put pressure on myself to write enough in volume, or profoundly enough, or interestingly enough. But I would still like to come up with decent endings...

Day Fifty-Nine: No More Snow

As is typical nowadays, Mother Nature is planning to dump a foot or so of snow in my area tonight through Friday (when you'll be reading this, it will have been snowing for over twelve hours, and will continue snowing for about another four or five hours). And I have gotten to the point in this long, long winter that I simply could not care any less about snow this year.

Let me preface by saying to anyone who reads this who DOESN'T live in my state (which is probably no one) that I don't live in a place where snow is expected with winter, like Utah or North Dakota. Here, we don't wear parkas in ten-below zero weather out to work everyday like it's nothing. Here, the lowest it gets in temperature during the day is somewhere in the twenties in the dead of winter, like January or parts of February. It snows a few times a year, and usually we get one or two good snows of six-inches to a foot. But not this year. This year, we've gotten two huge snowstorms, back-to-back, and another storm of about six inches, I think. And tonight, it's going to snow another foot.

I've already felt the childlike magic and the giddiness that comes with a nice snowstorm. I've had two snow days off from work (one of them was a personal day, unfortunately). I've watched my dogs play in the snow, I've shoveled out my car and other people's cars, and I've shoveled the driveway and the deck. I've made snowballs. Now, I just don't care anymore.

No, I don't care that it's going to snow. I'm not mad, because that would be completely pointless and counterproductive, given that I can do absolutely nothing about the weather. But on a very basic level, I don't care about the snow. I am not acknowledging the snow. In my mind, it isn't going to snow at all until it's actually snowing and I'm driving in it. I am refusing to let the snow win and take another personal day. And on the very slim chance that the office decides to close early tomorrow because heavy, angry, windy snow will have been accumulating for about twelve hours at that point, I won't be happy, even if I get a free half-day off.

Why, you ask? Because I will have NOTHING to do. There's nothing cozy and fun about being snowed in anymore this year. Now, it's just annoying. It's like being on house arrest, where my only options are knitting a scarf I don't need, re-reading a book I've already read, doing my laundry, watching whatever TV my dad is watching at the time, or taking a nap. But then again, I suppose I could actually do something artsy, which, in turn, might be the world's way of getting me to start being more creative.

But tomorrow, it's me versus the snow. And I'm prepared to win.

Day Fifty-Eight: Why Am I Doing This?

For fifty-eight days, I have been sitting down at a computer and writing. I write about life, I write about moving, cooking, dogs, people, and things that annoy me. For fifty-eight days, I've chronicled my thoughts habitually. For fifty-eight days, I've formed words into sentences, and sentences into roughly-hewn paragraphs. And I can't for the life of me remember why I started writing everyday.

I know I didn't want to bore myself, and that I felt like I needed to use the talents God gave me rather than let them sit in my brain and do nothing while I aged and got old and too busy to do it anymore. But really, now I realize that it doesn't really make a difference. If I like it, I should do it, and if I don't, then why does it matter? Luckily, I like it. I like sitting down to write everyday, assuming I can think of something to write about. Most of the time, unfortunately, I can't think of anything decent to write about, but I usually come up with something somewhat decent and put something together. My first few posts were a much higher caliber of writing than a lot of what I have been writing lately -- more descriptive, less introspective, and more creative with a larger range of vocabulary. But it occurred to me this evening that I have been writing so habitually that I don't even think about why I do it anymore: because I like it.

I make myself write everyday because I'm lazy, and given the opportunity I will many times lay on the couch and watch Food Network over doing just about any kind of personally enriching creative activity. And I think in that regard, I'm doing the right thing. But I have to be doing it for the right reason, too. And thankfully, I think I am.

It reminds me on a regular basis why I chose to go to college for writing, and why at one point I wanted to make it my career. Because I love it, and it comes fairly naturally to me. So I'll keep doing it, because I need a kick in the ass. And maybe at some point, I'll strengthen my weakness of being absolutely terrible at coming up with decent conclusions to things I write about.

Fifty-Seven: Why I Don't Want to Live with Other People

When I was in college, I had many a-roommate. I had clean roommates, dirty roommates, social roommates, and antisocial roommates. But no one ever compared to my roommates my senior year of college.

Let me preface by saying that I really liked the friends I lived with senior year. We had a lot of fun together, and we were all just the right amount of weird to mesh well together. My best friend and I had a "room of Ex-Stuff," which held all of the gifts/borrowed items from significant others we broke up with our senior year. It was adorned by a futon, a very large stuffed animal, some strange animal gifts, a weird free lamp my friend won from Ikea that was shaped like an ice cube, and I vaguely remember some sort of old mattress-like object. I remember fondly of our one friend and roommate spending hours dominating the television, sitting three feet from the screen building some sort of spaceship for Kingdom Hearts, and of the a giant plastic wall hanging of The King that greeted us in his Memphis glory when we walked in the door. It was a great year.

But not everything was peachy, that year. We all had our different ways of living, and they occasionally clashed dramatically. For example, I absolutely require that I wash most of the dishes from a meal before I sit down and eat it. I cannot eat if there's a huge mess waiting for my food-logged person to clean up in angst afterwards. My roommates, however, could happily leave piles of dishes in the sink for days, using the dishwasher mostly as a cabinet for storing clean dishes until it was emptied. Only then would the old ones be put into the dishwasher and washed and the process would start over again.

I also distinctly remember a time when I walked in the door to see my best friend with a look of foul disturbance on her face. "What's wrong?," I asked. It turns out a bag of potatoes that had held on for a very, very long time on top of the refrigerator had gone rancid, and we got to see what happens to a potato that is truly, truly past its prime. They leaked a foul-smelling liquid that ran liberally down the side of the refrigerator, causing a terrible mess and an absolutely abhorrent smell.

This, my dears, is why I do not want to live with other people.

I grew up in a house that was nothing short of immaculate most of the time. The carpets were almost always vacuumed, the tabletops dusted, and rarely a food spoiled before the expiration date was checked and the food was thrown away. While my standards are significantly lower than my mothers (I haven't dusted my room in too long to remember), I cannot tolerate rotten food or dishes in the sink. When I come home from work, I want to chill out and be myself, not worry about what has been destroyed in my absence, or what I'm going to get pissed about. For once in my life, I want to be responsible for myself and no one else.

If there's a dish in the sink, I want it to be mine. End of story.

Day Fifty-Six: Snow Tubing

Snow tubing has always been one of those activities that looked like a pretty good time to me. What's not to like? You go down a giant, snow-covered hill in a canvas-covered tube, and you don't even have to drag your vessel (or your person) up the hill to do it again. You get hitched to a wire that drags you and your tube up the hill to the top. But unfortunately, like most things, tubing is much more fun and exciting in theory than in actuality. I learned this last night.

Upon arrival, we stuck those annoying lift tags onto our zippers, and trudged to the back end of the resort to the tubing lift. The air was clean, crisp, and beautiful, and the lights sparkled off the snow and ice in the dark evening. The hill looked steep and exciting, and the mountain was sparsely littered with skiiers and snowboarders.

And then we saw the line for tubing.

A line snaked around the back of the hill, about fifty feet back. It didn't look that bad, but it moved incredibly slowly. It is absolutely not a good activity to engage in by yourself -- bring a friend to talk to for the half hour of time you're in line waiting to be hitched to your inner tube. As we chatted and finally reached out destination, a long-haired, efficient man in a snow hat lifted a tube from a self-made chute that led down from the bottom of the track above us, hurled it in front of me, and waited for me to sit. Then he waited for a hook to whirl by on the line and hitched my tow line to it, and I whizzed steadily up the hill backwards. The noise from below faded away, and all I heard was the sound of tubes whizzing down the track, and the canvas under my butt scraping against the ice and making my bottom end really, really cold.

After about a one-minute ride, the tube plopped and whirled into a landing, where I got up and schlepped it a couple of feet to the top of the track. It looked a lot steeper up high than it did from below. As we waited, a friendly man in a ridiculous snow hat asked, "has everyone here gone down already?". "No!!," we yelled, anxious for a little instruction. He promptly instructed us to lay with our face first , so our least-repairable body part would of course be the first to sustain any damage in case of an impact, and explained that in order to slow ourselves down, to dig our toes into the icy snow the entire way, so we would stop before hitting the inflatable barrier at the end. This would be our only defense against hurling off the edge of the raised track, off a twenty-foot high cliff onto the snow below.

Simple, right?

Actually, it wasn't that bad. It was, in fact, really effing fun. After the initial fear subsided quickly and I actually realized I COULD slow myself down a considerable amount, it was easy. Except, of course, when I hit one or many of the numerous bumps and potholes that had appeared on the track. Fortunately, though, I sustained no injuries. One of my tube-mates fell off her tube, but I'm really honestly not sure at all how she managed it. In one swift minute, I was at the bottom of the hill, walked down some steps, and got back in line. And I started the whole process again, which had taken about forty-five minutes.

My toes were freezing.

My verdict on the activity is that you have to be pretty unbothered by being cold to stay long enough to get in enough trips down the hill to make the money worth it. Save yourself the money, buy a snow tube, find a big hill, and go down that way. It's a lot easier.

Day Fifty-Five: Someday, It Might Stop Being Freezing.

There was a point in time, probably in high school, when I claimed winter was my favorite season. I was young and full of art and life, and saw the beauty of dormant nature during winter like the world was a black and white photograph. Now, winter presents itself in a much less glamorous and artistic way. It's cold. In fact, it's really, really cold. As an adult, this means that while the plants and animals of the world might lay in a sleepy protective state, I still have to get up early in the morning, go outside in freezing conditions, and scrape nature's beautiful, frozen, irritating dew off my windshield. Winter hardly has the appeal it once did.

Now, maybe because I'm a little less artistic and a little more easily irritated, winter is terrible. I still think it's beautiful, but only from indoors, as many people do. The plants aren't quite so dormant, but are so cold they fight for their lives by going to sleep for several months in order to keep their species going. It lasts, in this area, most of the year. Spring is just a mere thought, as it truly exists for only a two-week span of time, usually at the end of April or beginning of May. Flowers start to bloom, birds start tweeting, and it's enjoyable to walk outside in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Then it gets mercilessly hot and humid, and summer lasts until winter. It's the vicious cycle of Pennsylvania.

As I stood at the gas station today in the cold air of February, a thought occurred to me as a slight breeze blew. I felt, if I really tried, a little bit of spring crispness in the air. It was still cold, but it was the kind of cold that felt more like the inside of a refrigerator than the kind that creeps up inside your coat and threatens to strangle the life out of you: the kind that feels like it will last forever. It felt like winter was maybe starting to give up a little, and make way for spring, somewhere down the road, maybe a month from now.

The unfortunate truth is, I'm probably full of it, and was most likely delirious from the cold. In a month from now, it will likely have snowed three more times, and will continue to freeze my windshield through the beginning of April. But a girl can hope, right?

Day Fifty-Four: Can I Change What I Don't Like About Myself?

Like most people, I think, there are a lot of things about myself I am unhappy with. For most people, it's either skin, or weight, or any other myriad of parts: legs, butt, belly, feet, and hair, to name a few. On a more abstract level, it can be temper, aversion to change, lack of motivation, or stubbornness, and that's only a small sampling. I don't know if it's a characteristic of our culture as a country, or as a social society, but it seems that not many people are really happy about themselves. And like most people, I'm the same way. For me, though, I'm most unhappy with my inability to handle stress and my constant inner tension.

Unlike a physical flaw or a difficult behavior, how do you change a true inner characteristic? How can I control how I handle stress when I'm in the middle of thinking about a gamut of stressful (or even non-stressful) predicaments? Sure, I can stop and tell myself to calm down as many times as I want. I can make myself stop and take a deep breath, move more slowly, and think more clearly. But as soon as I start thinking about the actual situation at hand, all that nice, slow, even breathing and clearing of the mind goes completely to waste. I can't change it with behavior change, really -- I have to make a complete change in my thought process and in how I think. This much, I'm aware of. But how exactly am I supposed to do that?

I could be completely full of it, but I think it can't be much unlike changing little things about yourself everyday. As a concrete example, not too long ago I was told to naturally correct my posture for health reasons. I knew I had awful posture, but I couldn't exactly consciously think about standing up straight all the time -- I simply didn't have the time or energy, and it was frankly a little uncomfortable. But what I learned was to correct my posture in segments from the ground up and to just change little things. I'd change the way I balanced on my feet, the way I held my shoulders, and with a nod of my head, the way it balanced on my neck. While it was a slightly painstaking to stop and quickly correct my posture everytime I remembered, it wasn't even really enough change for me to notice. And after a month or so, I had perfect posture, and I never even noticed.

So what little elements of myself can I change to be a more calm? How can I change the proverbial posture of my serenity? I feel like to answer this question, I need some sort of life coach, or an in-house Buddhist monk. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to start meditating again everyday, as I did for a very brief stint in college. The scary part was, it worked quite well. I guess it's worth a shot to keep myself alive for a little longer.

Day Fifty-Three: Negativity is Contagious

Try as I might, every morning I wake up and attempt to be optimistic. Granted, it's not the first thought that pops into my head (it's usually, "ugh" when the alarm goes off), but as I'm making my bed I try to pick out the positive points of the day. For example, this morning I was positive about it being Thursday. I was also a little negative that it was ONLY Thursday, but it's a good start. I was positive about breakfast, because I love it. I was positive about it not snowing outside, which is a rare occurence these days in such parts. I was also positive about the idea that tonight is I am not held down by an appointment, and can go home and eat a nice, leisurely dinner as usual and putz around the house, go to the grocery store, or do what I felt like without rushing somewhere else.

But somehow as the morning progressed, I got increasingly negative. The people on the phone made me negative. People I communicated with made me negative. And while some of them definitely had specific reasons to be negative, I still got negative just the same, from a combination of that and just growing generally annoyed by little things. Then, it became only Thursday. It wasn't snowing out, but it was cloudy. My breakfast had worn off and I'd gotten hungry. I was thinking about not being able to spend my weekend as I liked. I started thinking about how the afternoon would probably seem to drag on for days. I wanted six chocolate chip cookies in the middle of my negative spell. And then I mentally smacked myself.

Just because others were negative, it didn't mean I had feel their negativity, too. I tried to ignore the people who are pointlessly negative, and help those who are upset for good reason. And when it comes to myself, I'm trying to be at least 60% positive all the time. Usually, I'm pretty good at being optimistic, but for some reason, I feed off the negativity of others and become negative myself. I usually take the mood of whoever I am around at the time, which is completely unhealthy and one of the reasons I don't want a roommate. I don't want my mood affected by a stranger. But negativity really is quite contagious. If one person is negative and brings down someone else, they could bring down two more people, and in no time everybody's pissed off. It's no way to live. So try to stay positive.

Day Fifty-Two: Chronicles of Moving: Part II

Within the past three days, I have been calling stranger after stranger, asking them if I can see their empty spaces they're charging money for people to live in. And everytime I call someone, I fear as the phone is ringing that they will be very, very odd. And up until yesterday (even with the previous searching I've done), I have made out very well and dealt with all generally friendly, nice, and accomodating people.

I emailed a woman about a Craigslist ad (which is always a risk, I know) about a well-priced apartment that sounded lovely -- cable was included, it allowed pets, and it had a communal patio for use with other tenants. I received an email back speaking in very professional tones ("let me show you this great unit!"), from a woman we'll call "Antonia", just for safety's sake, asking me to call her to set up a time. So yesterday, I called, hoping the phone would go to voicemail as it rang a third time, only to be answered by a gruff, upper-middle-aged woman. As I kindly stated who I was and how we had been communicating, I was met with a foreboding response: "Okay, well let me ask you a few questions". Her tone, it should be noted, was less than friendly. "Sure," I replied warily. "How old are you?," she demanded. "Twenty-four," I said confidently, and with a tone implying that I did not see how that pertained to the situation. She grilled me for another minute and a half, asking a variety of questions, some reasonable, some seemingly not. "Do you have any pets?," she asked with force. I answered with a steady no, but I was extremely curious as to why this was such a harshly asked question, as the ad said pets are welcome. My favorite question was regarding my employment. As I told I was, in fact, employed, and she asked me where, and I answered her again, she spat, "I've never heard of it." "Oh, well then it must not exist," I thought.

It seemed, despite my rudeness, that I had passed the test. She became more talkative, but only slightly more friendly, after concluding I sounded "great." I was less than impressed with her, of course. She rambled on stagnantly about what furniture was included (which was a nice surprise, since it wasn't in the listing), and mentioned hastily that it didn't have an oven, but an oven-like contraption with a name I cannot remember would be installed.

So me, who is considering baking for a living, is going to live in a place with no oven? I think not. I almost immediately hung up the phone, and thanked her for her waste of time. But some small part of me was too curious to pass it up. So I tentatively asked her for the exact address, so I could make sure I had adequate directions. She must have assumed she was the ultimate authority, because she refused, but instead gave me her own extremely detailed set of directions. So upon visiting this winner of a place this evening, I have no address, but know that it is in a gold stucco building. "You're really going to like it," she said. Sure.

So I am going to spend my Wednesday night walking around an apartment with a less-than-cheerful landlady, listening to her try to convince me that it's lack of an oven would be remedied before I moved in. It doesn't help that on top of this woman's poor first impression of both herself and her space, she asked me to bring a paystub, and if I wanted to sign tonight, I would need a $200 deposit that would cover part of my rent, or something (she actually kind of trailed off and never finished her sentence).

While I'm open to living in a lot of places, as long as the area is good, I will not make a sacrifice for a bad landlord. If I don't like you, I'm not renting for you -- the end. I am essentially hiring this woman to be available when my heat goes out or when my faucets leak, and I don't trust she's going to give a crap about me once I get in there if she has the audacity to demand I bring her a pay stub before she shows me the apartment. Needless to say, this has the potential to be a very interesting experience.

Day Fifty-One: Does Intuition Really Work?

In apartment hunting today, my mom came across a complex that has a lot of available one-bedroom units for well within my price range, in a nice area. "Why don't you look at those?," she asked. There's a perfectly good reason why I won't look at those. Of the 82 reviews on apartmentratings.com, only 23% of them were good. Why? Maybe it's the reported exorbitant rent increase, automatic lease renewal unless contacted within three days with a written letter, showing an apartment and then renting a unit that is ten times more worn down and used, housing a pedophile without notifying neighbors, pending lawsuits for ridiculous fees demanded of tenants that were not their responsibility, and taking three weeks to solve tenant maintenance issues might have something to do with it.

My mom did bring up a good point: "Maybe they just had sour grapes. Go and see a place and make your own judgements about it". In all respects, this may be true. People are a lot more likely to write a review of something if they had an unhappy experience and either want to vent, or warn people. Most people are not likely to say anything of somewhere they are happy living, because they are merely experiencing what they feel is expected and right of the establishment. It's the same reason a good employee may never get feedback from a bad boss -- if they're doing what's expected of them, they feel nothing needs to be said.

But still, with this firm logic in place, I can't help but just have a bad feeling about these apartments. Of course a lot of people could have had bad experiences -- they may have been bad tenants. Even as a first-time renter, anyone who rents a place without seeing exactly what they are paying for is making a really dumb decision. It's like buying a used car based on test-driving the same make, model, and year that has never left the lot. And of course, maybe the person concerned about the pedophile was an old lady who once saw the man walking in the park with a niece or nephew and got ideas in her head. And maybe, the people who are suing the management for billing them ridiculous fees for apartment damage actually damaged the apartment, and are bitter about having to pay, so they wrote a bad review.

But still, I have a feeling in my gut that this is not a place I want to be dealing with. It could be just bad impressions, which is entirely possible, but I have bad feelings about large complexes in general. How far should I follow my intuition? In this particular case, I think it's safe to say my intuition is correct. But should I rule out looking at other apartment complexes owned by large management companies just because I have a bad feeling about them? I think that's probably not a grand idea. But it really does make me wonder. Maybe I'll follow my intuition for awhile and see how far it gets me.

Day Fifty: Is Being Healthy Making Me Sick?

There is nothing quite like waking up in the morning and feeling perfectly fine, and two hours later being freezing, shaking, and nauseous. To make the experience better, there is also nothing like barfing in a public restroom. And if that's fun, then it's absolutely a blast to have to stop the car at the end of your street and open the door and ralph on the street, and your hair, as someone walks by walking their dog.

Needless to say, I did not have the most epic of Mondays.

I came home and slept for three hours, ate a piece of toast, went back to bed for another hour, ate some fruit, and sat around until dinner. So far, so good.

But for someone who doesn't get sick more than a bad cold twice a year, I've been feeling pretty crappy lately. It's only a month and a half into the year, and I've already used two and a half of my sick days. Fantastic. But it makes me a little worried. What have I been doing lately that's been making me so sick? This week, I've been really watching what I eat, so I'm thinking that maybe it's making my immune system a little weaker. Although the logic may not make sense, if I'm eating healthier but not eating well, I might not be giving myself any vitamins I need. A chocolate chip cookie might not be healthy, but it's giving me vitamin C from the orange zest, at least.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Last time I got pretty sick, I was on another health kick, just before Christmas. Naturally, I gave up my no-sugar kick at the holidays when fudge and cookies filled the house and I wanted to actually enjoy my holidays, so I put the health-kick on hold. But why everytime I eat healthy do I get un-healthy? Am I doing something wrong?

Day Forty-Nine: Dogs are Amazing

*Disclaimer*: This was meant to be posted yesterday, but I had a stomach virus and forgot. No excuses, I know. I'm a little disappointed in myself, but I did write yesterday, I just forgot to import this off my Ipod and post it. 
When I come home from work, I tend to have a general routine. I walk
in the door, pet my dogs, get changed, eat dinner, clean up, and sit  
down on the couch to write for the evening, or just check my email.  
And every night, our three-year-old shepherd/collie mix, Ellie, jumps  
up on the couch next to me, curls up in a circle, and goes to sleep.  
And it is my favorite part of the day.

I am a vey strong believer in the philosophy that dogs are 'man's best  
friend'. If I'm ever in a terrible mood, hate several things, am  
upset, or angry, one of mytwo fuzzy lumps will walk up to me and stare  
at me in such a way that all they really wan at that particular moment  
is simply to be loved. It never fails to cheer me up. I gre up with a  
dog, literally. When she died at a staggering nineteen years old, I am  
pretty sure I was in my mid-teens at the time. She was the closest  
thing I ever had to a sibling, and my perents treated her like a child  
(as they treat all their dogs). To this day, I still hear my dad say  
'Ellie! Don't hump your sister!' whenever she gets overexcited and  
latches herself to my leg. While many families mitt find this odd,  
dogs really always have been members ofmour family. Each of us spends  
some time each day bonding with our furry companions, either playing  
with them, giving them a good scratch, or (in my mom's case) brushing  
them. We don't kid around when it comes to our dogs.

It comes as no surprise then, that I already start to feel a little  
homesick when I think about moving out and being without a dog in my  
life. Until I was in 4th grade, I was blessed by the presence of a  
dog, and after that I was surrounded by at leas two, and at one point  
in time when my mother wanted to kill herself, three. So how can I  
possibly move out into a place without a dog? When I look at a place,  
I get a little twinge of happiness when I see that pets are allowed.  
Not because I can get my own four-legged fuzzy, but because I, honest  
to God, can bring my more-adventurous dog over for sleepovers. I would  
happily pay a pet deposit and pick poop up off neighbors' yards to  
have visits from one of my dogs (the other is too afraid of cars to  
enjoy herself anywhere but home. With that one, I'll need to go to her).


And one day, after I've gotten a raise and can afford vet bills and  
heartworm medicine, I'll get my own dog.  But when I lived in an  
apartment at college, I would actually miss my dogs more than my  
parents (to be fair, I could talk to my parents on the phone, so  
naturally I wouldn't miss them as much). To this day, I swear that I  
went home every weekend my freshman year of college to see my dogs.  
And honestly, assuming I budget correctly, that will  be the hardest  
part of moving out for me. Who's going to cheer me up when I'm sad? I  
guess I'll just have to turn to my boyfriend and friends for that (I'm  
kidding, really).

Day Forty-Eight: Restaurants, Though Delicious, are Evil.

I am on a major health kick, and so far it has been proving pretty easy. But when it comes to healthy eating, I am a "go big or go home" kind of gal. I am trying to eat only lean meats and proteins whenever I can, eat more vegetables, more whole grains, and I'm paying attention to the caloric content of the foods I eat, simply because I'm curious to know what healthy foods I thought were healthy before, really aren't. Basically, the whole thing is an experiment to see how healthily I can eat for how long, and how my body reacts (in which I am also eliminating as much added sugar from my diet as I can, just to see how I feel. That means no cookies, no cake, no chocolate, and no sugar in my oatmeal. So far, so good.).

At least, the process is easy when I'm making food for myself at home. This morning, for example, I had two hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with salt on a piece of wheat toast. It was only 250 calories, full of protein, not high in sodium, and I also got some whole grains. It also kept me full from 8:00 AM through to lunch at noon, which is unheard of for me, as I get hungry like every 2 hours. Pretty good deal. Lunch also wasn't too bad. I had a bowl of Kashi Go Lean! Crunch with fruit on it, and that kept me full until, around, 4 PM, which could have been better, but it wasn't bad.

The problem came when I was out at the mall with friends and got tummy rumble-ies. My plethora of healthy options was...the food court. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I didn't realize how much of a challenge. I headed for Chick-Fil-A, and got the healthiest thing I could find -- a Chargrilled Chicken Cool Wrap with Light Italian dressing. The wrap was basically a salad of lettuce, a couple carrots and some red cabbage, with a couple pieces of grilled chicken inside a thick tortilla wrap. And I used a quarter-packet of the dressing, which was about 25 calories. I felt proud. Until I got home and looked up how much I had eaten. That measly wrap, which kept me full for a whopping three hours, was 415-ish calories (the "ish" is for the estimated dressing I used). I ate some pork tenderloin, a cup of green beans, and a little bit of pasta last night, WITH butter, and that was less. I was astounded, and annoyed. I realize tortillas are not really that healthy of a choice, but come on -- aside from that I was eating a frickin' salad, and a sad one at that. I was not pleased.

I know it's difficult to eat healthy when out on the go or at a restaurant, but is it honestly possible? I know a lot of restaurants offer "healthier choices," but they're still loaded with sodium, and are really, really boring (wow, salmon covered in "signature" grill seasoning (a.k.a. salt, salt, and more salt, and some spices) and a side of overcooked broccoli, all for only 350 calories? No way! I'm totally not missing out on eating the bacon cheeseburger!). And healthier protein options, such as salmon or grilled chicken, are always smothered in some kind of cheese or cream sauce that throws the whole notion right out the back door.

With this in mind, if anyone who's trying to live a healthier lifestyle wants to "treat" themselves by going out, what's the treat? You're eating something probably ten times not as good as what you could make yourself for the same amount of calories and a higher amount of sodium. It's really depressing. It makes me want to screw the whole thing when I get out and do it right, and get the chicken strips. And it definitely poses a handicap when going out with friends, if you're always the one who wants to go somewhere where you can get something not absolutely terrible for you. If it's not a national chain restaurant or a restaurant designed around allowing healthier options, it's probably not going to make the cut. That eliminates diners (unless you're happy with a really, really sad salad bar), pizza and sandwich joints, most chinese restaurants (although some serve brown rice, chicken and vegetables. Woo.), and just about all Mexican places. So, basically, anywhere fun. Mexican is my weakness, by the way -- I don't make sacrifices when it comes to tortillas, guacamole, and marinated beef.

No wonder America is so fat -- it's extremely difficult to find anything truly healthy on a menu. I'm not sure how long this health kick of mine will last (the longest it's ever lasted me has been a month, which isn't too bad, I think), but so far the results have been...hungry. But apparently we're designed to eat every four hours, so I think that's a good thing. But it's awfully inconvenient.

Day Forty-Seven: Men are the Real Chocolate Fiends

When most people (men or women) think of the number one food women crave, they definitely think chocolate first and foremost. We not only just crave chocolate, but we need it, adore it, savor it, and if it had the power to perform miracles we would probably worship it. It can either make us crazy or subdue us, make us lovey, or be the only man we need in our lives. But I've noticed something astounding lately: men eat more chocolate than women.

I promise you, it's the truth. Where I work, a candy bowl sits temptingly to my right full of Hershey Kisses, Hershey Kisses with Almonds, and on occasion, mini York Peppermint Patties. And throughout my day, I fill this bowl at least twice. Interestingly, a similar bowl sits downstairs on the first floor, and it only needs to be filled maybe once every day, or once every two days. There are also possibly twice as many people on the first floor, as on floor where I am. So why do I go through a bag or two of Hershey Kisses a day? Men.

The only way to the bathroom on the floor I occupy is past my desk. As a result, many people grab candy everytime they walk by. There are, however, three or four ways to get to the bathroom on the first floor, and most of the people who use the main doors on the first floor are women (are you following, so far?). So I sit at my desk, and all day, I watch people take candy, and 95% of the partakers are men. Men eat all the candy.

Why? I can't begin to explain it. I could start a possible Battle of the Sexes riot and venture a guess that women have more willpower. We can more easily say "no, that's not good for us." Or, men could just be less concerned about their appearances. So what if they gain a few pounds? Men generally seem to care less about this anyway. Or, men might just be a little less uptight, generally speaking. They like chocolate, it makes them happy, so they eat it. I really don't know. But it definitely debates the myth that women are the chocolate fiends. We might like chocolate an awful lot, but men obviously like it too.

Day Forty-Six: The Best Motivation is Self-Motivation

After being snowed in for two days straight, after only a three-day reprieve from being snowed in last weekend, I lost it today. About an hour ago, I absolutely needed to burn off energy, so I went outside and shoveled the deck (a completely unnecessary, although not pointless task). For a half hour, I scraped and chopped at hardened, heavy snow, I lifted heavy loads of white crap, and threw it elsewhere. I got sweaty, I got gross, and I got cold. I also felt better than I have in a very long time.

I know I should exercise, as everybody does, really. Everybody realizes it's a good idea to get out and increase their heart rate a little bit, but nobody who makes it a priority ever wants to do it until they're actually five or ten minutes in. I am no exception to this common group of people. I don't really like the idea of getting up off the warm couch and engaging in some healthy physical activity, but once I do it (which is very rare), I feel really good. I feel better about myself and my state of health, and I feel like I'm not treating my body like garbage. It also makes me feel better about my high intake of sugar.

But although I have known that I need to join a gym ever since I stopped going after I graduated college, I have never gotten myself to do it (mostly because of the absolutely ridiculous membership fees that come along with joining). But nothing has motivated me more than feeling restless and suffocated by four walls surrounded by snow. I guess being unable to go anywhere else forced me to do the only thing I could to exert any physical energy -- exercise. Maybe being snowed-in is actually not bad for me.

Day Forty-Five: The Famous (or Infamous) Valentine's Day

For as long as Valentine's has no longer been about buying paper Valentines for classmates and getting free candy and lots of hugs, I've not been a fan. There has never been anything fun to me about bedecking everything in sight in hearts, arrows, and naked babies in obnoxiously bright and cutesy colors that are usually also either fuzzy or shiny. I hate that Hallmark brings out their 2nd largest collection of overpriced cardboard greetings covered in glitter. But most of all, I hate that it's a holiday where it becomes mandatory, to most gentlemen, to buy their ladies roses, candy, or dinner, and on the other side of things, men are expected to receive a little lovin' in return. This is an absolutely disgusting concept.

I've always believed that if you're in love with someone, you don't need a designated greeting card holiday to celebrate it. Honestly, if I got flowers or candy or dinner on a night that isn't Valentine's Day, I'd be happier. At least, this is how I felt until last year.

Last year, I somewhat begrudgingly went with my boyfriend to dinner, which ended up being very, very nice. We picked a great place, had a wonderful dinner, and I got a box of Godiva chocolate. I felt...very special. And apparently, by the angry and jealous looks from every other woman in the restaurant, I was also very lucky. This year, although I'm still not extremely adamant about Valentine's Day, I am looking forward to it. However, if we had chosen to to celebrate, I wouldn't have been too upset. We're not getting each other gifts this year, mostly because we don't feel like going through the trouble and we don't really have the money. I would much rather spend a nice evening in than having to wrack my brain trying to come up with a good gift idea, and I'm sure my boyfriend feels the same way.

So I have waved my white flag of defeat in my battle against Valentine's Day, but it was a long battle waged. The problem, I sheepishly admit, is that no one had ever made me feel special on Valentine's Day. So although I claimed year after year that I did not dislike Valentine's Day because I was single, it probably did have something to do with my feelings towards it. I wasn't bitter about it because I was single, but no one had ever given me a reason to not be annoyed by it. And despite the fact that I no longer hate Valentine's Day, I still really do hate shiny hearts and cupids and those stupid little candy hearts with pointless messages that taste like chalk. But despite all that -- Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate it.

Day Forty-four: This is Getting Ridiculous

It's currently Tuesday night, and the Northeastern United States is sending itself into a tizzy because -- oh, my God -- it's going to snow.

Keep in mind, if you are not from this area (which is unlikely, if you are reading this) it snowed a whole hell of a lot on Saturday. The roads, while almost completely clear, are still icy and snowy in some spots on side streets. Now, it's going to snow again. And everyone is freaking out. Personally, I don't understand why meteorologists get so worked up over a snow storm to the point where they broadcast coverage from multiple areas for hours and hours on end, tracking the amount sticking to the ground, and putting their cameras on cars stuck in snowbanks because somebody thought whatever they had to do was more important than their safety. In one story predicting tomorrow's impending storm (which will be anywhere from six to twenty inches), they actually referred to this string of constant snowstorms as the "Snowmageddon". I'm really sick of this crap. Snow, in itself, is not life-threatening. And I would be extremely surprised if two decent snowstorms within a week is enough to end the world. New England deals with it all the time.

Sure, power might go out, but we're an advanced and wealthy enough society that we can cover ourselves in several layers of clothing and blankets and either read by candlelight or play stupid drinking games for entertainment. Pipes might freeze, which would be extremely unfortunate and slightly more dangerous, but mostly it would be inconvenient. But, I don't think we'd die. So enough with the drama. It's not like it's a hurricane or an earthquake, because those are legitimate catastrophes and actually injure people and wreak havoc.

In addition to trying to frighten viewers into staying glued to their televisions, there's also this mess with constant information. Do I really need to know that PennDot is working around the clock to salt and plow roads? Do I really need to know that it has snowed half an inch in the past hour? Do I really need to know what Delaware looks like? And most of all, do I REALLY need to know that it is, in fact, STILL snowing? While it's certainly entertaining to watch blithering overpaid morons stand outside in their Totes and company-provided parka and be continuously pelted in the face with wet, cold powder, it's not doing me any good. Any of the information these dimwits are providing me I can either get by looking out my window or actually going outside. Given, in fact, that I actually care. If it's blizzarding outside, there isn't really much I can do about it, is there? Short of standing in front of the window thinking, "wow, that's going to be a real bitch to shovel," I can't do anything else. I cannot make it stop snowing, I can't clear my driveway, and I can't prevent it from getting colder. So why is it necessary that I stay alert on the current snow situation? When it stops, I'll go outside and deal with it. And by then, the news crews won't find the storm nearly as interesting and will move on to sticking cameras in the faces of people trying to clear their sidewalks.

So really, it's getting ridiculous. Enough with the storm coverage. Maybe, just maybe, because we've had one really good snow storm already, the news crews will not care quite as much about this bout of snow. And I'll sit inside and watch it snow and go stir-crazy, again.

Day Forty-Three: Patience, My Ass

I am not, and have never been a patient person. I hate waiting, I have a short attention span, and I will usually take any opportunity I have to make a process go faster, and usually at my own expense. "Oh, I'm supposed to wait thirty minutes for my nail polish to dry before attempting to open this cardboard box with my hands? No, that's okay, I'll just do it very carefully."  This, of course, only ends in a string of colorful curse words, wasted time, and wasted nail polish. "Please wait seven to ten days for delivery." No, I will avidly track my package from the day I make my order to see if it will arrive on my doorstep in, perhaps, two or three days instead.

When it comes to waiting for important things to process that I cannot possibly make go any faster, such as the waiting after a job interview, or in my current example, waiting to hear from a realtor about a place, I feel helpless, restless, and annoyed that the situation is almost completely out of my hands, and anything I could do to make the process work faster would almost certainly harm the outcome. Sure, I could call or email the woman several times a day to get the status on my credit check and the landlord's decision, but proving myself to be "a real go-getter" will probably only prove me to be controlling, impatient, and untolerably annoying. Nobody wants to rent to somebody like that. So instead, I must be content with what I can do with this process: sit and watch my phone blink peacefully in its unquavering and uninterrupted sleep. Sure, at some point during the day, or within the next few days, it might vibrate to life with flashing lights and blinking colors, but right now, it isn't, and I won't have any idea when it will (or if it will). So I have absolutely no other reasonable and psychologically stable option other than to wait patiently. I could wait impatiently, sure, but that would not make my answer come any sooner, and it would only serve to make me more stressed out, more upset, and more impatient than I already am.

So, I'm going to sit and wait. I will keep my phone glued by my side and be patient for as long as I physically can until I become a warped and girly version of the Incredible Hulk, in which my inner child will come tumbling uncontrollably out and I will probably throw a temper tantrum, which I absolutely still do (I am entirely ashamed to admit this, but I promise I do it completely away from other people, and it usually consists of throwing something unbreakable and sobbing hysterically. Please note that this has never happened at the result of impatience. I have only ever known myself to throw an adult temper tantrum when I have done something incredibly, epically stupid and probably knew that it was a bad idea before I did it, yet I proceeded anyway. I think that's probably a decent reason.). In my slight experience, the longer I have had to wait for something, the better it ended up being when it arrived. so maybe I'll end up having to wait a week, and it will all turn out beautifully. I guess I just have to wait.