Sunday, August 25, 2002 too lazy to write picked up pater yesterday at the aeropuerto. deliberately left later than usual in order to avoid circling the airport fifty million times. his flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:05. i left at 9:30 to get gas. got stuck in traffic on the gwb for 20 minutes. traffic on the triboro and grand central parkway. got to jfk at 10:45 and still had to circle around the airport waiting. and i must avoid the sun for the rest of the summer. i thought i couldnt get any darker than i already was. apparently i was wrong. played tennis today with j for 2 hours. afterwards we ate like pigs and fell asleep. ahh, i love lazy sundays. 11:37 PM

Wednesday, August 21, 2002 its been awhile my brother and co. left yesterday for cali and now the house seems suddenly still. no more hustle and bustle of morning breakfast and getting ready for the day. the house actually seemed alive then. and now its just so still. i guess that's what its like to have kids around. its a nice feeling. family. anyway, martha's vineyard was so much fun. i am officially as dark as a monkey. its ok though. because i am champion stone skipper of south beach...or whatever beach that was we were on. martha's vineyard is an interesting little place. very cute, nice little shops with overpriced jewelry and souvenirs for suckers such as myself. gas was $2.00 a gallon. but i swear, a majority of the people i encountered were racist. or maybe it was just me being oversensitive. whenever i would walk into a shop, i would get ignored, but when someone else came in...it was a whole different story. maybe it was all in my head, i'm not sure. nothing more to look forward to for the month. just waiting for jobs to get back to me. what is taking so long? 12:26 PM

Tuesday, August 20, 2002 a lesson learned this is an excerpt from my journal that was written the other day after a conversation i had with michelle. i had a rough couple of days and needed a little insight. neurons in my head were misfiring and i was talking plain jibberish to myself. since then, i have come to a resolution. just let go of your stupid insecurities and look into your heart and listen to what it wants without reprimanding it of its past transgressions. because, honestly, you cannot live loving like that. Learning from mistakes is how you live life. loving requires you to be somewhere dark, scary, insecure and unsure and yet you stay. you leap for love, and that requires taking risks rather than holding onto the bars and constantly reminding yourself how much it hurt the last time you jumped. because its different this time. and you know it. 5:37 PM

Monday, August 12, 2002 while i wait i might as well get a word in while i wait for customer service to answer the damn phone. saturday's party was a success. ethan didnt seem to notice. he was busy keeping himself entertained. j made me realize that ethan doesnt really mind to be alone. the majority of the afternoon, he was walking along by himself (with supervision closely following) being content with just that. i love that kid. today he did the cutest thing. we were eating ichiban soup for breakfast and mark was eating luis' bowl. ethan stood besides him and waited to get fed. m: its hot. wait, i'll blow on it. e: waiting contently while mark blows on the soup m: ok. puts spoon in ethan's mouth e: you can tell its hot because he's grimacing m: oh, i'm so sorry! sorry! e: ish okay. i spent my morning at the vw dealership again. fixed the recall thing finally. i think they sent me that original letter in january. changed my pollen filter. they were supposed to do that in march. yeah, just a little late. they still have to fix my mass air flow sensor which is supposedly on the fritz now since they reprogrammed my oxygen sensor and the wiring has to adjust to the sensor. which it wont because its malfunctioning. so they warned me that my car will be 'rough' to drive. "what's rough mean?" i ask joey, my service technician. "well, basically, your car will have a hard time starting and the car will seem to shake at initial ignition. that is because the car is choking. and it probably wont accelerate as fast, and it probably wont be able to go past a certain speed." at this point i am slightly worried, because i cant handle vehicular malfunctions very well. the last time something went haywire in my car, i drove it to its death on the shoulder of exit 13A on the new jersey turnpike with green liquids spewing forth and smoke rising up in defeat. "well, will it break down on me?" joey says, "well, if it does, it will start right back up again." beautiful. great to know. so i am leaving for a mini-holiday to martha's vineyard. be back thursday. 3:08 PM

Friday, August 09, 2002 new york tourist i took a tour today. had breakfast on top of the empire state building. bought a 'i love new york' tee-shirt. browsed at fake bags and fake watches in chinatown. bought a bracelet from the street vendors in soho. took the subway. ate in the east village. i finally got a new phone! verizon & LG vx1. unlimited nights and weekends+1000 mobile to mobile minutes. it couldnt get any better than that...besides, the phone was on sale for $50 where i bought it instead of $150 they were charging at the verizon store. yipee! james, do you still want my phone? 4:28 PM

Thursday, August 08, 2002 i like seamonsters. i dont know, it was somebody's title when i was logging in. it stuck. so much has been going on in the last couple of days...mom came back. mark & co. are here. preparations for the birthday. sightseeing, outlet shopping, regular shopping, interview...and its only been three days. ok, four. fatty's the cutest thing ever. running around screaming "truuuuuhhh" and "caaaahhh" -- "truck" and "car." he's got a thing for trucks. he bashes his head on anything that gets in his way...including the floor. he scratched the hell out of my elbow yesterday. he does this thing where he strokes your arm ever so lightly, and then violently wrenches the fold of skin on your elbow til you scream out in pain. and then he laughs. he did the cutest thing though. i was holding him at some point and he brushed my hair aside that was falling on my shoulder and then proceeded to kiss my shoulder. awwww.... yesterday he was hanging out in my room with me when all of a sudden he ran to the corner and squatted with this really petrified look on his face. like he saw something scary in the closet. or he did something wrong. he look so upset. then he grunted out, "errrrrrhhhh, uuuuuuhhhhh." he was pooing. i took the opportunity to take some funny ass pictures of him. he's going to hate me when he grows up and i show these to his girlfriend. so i had my interview today. so much for walking in three inch heels. i have got to buy new shoes (so goes my excuse). weird. the lady didnt ask me for any references. do i take that as a bad sign? i had to take a proofreading test. that was interesting. i think i was freaking myself out, thinking i didnt know how to speak english in those 15 minutes. i know they spelled attorney wrong. 'atturney.' now if i had gotten that wrong, claiming i worked at a law office--that would be sad. so sad. did i mention that i am a horrible speller. the good thing is that i know what i spell wrong...i can always look that up in the dictionary. no big dill. i think the interview itself went well. cross fingers again. 7:17 PM

Monday, August 05, 2002 100 degree plus weather + insane humidity + driving in a car for 6 some odd hours + absolutely no air conditioning in the car + hot air and humidity blowing at you and tangling your once straight, now frizzy hair + sun always seems to beam down on your left side, giving you really bad half tan, while driving in this death trap of a car = human cruelty. j got his car back on thursday night and he needed 500 miles to break in his new clutch and transmission. so he decides to take me on a mini-roadtrip to hell. no, i'm kidding. i enjoyed the company. just not the half tan and the heat exhaustion. there is something wrong with the ac in the car, so he had to break it in during one of the hottest weekends of the summer, right? yesterday was the wedding and i bought a dress three hours beforehand. the blue dress i was going to wear was not complementing the really bad tank top tan i got while walking through waterfest last last weekend. i was dark everywhere except for this very noticeable triangle of white right in the chest area. do not watch kung pow unless you are extremely high or in an extrememly silly mood. i cannot begin to describe the degrees of dumbness of that movie. i got another interview for kaplan -- the test preparation people. i took my lsat prep course there. not very happy with initial results. did better studying on my own. whatever. mater comes back today and then mark and ethan come tomorrow. hurray! 12:36 PM

Thursday, August 01, 2002 *sigh of relief* ah. i'm hungry. the adrenalin from this morning has expired and now i'm just tired and starving. boy, they ask alot of questions. i tried to maintain eye contact at all times. two people interviewed me, and they both asked, "this is the science and engineering department. are you sure you'd be interested in this position?" ...making it sound so appealing. fortunately for me, the editor who interviewed me was an english graduate from livingston college and he claimed that he didnt really understand graduate level engineering. whoo. you just have to understand key words. so cross your fingers for me, and hopefully they'll call me sometime soon. walking around in a suit in 93 degree weather sucks. i saw a man dressed as superman at the corner of 35th and 6th screaming obscenities out to the crowd. excuse me, i have to go write my thank you letters now. 1:19 PM