"If you call, I will answer"

The title of this post is from a song by the Barenaked Ladies called "Call and Answer" but I'm not sure that it actually has anything to do with the post itself. I just had it in my head, and it seemed like a good title for a post.

I have a question, and I'm not quite sure how to preface it (or even really how to word it for that matter) so I'm just going to say it: Why is it that guys always tell me that they like me (liked me) after the fact (when there's no chance that I will ever see them again / we are far away from each other, etc.)??? I swear, I've had at least 3 guys from college be like "I wanted to get with you when we were at Earlham but a). I was too shy, b). I wasn't sure that you would want to / I thought you had a boyfriend".

The only reason I'm mentioning this now is because I'm talking to someone on facebook who's doing it. For the purposes of confidentiality, I'll call him Rimshot. Rimshot was on the basketball team at EC and he was a Psychology major, so I kinda knew him, but I was pretty sure that the whole time we were at EC (or most of it) he had a girlfriend (who he is now engaged to, BTDubs).

So Why???? Why me??? Why now??? And why does the conversation always center around sex?? Not that that's a bad thing, but I'm highly inexperienced so I feel like I can't really talk when the conversation turns to sex, and at the same time I feel like sex is something that should be talked about between you and the person you want to be intimate with and no one else. Yes, I understand that guys like to brag sometimes about the sexual things they do with girls, and that's perfectly fine, but there are soooooooooooooooooo many other things in the world to talk about!!!

::SHRUG:: I'm not sure where I was going with this. If anyone even still reads this, you should be happy that I posted at all. Maybe I'll come back and edit this later. For now, I think that's all I wanted to say. I'm kind of surprised that I hadn't mentioned anything about this before, though. I feel like guys and their creepiness and liking me after the fact / not liking me at all when I liked them was a huge topic in my deadjournal. ::SHRUG:: Ok, that's really all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Long Time, No Post

Well, it's been FOREVER since I last posted on here. I'm not sure if anyone still reads this anymore, but hello to anyone who does. A lot has happened since I last posted on here. I've been adjusting to living in the city (but still coming home on the weekends because I really haven't made any friends / don't like to really do things on my own), I've had several jobs, and I've been taking classes at Fordham. I've really been enjoying my classes (I finished for the semester on the 16th, but I start up again on the 13th). I've met a nice group of girls and we have lunch together on thursdays between classes, but we've never really done anything outside of class.

Recently I've been working at the JCC in Manhattan 3 days a week (monday, tuesday and wednesday) in their after school program. We have what are called clubhouses where the kids come to eat snack and do their homework and get ready for their various classes (ballet, gymnastics, swimming, karate, etc). I work in the junior clubhouse with 4-7 year olds (my favorite ages :D). We also have a senior clubhouse, though for kids who are 8-12. I really like this job. My job before this was at Smarter Toddler Nursery and Preschool. It was okay, but the hours were weird (I was working in the afternoons...although I'm working in the afternoons now as well and I don't mind it), I wasn't really getting paid a lot, and I was just basically working wherever they needed me, whenever they needed me (it was kind of on a day to day basis, I didn't have a set schedule).

I had to take some time away from this post to eat dinner, and now I forget what I wanted to say. I might come back and edit it later, but that's all I wanted to say for now.

--Emily

Tired, but had a good weekend overall

In case you couldn't tell by the title, this post is going to be about my weekend. I moved into my apartment in the city (New York) on friday and was supposed to stay there, but ended up coming home because hardly anyone was staying (a lot of people moving in were from NJ and were going home for the weekend). I thought I was going to be fine with going home and then coming back on monday, but it turned out that I was wrong, and going home was just a bad idea because it made everything worse (aka I didn't want to leave today).

In other news, you know you're getting old when...you can't remember what you had for dinner three nights ago. Yes, I can't remember what I had for dinner on friday. On Saturday night we went to a new restaurant in Milburn (one of the next towns over) called Cafe Luna. We all (my mom and Ben and I) could have sworn that it was going to be Mexican, but it was Italian (I guess Cafe Luna means "moon cafe" in Italian as well as in Spanish). At first nothing on the menu seemed appealing to me, but Ben and I ended up sharing a ricotta cheese and spinach crepe that was really good. The waitress was kind of snooty because I asked for lemonade (or limonata, which is like Italian sparkling lemonade) and she brought me the bottle but didn't open it or bring me a glass, so I asked her for one and she told me it was coming but she kind of gave me an attitude. Let's just say we're never going there again.

In other other news, I'm sick of the rain. I know it's only been raining for two days (well, here at least. I can't speak for other parts of the country), but it has caused us to cancel or change plans. Yesterday mom said we could go play mini golf, and we ended up not doing anything until dinner time, when we went over to Ben's friend Sarah's house (she had just come home from camp and we wanted to see her and her parents, and hear about camp and stuff). We had pizza and watched some Harry Potter (a little bit of movies 4 and 5), and some of The Proposal (which I had seen already, but I think is really funny...I love Betty White's character :)). I also got to watch most of Sarah's Bat Mitzvah video, which was pretty funny.

Today we saw The Switch (with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman). It was really funny, and I would totally recommend it. Then my mom and I went shopping and I had dinner. After dinner a driver who is a friend of my mom and John's came to pick me up to go back to my apartment (I know, I'm such a wimp. I didn't want to take the train because it was raining).

Tomorrow I have to do more grocery shopping and some job hunting. I'm really willing to do just about anything at this point, even if I don't get paid, and I'm going to say that (well, not at places like J. Crew, but at preschools and stuff like that).

That's all for now. More soon.

Emily

Key West and other stuff

Hi all!! This post is way overdue. Towards the end of April I went to Key West with my mom and Ben. The main purpose of the trip was to scatter John's ashes. It was a place that he loved going to, and he and my mom had been there together twice. We stayed on the main street (Duval Street) in a bed and breakfast called Duval House. As far as food goes, we ate breakfast at the hotel everyday because it was included. There's a great crepe restaurant that we went to for lunch twice. The first time I had a Nutella crepe, and the second time I had a strawberry cream cheese crepe. One night for dinner we went to a restaurant called Blue Heaven, but I don't remember what I had. One night we ate on the boardwalk, but I don't remember the name of it or what I had (there's definitely an advantage to writing blog posts shortly after things happen as opposed to waiting). We tried to see the sunset because my mom said they were supposed to be really good, but we didn't see a good one. On the boardwalk they have all kinds of performers. There was one guy who was working with trained cats and having them jump through hoops and stuff. There was one man who was doing stuff with fire, and two men who were throwing hats and catching them on their heads.

One day we went to the Key West Aquarium, which is really nothing special. Another day we went to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory, which was really cool. One day we went to Hemingway's house, which was also pretty cool. Hemingway had a lot of cats, which still roam the house. Also, Ben had just read The Old Man and The Sea so it was interesting to see all the paintings and stuff from that around the house.

The first full day that we were there, we went to Taylor State Park, which has a beach, so that we could scatter John's ashes. A kind of funny but sad thing that happened was that we would throw the ashes, and because it was a windy day, they would come right back to us, as if John did not want to leave us. I know that that's where he would have wanted to be, though.

In other news, I spent a day at the mall with Jess a couple months ago, and spent my Delia's gift card and then some (I bought a pretty blue tank shirt, white capris, and a sweater, among other things). There's this really cute store in Millburn that we also went to. It's called Un De Find. I bought a grey long sweater. We went for sushi (which I really like now, despite having never really tried it before Ben's birthday last year when we went to a hibachi steakhouse in Millburn that also has sushi) in downtown Maplewood, and then met my mom and Ben to see the movie Oceans, which was really good.

Fast forwarding a bit to present day, Ben graduated from high school on tuesday. All I can think of to say is I can't believe it.

That's all for now. I start my job at the preschool camp on tuesday, but I will try to write again soon.

--Emily

We interrupt your regular programming for a strange but awesome dream

Soo...last night I had a dream that they made sculptures of the cast of Glee at Madame Tussaud's (which they might actually do some day and which would be AWESOME). The sculptures were like up on a stage with built-in benches surrounding it (the stage was just in the middle of the room, not up against a wall) and the actual cast was sitting on the benches pretending to be statues, but they would talk to you if you went up to them.

I talked to Lea Michele and got really close to Cory Monteith (he wasn't sitting on one of the benches, he was standing in front of a column that was close to the stage and went from the floor to the ceiling). When I got to where Dianna Agron was sitting, she was in the middle of a conversation with another cast member, and I joined in, not thinking that it would be a problem, but Dianna looked at me and was like, "Why are you in this conversation?". I turned and walked away slowly to go see the other cast members. I tried to go back to talk to Lea Michele again, but as I was walking back to the other side of the stage, that half of the cast was leaving to go on their break. I said goodbye to Lea and she was just like "bye". I was sure she thought I was crazy. I'm definitely crazy obsessed with Glee, but probably not crazier than most people.

That's all for now. I promise I will write more soon (I still have to write about my trip to Key West and my day at the mall with Jess).

--Emily

A Weekend at EC

Towards the beginning of last month (4/8 through 4/11) I went to visit Earlham, to see all my friends who were graduating before they graduated and I didn't see them for a while, but also to see friends who had been abroad in the fall, and basically anyone else that I could see that I knew. I didn't know this when I planned the trip, but that weekend also happened to be the weekend of the opening of the senior art show, so it worked out pretty well. I have several friends who are art majors who are graduating this year (in exactly a week...how scary is that?!?!?) so it was fun to see them and their art.

I arrived on thursday (4/8) and had to take a cab from the airport to EC (which wasn't really a big deal except for the cost which was like $90). I had to program the cab driver's GPS for him, which I thought was a little funny. No matter where I go I never seem to get a cab driver who knows where he's going. ::SHRUG:: I was staying with Ilana (my roommate from the spring of last year) so when I arrived at EC I went to her room. I wasn't expecting her to be there, but surprisingly she was. She was getting ready to go to a meeting for her Ford Knight project (if any of you read the Earlham blogs, it's the same one that Mandi's in...the one with Ana Cornide) so we stopped at the coffee shop and I got a wrap.

On friday I woke up and went to Tim Horton's for breakfast, where I had a muffin and OJ for breakfast, and then I purchased two cases with 40 Timbits each (for those of you who don't know what timbits are, they are Tim Horton's version of munchkins or donut holes)for later to surprise Bill and the choir with. When I got back Ilana still hadn't left for her class yet. It was in LBC (the Landrum Bolling Center) so I went with her to see if my advisor was there and I could talk to him. It turned out that he had a class, but I asked him if I could sit in on it and he said yes. It kind of made me feel like I was a student again. It made me wish that I was already back in school. Friday for lunch I ate my only meal in Saga for the whole weekend. I had pizza and pasta. I can't really say that I missed that.

Friday afternoon I went to choir, Timbits in hand. Luckily before I got to the Hancock room where choir is usually held, I got a text from my friend Lauren, saying that they were in Goddard Auditorium, which is on the other side of campus in a building called Carpenter. I hurried across campus, and by the time I got there the choir was warming up. I got to sit and listen to them (Bill made them say hi to me in high pitched voices as part of their warm-up, which surprised me a little). My friend Nick was there visiting for the weekend too. He was also in choir so he came to sit in on the rehearsal. At first he was sitting up in the balcony, but then he came down to sit with me. Friday for dinner we were trying to figure out what to do. I wanted to go out, but Ilana does not have a car on campus. Nick offered to go with us, and Erin came too. We went to IHOP and I got a nutella crepe, but was not able to eat the whole thing, so I saved it and ate it on saturday for breakfast.

On Saturday I went to my first rugby game ever (I never went to rugby games while I was a student, even though some of my friends were on the team) and I got to hang out with Phoebe, who was also there for the weekend, because her boyfriend is on the rugby team. It was really fun and interesting to watch, especially when our team won. For lunch there was "Heart Attack", also known as they were serving hamburgers and hot dogs on the heart with music and ice cream and stuff. I got to hang out and see all kinds of people (Including Hannah, Maia, Kyla and Carolyn, among others) some of whom I hadn't seen in a while and some of whom were graduating or visiting or working for Earlham. I ended up spending about 3 hours in the sun on the heart, just chatting with people, and my face got really sunburnt!! Saturday night Ilana and I ordered a pizza from Domino's and walked to pick it up. Then Erin and I went to see Othello which was being put on by the fine arts department. Several of my friends were in it, and it was really good. After Othello I went to the coffee shop to get a smoothie, and I hung out with my friend Josh for a while. There was a concert in the Comstock room that I checked out for a little while before leaving to settle in for the evening and go to sleep.

Sunday was the highlight of the weekend. I woke up and went to brunch with Michelle and Lara (Michelle was my roommate from the fall of last year, and Lara is one of her really good friends from home who she went to high school with and it just so happened that she decided to go to Earlham as well). We went to 5th Street Bagel and I got a pumpernickel bagel with strawberry cream cheese. We got back just in time for the opening of the art show. There were all kinds of pretty paintings, photos, tapestries, metalworks, and ceramic pieces in both Ronald Gallery (in Lilly Library) and Leeds Gallery (in Runyan Center). Erin and I left at 3 PM to go to the airport so I could fly back to NJ and have a day to recover before leaving for Key West (which will be the subject of my next entry in here).

It was great to be at EC and not have work or have to get up early to go to classes, but at the same time it was a little weird. I felt comfortable and completely at home, but everyone kept asking me what I was doing there.

I don't really have much else to say on this subject, except I want to congratulate all my friends who are graduating in exactly a week. I can't believe it's been exactly a year since I graduated!!!

That's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Because I'm waaaay past due on blog posts...

Soo much has happened since my last post that it's not even funny. I'm going to list things that have happened, and then each one is probably going to be a separate post: I spent the weekend at EC and then part of the following week in Key West, I went to the mall (the other day) and spent 2 gift cards (well, one entire one and then some, and part of another one), and I went to a movie and almost played miniature golf with a guy friend from middle school / high school that I haven't talked to in FOREVER.

This post is going to be about the last thing on my list, because even though it happened before anything else on my list, it stands out the most in my mind for more reasons than one (one of them being that I just talked to him on AIM tonight). I'm going to call this boy monkey, because that is part of his AIM screen name. Monkey IMed me randomly one day and we started talking. He mentioned that he wanted to go see the movie The Crazies and I mentioned that I don’t really like horror movies, but that I might be interested anyway. There is a certain kind of horror movie that I like, which I guess really wouldn’t be considered horror. It’s really more of like Action-Adventure / Thriller. ::SHRUG:: I dunno. Anyway, we decided to go see the movie. He picked me up and we went to dinner at Friday’s first. By the time we got to the movie, we were too late to be able to see the one we had wanted to see, so we ended up seeing Repo Men. It was really good. I like Jude Law…a lot and he was really good in this movie. I would suggest that if you like Sci-Fi / Thriller type movies, and you haven’t seen Repo Men that you go see it, or if it’s not in theaters anymore (which I don’t think it is, wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it.

Anyway, back to Monkey. The week after we saw Repo Men, Monkey invited me out again, and I had an urge to play mini golf. There’s an amusement park on route 22 in Elizabeth (I think) called Bowcraft that used to have mini golf (this was before I went away to school…I didn’t know that when I left to go to EC as a freshman they took it away…I hadn’t been there in 4 years). We decided to go there. It wasn’t until we got there that we found out that they didn’t have mini golf anymore. We went to the pet store next door for a little while to look at the animals, and then we decided to get back in the car and see if we could find another mini golf place. Monkey’s GPS said that there was one in Kenilworth called Pitch and Putt, so we decided to go there. On the way there I decided that I wanted coffee, so we were looking for a Starbucks. We pretty much drove all around Kenilworth trying to find it, taking a scenic route through the town. I could have sworn we were lost and I was never getting home again (ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but the story doesn’t end there). As we were pulling back onto the main road, there was a stoplight and several cars ahead of us. Monkey started swerving, and I was literally afraid for my life. I kept thinking that if I wasn’t depending on him to get me home, and I knew where I was, I would have gotten out of the car right then and there. On top of that, once we stopped he realized that he knew where the Starbucks was all along, and he thought it was the funniest thing in the world…he literally could not stop laughing for a good five minutes (that’s probably an exaggeration too, but it really felt like he was laughing for a long time). I was thinking to myself “it’s not that funny”, and I really should have said something. He asked me if he was scaring me, and I was trying to be nice. I said that he was creeping me out a little.

We got to the Starbucks (which was inside an A & P (supermarket), ordered our coffee, and I politely asked him to take me home, saying that I didn’t feel like playing mini golf anymore (I actually still really wanted to play, just not with him). On the drive home we kind of got back to talking, as if the whole thing had never happened although in my mind I was still a little scared. Somehow we got started talking about movies. He mentioned that he had never seen the movie The Notebook and I said that I had it at home and he should come over to watch it sometime. Meanwhile, I’ve kind of been avoiding him ever since. He texts me and asks me if I want to hang out or do stuff with him and I always say that I’m busy. I’m not sure if he just wants to be friends or something more. I also don’t know how to tell him that I don’t want to hang out with him but not hurt his feelings. ::SHRUG::

One last thing before I go to sleep, as I’m kind of tired, and it’s 12:33 AM: When I talk about relationships on here I’m going to use the scale that my aunt created. I guess I’ll call it “ the whelmed scale”, because the rankings are underwhelmed, whelmed, and overwhelmed. I feel like the perfect relationship would be somewhere between whelmed and overwhelmed. Whelmed to me means that you think about the person a lot, but not all the time, you like to do things with them, they make you happy / excited, but not giddy or overly excited. Overwhelmed to me means that you think about the person all the time, so much so that it interferes with daily activities (which could be a good thing or a bad thing), you like to do things with them a lot, and they make you giddy and overly excited (which again, could be a good thing or a bad thing). I think I am underwhelmed in my relationship (if that’s even what it is) with Monkey.

That’s all for tonight, more soon hopefully.

--Emily

Because it feels like I haven't updated this in forever...

It's been a little over a week since I last posted here. A lot has happened, but I'll try to be as brief as possible, because I've been told that it's easier for people to comment on shorter entries.

The weekend before last was Passover, and my mom and brother and I went to my aunt's house in Mt. Kisco (in upstate NY). They have a lot of property, and all kinds of animals (monkeys, lemurs, exotic birds, zebras, rabbits, kangaroos, albino wallabies, emus, rheas, ostriches, and donkeys among many others). Basically, it's my favorite place on earth (atleast out of the places that I've been to so far...LOL). We went on Saturday, and I got to drive on the highway a little (something I haven't done in a while and something that I like a lot better than driving on suburban streets). Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous, but on monday and tuesday it was rainy and conditions were less than ideal for going to see the animals.

This past Saturday my mom and Ben and I went to play miniature golf with Ben's friend Sara who goes to school with him and her mom. It was really fun. I hadn't played miniature golf in a really long time, and so I was really in the mood to play. I even got a hole in one on one of the last holes!! :D Afterwards, we met Sara's dad at Friday's for dinner. I tried to order a drink, but since I had left my ID at home and I don't look like I'm 21 (let alone 22) the bartender would not give it to me. It should be noted that they won't even let you sit at the bar if you are not 21, and I was sitting at the bar. There was a girl working at the bar who also looked young, but I don't think she would have been working there if she was under 21. I also think that if I had asked her for a drink she would have given it to me. ::SHRUG:: Oh well.

On Sunday I went into the city to meet Phoebe for lunch and hanging out. I took the subway from Penn Station to Union Square and didn't get lost!! :D We went to a Japanese restaurant near where Phoebe lives and had sushi for lunch. I had a California roll. Phoebe got some roll with salmon, and some other roll with some kind of spicy stuff and avocado on top. I tried one of each, but I don't remember what they were called. It was all really good. I never really ate sushi when I was younger, because the mere thought of it was kind of disgusting to me. However, once I finally tried it, I realized that it actually tasted really good. :D After sushi we went to get pedicures and then just continued to walk around. When we got tired of walking around we found a place to sit and people watch / talk in Union Square Park. At one point there was a father walking with his two daughters and one of them was named Phoebe. Phoebe told him that she commended him on the naming of his child. :D We then watched as little Phoebe struggled with her father because he wanted to put her in the stroller with her younger sister and she didn't want to go. When it got to be 5:30, I figured it was probably time for me to go, as there was a 6:11 train back to Maplewood that I wanted to take. Phoebe took me to the subway, and I got on heading in the direction of 34th Street. When I got off I started walking in what I thought was the direction of Penn Station, only to find out after walking a block that I was going in the wrong direction. I turned around, and was able to make it to Penn Station with half an hour still to spare. I sat down and waited for them to post what track my train was going to be on, and then when it was posted I boarded the train.

Tonight my mom and Ben and I went out to dinner with John's cousins, Jake and Lee. We went to the Olive Garden, and I tasted a really sweet wine. I don't remember what it was called, but it was good. I also ordered a strawberry daiquiri, and I did not even get carded. I asked if the waitress wanted to see my ID, and I was about to pull it out, but she said no. And now I lost my train of thought...Grr. I hate when that happens. I'll have to come back and edit this later.

**EDIT (4 / 8 / 10):** I think what I wanted to say before was that it's funny how to some people I look my age or older, and to some people I look younger ::SHRUG::

--Emily

Explanations (and questions)...

I apologize in advance if this is boring or confusing. I'm still trying to get my thoughts together.

So...my mom always says that I don't have to explain the choices I make to her. She always says that the more I say, the worse it is (or the worse I make it?). I can't really give a specific example (and I know that's lame and vague, but I can't really help it) because there are too many times when this happens. I feel like I have to explain my choices to everyone else, but no one else seems to really mind except my mom. I understand that she's my mom and she should just love me no matter what choices I make and accept me and my choices no matter what (even if she doesn't think they are the right choices, although usually they are, and I'm not trying to brag or make it seem like I always make the right choices because I certainly do not. I am human, and I make mistakes just like everyone else. I'm sorry if it seems like I am being defensive. I'm probably apologizing too much. I'll stop now).

I'd like to think that because she's my mom it shouldn't matter to her how much I talk or explain or try to justify my choices (even though I know I shouldn't need to do that with her because she's my mom). I'd also like to think that more than anyone, she should be the one who just listens to me and doesn't try to shut me up or tell me that the more I say the worse it is. I feel like I've gotten so accustomed to explaining and justifying my choices to other people, that it's become a bad habit that I can't break now. I feel like it will be better when I go away to school again in the fall, and everything is pretty much back to normal, but part of me wishes that my mom would just listen to me. Here I go again not knowing what to say to her. When she does things like this it makes me feel like I can't talk to her about anything / I don't know what to say and what not to say / I don't know when it is appropriate to say certain things and when it's not appropriate. ::SHRUG:: I kind of want to fast forward through the next couple months and the summer, but I have several things to look forward to in the coming weeks (i.e. Passover and going to EC and Key West).

I think that's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

What's NYU pussy cat??

In case you couldn't tell, the subject of this entry is going to be NYU. Before I begin I just want to say that the people who read this should consider themselves very lucky, because I am posting more than one entry in the same day (and one right after the other, at that!!). The reason for this is because it's been about a week since I last posted an entry, and a lot has happened.

Ok. Back to the subject of NYU. I think I posted in here about how I got a call from the associate dean of the social work school at NYU and the fact that she wanted to meet with me. We met last tuesday, and she said the problem with my application was my essay. She said that it didn't have enough of what they were looking for, but she wasn't very specific, and I didn't feel like asking any questions because I was so shocked. I was not expecting her to say that at all. I had been talking with my aunts over the weekend because when I first got the phone call, I was really nervous, thinking about all the possible reasons that the associate dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work might want to talk to me. One of my aunts said that it was probably because of my GPA (which was a 3.03, which is a little low for NYU standards, I think), and so that was what I was expecting the associate dean to say. I still don't really understand why she felt like she had to call me in and talk to me face to face if my essay was the problem. She said that she thought that it was a conversation that was better to have in person than over the phone. Frankly, I disagree. I would have preferred to have a conversation over the phone, or just get a letter from them saying something to the effect of: "We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted to our school" or something like that.

I was kind of upset by this and I tried not to show it (I was crying a little, and I told the lady that it was my allergies, but she said that she could tell that I was upset, and it was ok). It's not so much that I cared about the "name brand" of the school (and by name brand I guess I just mean the fact that NYU is an Ivy League school and it's supposed to be really good and to have that on my resume would be AWESOME), but (and I feel like I've said this before on here) their program focuses more on client and relationship centered social work, whereas the focus of Fordham's program is on social justice (you can still have a clinical focus, which is what I think I'm going to do...::SHRUG:: it won't be the same as going to NYU, but seriously...it's their loss. Honestly, who needs them?? Not me, that's for sure. I left the meeting and went to go find something to eat and sit in Washington Square Park and eat and call my mom and aunts and cry. I'm over it now, but I think at the time I was just shocked.

Fordham wanted me and accepted me from the beginning with basically the same essay that I sent to NYU with maybe some slight changes. I don't really understand what NYU's problem was, but I decided that I'm going to go to Fordham part time (it's only 6 credits a semester for the first year, so I'm gonna find a part-time job to do on the side, or maybe I'll do some volunteer work in the field of social work). I applied to live in their graduate housing, which is like 10 minutes from campus, but I haven't heard anything yet (I had to send in a $200 deposit and a copy of my acceptance letter to Fordham just to get a spot on a list for an apartment...we'll see what happens).

I think that's all for now. More later or tomorrow.

--Emily

Madame Tussaud's and Rain

Last friday was the birthday of one of my brother's friends from school. She was turning 17, and in order to celebrate, she wanted me, my mom, and Ben to go with her and her parents to Madame Tussaud's, the wax museum in NYC. We figured it would be a good idea, especially because it was supposed to rain, and the museum was inside. We quickly found out that we were quite wrong, however. Just because it was raining, did not mean that it was not crowded in NYC. It was also cold and windy, and while we were waiting in line for cabs to go to the museum (there were 6 of us so se had to take 2 cabs) my umbrella blew inside out twice (this was the umbrella that my aunt Becky had given me back in january when I went to visit her and my cousin Sarah in Cali--It's light blue and has the Paul Frank monkey, Julius, on it and it says "Paul Frank is your friend". Usually it makes me happy because I love Paul Frank, but on this day I was scared that it was going to break because of the rain and all of the wind so actually I was kind of sad. My mood quickly changed once we got to the museum, tho).

We had a lot of fun taking pictures of and with all kinds of celebrities (everyone from Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein to Shakira and Julia Roberts--for pics check my facebook profile). We had a dinner reservation for 5:30, but we got done in the museum around 3:30. We tried to walk and find a place to just sit down and eat a snack before dinner and be out of the rain, but we were unsuccessful. We ended up just going to the restaurant and having an early dinner (I wasn't very hungry, so I just had some minestrone soup and a salad. Ben got a personal pizza and only ate one slice of it, so we brought it home and I ate a slice that night and the rest the next day--it was, basically just bread and sauce, but it was REALLY good. :D

The hardest and probably least fun part of the day was trying to get back to NJ. When we got to the train station they were announcing that NJ Transit trains were temporarily suspended. We tried to go over to the NJ Transit part of Penn Station to see what was going on, but the people were packed in like sardines, and there was no way we could have possibly gotten any answers. We went back to the main area (where the huge board with the times of trains, the security desk, and all of the waiting areas are) and waited for about an hour before we decided to see if we could get two taxis to take us back to NJ. We walked out of Penn Station, and within 10 seconds a man approached us and asked if we wanted a ride. We had to bargain with him a little bit about the price (I wanna say he wanted to charge us like $200 but we got him to come down to $150--I think that's still pretty expensive, but whatevs) but eventually we were satisfied and all six of us hopped into his car (I sat in back with Ben, his friend, and her mom, and my mom sat in front with Ben's friend's dad--we were all a little squished, but I don't really think that there was a better way for us to get back to NJ at the time).

The rain definitely made this trip an adventure (and a tiring one at that), but all in all I think everyone involved had a good time and enjoyed themselves.

More soon.
--Emily

Comments...please?

So this is gonna be a quickie, but hopefully a goody. I know that a lot more people read this than actually "follow" it, and that makes me happy. However, people rarely comment on it, and I feel like a big part of having a blog is so that people can read your thoughts and give you feedback. So please, don't hesitate to comment (even if you just want to say "your blog stinks and I hate you"...although if you're going to say that please make it anonymous)!! If I didn't want comments, I wouldn't allow them. Now I could understand if my posts were too long and had too much in them and therefore were overwhelming and hard to comment on. If that is the case, please say so. I am very open and willing to make changes to my blog. Or, you could just pick one thing out of the whole entire blog and comment on that and forget about everything else. I could also understand if my posts just were not thought provoking and didn't warrant comments, but I feel like some (if not most) of them are, although I could be wrong.

All I'm asking is for at least one comment every once in a while (I've had this blog for about 2 and a half months now and I've tried to write in it pretty consistently, and I think I only have 1 comment so far). I'm not even asking for everyone who reads this to post comments (but don't get me wrong, that would be nice). If one or two people posted one or two comments every once in a while that would make me happy, and I will try to return the favor for those of you that have blogs that I read that allow comments.

That's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

The Weekend and Beyond...

Wow. It's been exactly a week since I last posted here. My weeks are generally pretty boring, as I don't do much of anything (aside from tutoring, going to work with my mom, and working at the acting studio), but I wanted to talk about my weekend. It all started on friday with a phone call from the associate dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work (aka my top choice grad. school). Her name is Mary Ellen Noonan (on the phone she sounded like a man...but that's beside the point). She said that she wanted to meet with me to talk about my application, so I am going into the city to meet with her tomorrow. I was very nervous when I got the phone call as to what this all meant. I'm sure the people who read this know that I really just want to know (er, I've wanted to know for a while now) whether or not I have been accepted to NYU. I have been accepted to Fordham, so I really just want to be able to make a decision, so that I can know where exactly I'm going in the fall, and begin to make other plans. I feel like this is particularly hard for me at this point in my life because Ben knows where he's going in the fall (a program called Giant Steps on Long Island) and is all excited about it (the director called a couple weeks ago with the name of a potential roommate for him, and he and my mom are going to meet him and his mom for lunch on Passover--monday 3 / 28). Basically, it's one of the only things he can talk about, and it makes me jealous. I feel like for him, it's one of the major ways that he is coping with John's death. I on the other hand, feel like I am stuck in limbo. I only really have one job that excites me (the acting studio), and I have no clue what's going on with my academic life. ::SHRUG::

Now that I have gotten completely off the real topic that I wanted to talk about, let's get back on track. So I talked to both of my aunts and the counselor that my brother goes to about the whole NYU meeting thing, but I am still kind of nervous. I know that some nervousness is ok, though, so I guess I shouldn't worry. I really have been trying not to think about it. I have to get up really early tomorrow, though cuz I want to take a 9:00 train so that I have plenty of time to get from Penn Station to NYU and I won't be late. The 9:00 train gets me in at 9:44, so I feel like I will probably be getting there SUPER early, but I feel like in these situations early is probably better than late. I'll probably just go to the bookstore and buy / get lost in some psychology book (of which there are many that interest me, and I know this because I've been to the NYU bookstore before, but I will talk about that in a bit) and / or buy myself some clothing. I don't know what it is about me and school clothing, but I love it. I used to have so much EC clothing that it wasn't funny, but I have been slowly getting rid of it as I do not go to EC anymore, and I realize that some of it I will probably never wear, sadly. I'm not getting rid of all of it (at least not yet) but I am slowly changing from a "t-shirt and jeans" type of girl to a fancy clothes girl.

Anyway, back to NYU (I feel like I keep straying, and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing). So I went to NYU to talk to someone from admissions back in january. It was really impersonal, as the woman I spoke to did not even have my application in front of her, and it was her last day on the job. The first thing she asked me was if I had any questions. I did have a couple (about their integrated practice / field curriculum program, and whether or not they had an orientation). The lady answered my questions, but now I don't remember what the answers were. I talked with her for a little while, and then took a walk around the campus. I saw the Steinhardt School (yes...my uncle Michael Steinhardt is associated with the NYU Steinhardt School, in case you were wondering) and I found the bookstore. I ended up buying a grey sweater that says New York University over the right breast, and a book called Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram (the psychologist who did the shock study). There were several other books that I was debating about getting before I settled on that one, so I'm sure I will be able to find something to sink my teeth into if I go back there. They had shirts that said Steinhardt (I thought it might be funny to have one) and ones that said NYU School of Social Work (which I promised myself I wouldn't buy unless I actually got in), so I probably will not buy any clothes this time around.

And now that I have greatly digressed from the title of this entry, I will return to the topic of my weekend. On saturday my mom and Ben went into the city for Ben's camp reunion (even though he is not going back to camp this summer he wanted to go to the reunion to see his friends and to see what counselors--if any that he knew--were going to be there). I didn't want to go, so I got to spend a relaxing day at home. I played some Wii, did my laundry and watched some George Carlin, thanks to Netflix :D (one of my favorite comedians, who was introduced to me by John--if you've never seen any of his stuff I suggest that you go check him out on youtube, especially his sketch about cats and dogs cuz it's my favorite). All in all a very relaxing day if I do say so myself. On sunday my mom and Ben and one of Ben's friends and his mom and I all went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was a pretty good movie, but I could have done without the 3D (not that it was bad, but the glasses were uncomfortable and I kept seeing little blue and red specks out of the corners of my eyes). Also, most of the scenes were 3D, but not all of them. I feel like if a movie is going to be done in 3D, then all of the scenes should be done in 3D. I feel like this movie would have been perfectly fine without it.

I think that's all for now. I will try to write more soon.

--Emily

"Drivin' drivin' in my car..."

So if you guessed that this post is going to be about driving, then you guessed right. I know that sounds boring...and I'm sorry if it turns out to be, but this has been on my mind lately.

I got my driver's license like the day before I went off to college, and hence did not get much time to practice / have my own car because I was going off to school. I would try and get as much practice as I could when I came home for breaks, and stuff, but since I was at school I wasn't really getting in as much practice as I needed. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, and I feel like if I continued like this, it would turn into a really long and boring story that not many people would want to read (not that many people read this anyway...but still).

I feel like in order to really get the practice that I deserve, I would have to have my own car, so that I wouldn't have to keep bugging my mom to drive hers. I feel like that's not going to happen anytime soon, so I have given up on that idea and have resorted to just driving my mom's car (most of the time with her in it...I feel like that's the major problem...but I will get to that later). I'm still not really getting as much practice as possible, because a lot of the time I don't feel like driving, or I am more used to getting in the passenger's seat than the driver's seat, and so I don't even think most of the time and just get into the passenger's seat out of habit. When I drive however, I feel like my mom is always (well, maybe always is an exaggeration) yelling at me (like I am doing something wrong, which maybe sometimes I am, but still). Yelling is really not conducive to making me want to keep driving. I mean, technically I have to get us to wherever we're going because I'm already driving (although technically if I wanted to I guess I could pull over and let my mom drive, but I feel like that might result in a fight), but usually I don't want to drive us home.

Ok...once again I'm not really sure where I was going with this, and my mom is yelling at me to go eat, so I will have to come back and edit this later.

--Emily

Testing 1, 2, 3

This is just a test entry. I just changed the time stamp that appears at the bottom of my entries, and I couldn't go to sleep until I saw that it worked (even though I said I was going to go to sleep a while ago). The time stamp had been bothering me for a while because it was painfully wrong, I just never got around to figuring it out until now.

Anyway, the title to this entry reminds me of a song by the Barenaked Ladies that I will have to post the lyrics to later when I am not falling on my face because I am so tired.

I promise that that is actually all for tonight.

--Emily

Job Stuffs

This entry is going to get right to the point as well: I want a job, but I'm not sure if I want one right now, or for over the summer. I mean, if I get one now it could probably last me through the summer, I'm just not really sure what I want right now. I have the Acting With Emily thing, and Emily said that she was hopefully going to increase my hours in the spring (the end of the winter session is in 2 weeks, and then there's like a mini session, and then the spring session starts). I took improvisation classes when I was younger and I loved them, so I think it might be fun to assist with some of those, in addition to the storybook theater class that I'm already helping with. I might just stick with that if she gives me more days / hours (right now I'm just doing an hour each on wednesday and thursday afternoons) but I'd like to be doing stuff during the day too. ::SHRUG::

If I don't get another job in addition to Acting With Emily, I'm still gonna need a summer job. I really want to be working with kids over the summer because it's good practice for what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life ((school social work), but at the same time I feel like I might want to do something different, because this might be the last summer that I can (aka I think now is the best time to explore and try new things because I'm probably not going to want or need to in the future...or if I do then I will have experience in some other field and won't be stuck without a job in the (what I'm hoping is very unlikely) event that social work doesn't work out)). <--I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that (maybe that there's a chance that I might be out of a job at some point in the future--not that I won't be good at my job or I won't love it--just that with the way the economy is faring right now, I feel like no job is absolutely secure).

If I work with kids over the summer it will probably be at a summer camp in a temple (aka preschool!! :D), but not necessarily the one that my mom works at. I feel like it was kind of implied from the beginning of my summer job search that I was not going to work at the day camp at our temple (for what reason and by who I have no clue...mom and Ben both seem to be perfectly fine with it...or so I think. ::SHRUG:: maybe it was something I did to myself) because Ben was. There's another temple on that same street before you get to the one that my mom works at that might have a day camp. My mom keeps saying that we'll go to check it out, and then we never do because she always has something else going on after work (i.e. she needs to get home for the cleaning lady, or she's tired, or she just forgets because she has other things on her mind i.e. running errands, etc.).

I might go job hunting at the mall with one of my friends on friday because I feel like it never hurts to go fill out a job application, and they are not in any way binding.

On an unrelated note (actually one that's more related to my previous post) I'm wondering if I should just send in a deposit to Fordham to hold my place in case I don't get into NYU and I decide I want to go there. I feel like it might be a good idea, because it as well is not binding, and I can decide to pull out at any time if I want to. The deposit is non-refundable...but mom doesn't seem to care. ::SHRUG::

I might also just e-mail the lady who runs the camp at our temple and see what happens. Part of me feels like I should just hold off on all the job stuff until I know what's going on with Acting With Emily, but at the same time, like I said before it can't hurt to just go to the mall and fill out some applications. I've filled out a handful of applications already, and no one's gotten back to me, so I don't really see what difference it makes. If one of the places I apply to this time actually decides to hire me, I will decide how to proceed from there.

I think that's all for now / tonight. It's late and I'm tired.

--Emily

Grad School Stuffs

I'm gonna get right to the point of this entry, right from the start: I really want to hear from NYU already (honestly at this point I don't really care if I get in or not...I'd much rather get in, I mean it would make me very happy...but I'm into Fordham and I would gladly go there if I don't get into NYU--even if I get into Hunter--I think I'd rather go to Fordham at this point...I'll talk more about the Hunter thing in a bit). Today I got a huge package from Fordham with all kinds of scholarship and financial aid stuff, brochures about housing, curriculum and registration stuff, and info about health services. There was even a thing that I can send to them once I decide whether I want to go there or not (the top half is a statement of acceptance in case I decide I want to go there, and the bottom half is a declination statement). I got all excited about it at first because I have been checking the mail every day for something from NYU and I thought this was it, but I was still excited when I saw that it was from Fordham, even though I'm still not sure whether I want to go there or not. It would definitely make things a lot easier if I knew whether or not I've gotten into NYU. I tried to call them yesterday to see if anyone could tell me when I'd be hearing from them, and the woman I spoke to told me that they were probably reviewing my application, and that that was all she could tell me.

I feel like NYU has at least been a little bit more helpful than Hunter has. When I go to the NYU website the mission statement is very easy to find and it tells me all about the school. The Hunter website, on the other hand just doesn't say as much. I get the feeling that their program is just a general program that doesn't have a specific focus (i.e. social justice--Fordham, or clinical social work--NYU). I guess I would be okay with that if I didn't get into NYU, but I feel like I'm more familiar with Fordham so I should just stick with that. I would say that the location of Fordham is also better than that of Hunter, but I've been looking at it, and I really don't think that it makes a difference. One of my aunts lives about 20 blocks away from Fordham, and the other lives about 20 blocks away from Hunter. I feel like NYU is closer to where my friends who live in NYC are (well, specifically friend aka Phoebe...she's the only one who's there now that I know of, but in the fall Polly and Jackie and maybe some others might be there). I've gotten to know the area around NYU pretty well (I went there last month or so to talk to someone in admissions so I got to walk around the area) and I have a cousin who lives not too far away from there as well (he's in SoHo). I don't really know the areas around Hunter and Fordham (although I'd be forced to get to know them if I decided I wanted to go to either one, and I feel like that actually wouldn't be so bad).

Like I said, when I called NYU the other day to see if I could find out when I would be hearing from them, I spoke to a woman who told me that my application was probably being reviewed and I could try to e-mail the office of admissions, but I would get a response that told me the same thing she just had. I called Hunter as well, and they have one of those stupid automated messages where you have to listen to the whole thing in order to actually be able to talk to a person. I pressed whatever button I was supposed to in order to be able to talk to a person, and then I got an answering machine. There was no way in frickin' hell that I was going to leave a message, so I just hung up. That is another reason why I would much rather go to Fordham if I don't get into NYU.

There's a reception for admitted students at Fordham on the 18th of March and I feel like I should go just to learn more about the program and meet people that I might be going to school with in the fall, as well as teachers that I might be having if I decide to go there. I'm hoping that I will have heard either way about NYU by then so that I can know once and for all where I'm going. I feel like these next few weeks are going to go by really slowly, though. GRRRRRR.

**EDIT 7:12 PM:** So I sent an e-mail to the Fordham admissions people, RSVPing to the reception thingy that said: "To whom it may concern,

I just wanted to let you know that I will be attending the acceptance reception on Thursday, March 18th. My only problem is that I am still waiting to hear from NYU as to whether I got accepted there or not. Hopefully by then I will have heard from them, and I will be able to decide whether or not I am definitely going to attend Fordham. I will e-mail you and let you know if anything changes.

Sincerely,
Emily Kaplan"

I probably should not have said the whole thing about NYU and not being sure that I wanted to attend Fordham. ::SHRUG:: My mom seems to think that it was irrelevant, which I guess it was, but somehow because of that she thinks that they're not going to allow me to go there now if I decide that I want to. I also probably should have said "admitted students reception" now that I think about it, but I feel like that isn't as big of a deal. It wasn't like I said I was definitely not attending Fordham...and they didn't give me a deadline as to when I have to decide. ::SHRUG:: It just gives me one more thing that I have to worry about.

I think that was all I wanted to say for right now. If I think of more things related to the subject of grad school I will come back and edit this entry. More soon.

--Emily

“Tonight’s gonna be a good night…”

This weekend was probably one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. On Friday night I got Chinese food, and my mom and Ben and I watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics from 7:30 – 11:00 PM. It was really interesting to see how many athletes each nation had (the range was from one to two hundred something). There were different indigenous Canadian tribes that did a dance before hand, which I thought was interesting. They all had really elaborate costumes. I love to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics because you really get to see and learn a lot about whatever country is hosting them.

After the parade of nations there were performances by Nelly Furtado (with some guy whose name I can’t remember), and Sarah Mclachlan (sp.?), two artists that I like a lot, and then a dance that portrayed what the different seasons were like in Canada (I mean, they’re not different from the U.S., but it was interesting to see how the dancers interpreted them (I apologize if this is boring for those of you who were able to watch the opening ceremony, but I wanted to share my perception of it). I did not get to see the whole thing (I don’t know how much longer it went on after I went to sleep) because I was tired.

Saturday I went to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief with Ben and one of his friends from school, a girl named Sarah. My mom and Sarah’s parents went to see A Single Man. Percy Jackson was really good. Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Harry Potter films, directed it and it had Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, and Uma Thurman in it. It’s about a kid (Percy Jackson) who is the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman, which makes him a demi-god. He doesn’t realize it though until he goes on a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his teacher takes him aside because she says she wants to talk to him, but then she turns into some kind of crazy flying creature, and she attacks him. The gods think that he has stolen Zeus’s lightning bolt, and they want it back. He goes to this special camp for demi-gods so that he can stay safe and protected, and a Minotaur steals his mom from him. We later find out that Hades has gotten a hold of his mom somehow, and the only way that Percy can get her back is by going to the underworld to get her. Because there is no way out of the underworld once you get there, Percy and his friends have to find three magic pearls that when stepped on will essentially free them from the underworld. Most of the movie chronicles the adventures of Percy and his friends on their quest to find the pearls. I don’t want to reveal much else in case you guys decide that you want to go see this movie. I thought it was really cool. It was one of those kinds of movies that are action packed and keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the whole thing, at least in my opinion.

After the movie our parents came to pick us up, and we went to our favorite Italian restaurant in the area, called Basilico’s. I ordered caprese (pronounced capri-say; it’s mozzarella and tomatoes with some kind of oil…maybe truffle oil, I don’t remember, but I feel like I should know this because they serve it at Arturo’s too) as an appetizer and gnocchi bolognese as my main meal. It was really good, but very filling as gnocchi usually is. After the movie we went back to Sarah’s house to play some Wii (Ben and I got one for Chanukah and now we’re addicted so we have to play it almost everywhere we go that has one i.e. friend’s houses, etc. It’s a pretty cool game console and I suggest that if you’ve never tried one out you should at some point). Sarah likes Wii Sports (it has tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing, and golf. Ben and I love the bowling and have gotten REALLY good at it) so she and Ben played tennis and bowled, and then I bowled with her as well (I’m really only good at the bowling, boxing and golf…I suck at the tennis and baseball, and I’ve never been a huge fan of sports in general anyway, so I don’t really care). After Wii we had some ice cream and then came home.

This brings me to Sunday; Happy Valentine’s Day to all and to all a WONDERFUL day. : D The valentine that my mom got me was really sweet. It’s pink and says daughter on the front. On the inside left it says; “A push in the swing, a storybook read, a kiss on the cheek. A chat in the car, a hug at the door, a laugh on the phone”. Then on the right side it says: “So many little moments have made me so very lucky to have a daughter like you—a daughter who’s transformed from that little girl with the big smile to the young woman with a big heart. Happy Valentine’s day with love”. She wrote a little message underneath that which says; “I’m so glad you’ve been here for me. It means more than you’ll know”. I know this is true, but at the same time, I don’t think it would have worked any other way. If I had gone to school this year I would have had to quit school and come home again anyway. For more reasons than one I am glad I did not go straight to grad school. As much as I wish that I was back in school right now, and as much as I complain about living at home again, I really think that I made the right decision.

I think the title of this entry really applies to Sunday night, because it was indeed a good night. Ashton had been in NYC since Friday because of work, so we decided to have an EC reunion dinner. I met Ashton, Phoebe, Bilal, and Ryan (a man that Ashton had just met on Friday or Saturday night who was from Boston and in NYC for the week for work) at an Irish Pub on E. 43rd street called Annie Moore’s. I took a 5 PM train to Penn Station that got me in at 5:44, and then I walked to Annie Moore’s and got there at like 6 PM. I was soooo not expecting to be the first one there, but I was. I called Phoebe who said that she was just leaving her apartment and would be there in 15 minutes, so I went inside and waited. Maybe about 5 minutes later I got a call from Ashton saying that she was lost so I went outside to try and find her. It turned out that she just hadn’t walked far enough, and we found each other in no time. I was busy turning in circles trying to see her, which ended up being kind of funny. I was glad that I got to spend some QT with her before everyone else arrived. We sat at a table and had sprite to drink while we chatted and waited for everyone else. Once they arrived we sat down to eat. I had a crab cake sandwich that was really good, and apparently I was really hungry because I practically inhaled it.

Ashton was freezing because she had worn a short dress with no tights and heels and a somewhat light coat not thinking that she was going to have to walk so far to get from her hotel or wherever she was to the pub, so after dinner we went back to her hotel so she could change and be warmer the rest of the evening. She put on a scarf and a warmer coat, and we headed out again. This time I got to spend some QT with Phoebe, because we were both walking kind of fast, and Ashton and Ryan were walking a little slower (by this point Bilal had split which was kind of a shame because I had enjoyed hanging out with him. It made me sad that we had never been closer while at EC, but I told him I would find him on facebook, and he said that we should all get together again soon). We went to Starbucks because Ashton wanted coffee, and then Ashton and Phoebe decided that they were going to join Ashton’s coworkers at some club (Ryan had to get back to wherever he was staying because he had to work in the morning, and I had to catch the 10:11 train so that I didn’t get home at some crazy hour and my mom could come pick me up. I dropped Ashton and Phoebe off at the hotel where Ashton was staying so that they could meet up with Ashton’s coworkers, and then headed on my way to Penn Station (this was at like 9:30 PM).

I walked up to the corner of 7th avenue and W. 40th street and tried to hail a cab. The first thing that came my way and actually stopped was one of those bicycle taxis (you know, those bicycles that have like chariots attached to the back of them?? Yeah, one of those…LOL). The guy on the bicycle asked me where I was going and I told him Penn Station (Ok, it was cold, and I honestly really wanted a real cab even though I was only going like 6 blocks, but anyway…). I asked him how much it was and he told me 8 dollars. I’m not really sure whether it would have cost more to take an actual cab or not, but I figured this guy offered to give me a ride and I was tired and cold so it probably would not have been a good idea to turn him down. It was definitely an interesting experience; not as warm as I would have liked for it to be, and REALLY bumpy…probably the bumpiest ride I’ve ever had in NYC. I got to Penn Station with plenty of time, so I bought myself a book and sat down to read for a little while before the track for my train was posted.

When I finally went to get on the train, I realized that a girl that I went to middle school and high school with was walking next to me (someone that I knew and was friendly with, but was never really friends with). She got to the bottom of the stairs before I did, and when I got to the bottom she recognized me and said hi. We ended up talking the whole way back to Maplewood. It was fun. I always find it interesting to see people that I went to school with when I was younger, especially now, because I really didn’t keep in touch with that many people after high school. I had a huge falling out with a lot of people in my friend group around prom time senior year, and then we all went off to college (most of them at Rutgers), and we just didn’t really keep in touch.

I think that’s all for now. More soon.

Emily

Getting Sick and Tired of Living at Home

Part of me feels like this entry is long overdue, because I have been sick and tired of living at home for a while now. However, there's another part of me that feels like I really shouldn't be complaining about this at all (and still another part of me feels like I'm going to look back at this entry and think it's stupid someday, and I feel like I say that about everything I complain about, but most of the time it's true). Before I go any further, let me just say that I know my mom has been suffering / going through a difficult time lately, but still. It seems like the littlest things are setting her off / making her angry, even more so than before, like the way it was when John was alive and going back and forth between living here (aka my house, where I live with my mom and Ben) and his mom's house. I feel like I can't say anything or do anything right in her eyes. I feel like it has always been this way, but now it's just worse. I don't really think that there's anything I can do about it, either. So for now until I go to school in the fall, I just kind of have to grin and bear it. I have to really think about what's worth fighting about and what's not, and the ways in which I talk and react to her.

There's a quote from the movie Bambi that I feel like I really need to remember right now: "If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all" .

I know this was short, but I feel like that's really all I wanted to say for the moment. More soon.

--Emily

New York City and New Friends :D

Today was fun!! I went into the city with my mom and Ben because one of Ben's friends from camp was having his birthday party at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. The party started at 11:30 AM, but we took a 10:00 AM train, and got into the city at 10:47 (super early :D). We went to the Hard Rock Cafe and just hung out and looked around the store and then went downstairs to right outside the actual restaurant part, where they have all kinds of rock memorabilia. Literally the first thing you see when you go down the stairs is a huge picture of the Beatles (my favorite band of all time) with four outfits that they must have worn at one point, and four red TWA (the airlines) bags with their names on them. I didn't bring my camera, but I took pictures with my phone. Maybe I'll see if I can e-mail them to myself and then maybe I'll post them here. Anyway, Mom and I waited with Ben until his friends arrived, and then we went to meet my aunt and cousin for lunch. We met them at Sarabeth's (E. 92nd and Madison, I think) but it was pretty crowded, so we decided not to stay. There was a cute little french bistro across the street called Pascalou (I think that's how you spell it) so we decided to go there instead. I had a hot chocolate (which was actually not very good) and a Croque Monsieur (sp.?) which is just a grilled swiss cheese and ham sandwich. It was pretty good. Afterwards, we went to a store called Blue Tree (I think). They had jewelry, clothing and houseware stuff (i.e. funky vases, salt and pepper shakers, pillows, comforters, etc), which was all really pretty, but really expensive, so we decided before we went there that it was just going to be a "museum".

Mom had told me about a nail salon that said aunt had told her about and where she (my mom) had gone once with one of her friends, and she had been promising me that we could go there for a while, so she made appointments the other day, and after Blue Tree we said goodbye to my aunt and cousin and went there. The place was on E. 90th between Lexington and Park, so we just walked. The manicures were very relaxing, and took about 40 minutes (waaay longer than any manicure I've ever gotten, but it was sooo worth it). A lot of the ladies in the nail salon spoke Spanish / were from Mexico. I was talking with the lady who was doing my nails, and her accent sounded Latin American to me, so I asked her where she was from and she said Mexico. I don't remember exactly where in Mexico she said she was from, but I told her that I had spent a semester study abroad in Mexico (Cuautla, in the state of Morelos, to be exact, but if you're reading this and you know me, then you probably already knew that) and she said that she has a sister-in-law who lives in Cuautla. I think she said her sister in law lives in Colonia del Hospital. I'm not exactly sure where that is, but I told her my host family lived in Colonia Plan de Ayala, and she seemed to have at least heard of that. We were talking in spanish for a while, which made me happy. Any chance I get to speak spanish nowadays is always good. Speaking spanish is definitely a skill that I never want to lose. I feel like my knowledge of spanish has kind of decreased / there are things I don't remember / it takes me longer to remember things that I know this past year since I graduated from EC. I really hope that when I go to school in the fall I can get a field placement somewhere where spanish is spoken a lot, or maybe just take a spanish class or something like that. I really need to keep up with it if I don't want to lose it.

Anyway, back to the topic of this entry (in case you couldn't tell, I love to side-track...LOL). After our manicures we took a cab back to the Hard Rock Cafe to pick up Ben. When we went to drop Ben off, Mom promised us each that we could get something from the store before we left. I found a really cute hat and a duffel bag that I wanted, so mom paid for the duffel bag and I paid for the hat. Ben got a sweatshirt, and Mom got bracelets. The girl who was ringing us up was really cute and she looked young and she had an accent that sounded British to me (FYI: anything with 2 legs and an accent = LOVE, but it has to be a certain kind of accent, i.e. British, Scottish, Irish, Australian, South African, or Spanish / Mexican. I don't like French, Haitian, German, or Russian...i.e. accents where if they are really thick I can't understand what you are saying) so I asked her where she was from and she said England. She had said something about just singing with her boyfriend while he played the guitar before coming to work, and then she mentioned that she just joined a band recently, and they were going to be doing a gig in NJ sometime in the near future and she gave me her name (she has a facebook profile and she told me to look her up) and the url for the band's website. If any of you want to check it out, it's www.hotmess411.com. Ummm...in short, I LOVE NYC because of it's crazy awesome diversity, and I can't wait to live there in the fall!!! :D As of right now I'm still waiting to hear from Hunter and NYU, but hopefully I'll hear from them soon and can make my decision as to where I want to go. Either way, I will be in NYC, I just want to hear already so I can make my decision and start finding out where I'm gonna live and what classes I'm gonna take in the fall. I'm actually starting to kind of miss school, now that I have almost nothing to do (I quit my job at Arturo's--finally--yesterday. I had known that I wanted to for several weeks now, but couldn't get up the motivation / energy to actually do it since John passed away).

Ok...I guess that's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

Two things...

So...there are 2 main things that have been on my mind recently: Jobs (for right now and the summer), and something else that I'm not quite sure how to put, so I am just going to try to conduct a poll about it (not sure how helpful that will be because I'm not really sure how many people actually read this...but it can't hurt to try, right??). Ok...here goes: How many of you would want to talk to / be friends with / hang out with someone who always said "whatever" whenever you tried to talk to them? I don't mean like you ask them a question or tell them something and then they just say "whatever" and that's it. I mean you are trying to have a conversation with them / tell them something / ask them a question and they always say "whatever whatever whatever" even while you are still talking, like they don't want to talk to you / want you to shut up / think they know what you are going to say / don't even want to hear your voice. The reason I am asking this is because my mom does it to me all the time. If you know my mom, it's not one of the things she does in public, really, or when my friends are around...just when we are together and alone (It's like Vienna on the Bachelor, if any of you watch that: the way she acts when she's just in the house with the girls is different from the way she acts when she's around Jake. Mostly, she's a b*tch when she's around the girls...although some of the things she says when she's just with Jake make me want to shoot her as well...but that's just me). It makes me want to shut down and not talk to her. Also, it makes me feel like she doesn't want to hear what I have to say about anything...ever. It just makes me...GRR. In case you couldn't tell, I'm trying to say that she's done this all along...not just since John was sick / passed away. ::SHRUG:: I'm just not really sure what to do about it.

Oh! Before I completely forget, I mentioned my huge breakdown at the pizza place last wednesday in last friday's entry (not the one from this previous friday...the one from the 22nd) and thought I should further enlighten the people who read this before I continue to talk about job related stuff. So last wednesday I worked the longest night I have worked so far at the pizza place (from 5 PM to like 11 PM...I feel bad because I was so upset by the time I left that I forgot to sign out and now I can't really remember what time I actually got off. I feel like it's not that big a deal but still). I was worried about John because I feel like somewhere I had a feeling that he was going to die soon, but I had wanted to go to work so that I could be busy and not have to think about it. By the end of the night I was already sooo ready to go home and then they had me do all kinds of closing cleaning stuff that I had never done before basically all by myself (i.e. putting chairs on top of tables, sweeping, mopping, taking chairs back down, etc.). It wasn't so much the fact that it was hard / stuff I could not do...it was more that I was tired, and I was the only one doing it. I had been planning on telling my boss about what was going on with John anyway before I left for the evening, but my back was killing me from putting all the chairs on top of the tables and then taking most of them back down again (and apparently doing it in a way that was making it harder for myself, according to my boss, although no one had told me that there was an easier way to do it). Fortunately, my boss saw that I had been struggling (towards the end) and came over to show me the easier way to do it. That was when I kind of broke down, and he asked me what was wrong and I told him about John. He was like "You didn't have to come into work tonight" and I explained that I'd rather have been there and been busy than been at home and he was like "why don't we take you off the schedule for sunday (the 24th--the day John died) and then just not put you on the schedule for next week (aka this past week). You can come in to get your tips any time you want and then we will discuss where we are going from here (aka if I'm going back to work there or not, although he didn't actually say that...BTDubs the answer is no). I just haven't been able to motivate myself to drag my ass in there and talk to him about this. ::SHRUG::

On a related note I have been looking for other jobs, but to no avail. I really wanted to talk about summer job possibilities tonight, but I'm kind of tired, so I think I'll just go and save that for another entry.

More soon.

--Emily

The Past Couple Days...

So...to recap the past couple days: wednesday was John's funeral, yesterday I went to work with my mom and we had shiva here at my house from 6-8 PM, and today my mom and I did errands, and then we all went to temple at 7:30 PM.

The funeral was, in one word, horrible. It was at the church where John's mom is a parishioner (that's the word for someone who attends church services, right?? I feel like that sounds right, but I'm not sure. If you're Jewish and you go to temple, we say you're a "member of the congregation"...that's all I know) and the priest was like Haitian or Ugandan or something and had the heaviest accent that no one in my family could really understand. Before the service even started one of John's sisters came over to my mom to apologize about the whole name thing in the obituary that John's family had written for him. I just don't understand how my mom and John could have been married for 12 years and no one in his family knew that my mom had changed her name. ::SHRUG:: Go figure. Anyway, the priest hardly knew John (he had only met him like twice) and spent his whole speech referring directly to John's mom and sisters, and then just giving a generic list of all the other people in John's life at the end. Also, he kept switching back and forth between talking about John the Apostle and John Lutz and it was hard to tell when he was talking about which. I think my uncle and one of the women who had cared for my grandma went up to him and complained, because after the service he came over and apologized to me, my mom and Ben. The reception was at a nice Italian restaurant near where John's mom lives called Bensi. The food was really good, and they pretty much closed the whole place down for us, which was nice. After the funeral my aunts came back with us for a little while before they went back to the city.

In case the people who read this didn't know, I LOVE preschoolers, especially 4 year olds. It's soo much fun to go into work with my mom because she's an assistant teacher in a preschool with a 4 year old class. This whole week they had been learning about Israel. On tuesday the kids got to go to the desert (in Eilat, I believe) and make necklaces and go fishing on the coast and have a sandstorm with a parachute. The lady who teaches drama (and is friends with my mom) was all dressed up in Israeli desert woman's clothing (sunglasses, head-covering, long skirt, etc.). She also had a paper camel attached to 2 chairs, and was explaining to the kids that people in the desert don't have cars, so their kids ride to school on camels. It was funny because some of the kids recognized her and were calling her by her name. :D Yesterday was their last day in Israel and they got to eat falafel and hummus on pita, sing songs (it is sooo cute to see and hear them sing, that I am literally brought to tears every time...not kidding), and then board the "plane" (which was just a bunch of seats in a tiny chapel in the mansion of the temple) back to New Jersey. While were on the "plane" we watched a "video" (which was actually a slide show of photos that had been taken throughout the whole week). It was cute to see their reactions to seeing themselves in the pictures, because they would laugh and scream when they saw themselves. There were actually several pictures of me in the slide show, because I helped with the parachute sandstorm on tuesday, so that was fun to see.

For shiva literally ALL of the women that my mom works with at the preschool showed up, in addition to some of my friends, two of Ben's teachers, my aunts, one of my mom's cousins, two of the guys that worked with John, one of John's friends that he had known since 3rd grade, some of our neighbors and several of my mom's other friends. Almost everyone brought some kind of food, so we now have enough stuff to last us for at least the month of february.

Temple was good tonight. A lot of the music is different from what I remember growing up, but the words are all still the same so it didn't really matter. The rabbi said John's name before the mourner's kaddish and we (mom, Ben, and I) stood up. It was interesting because I knew it was coming, but I still cried a little when his name was read.

Not much else is going on here...but before I completely forget, I wanted to give you the url for the other obituary that my aunts wrote for John and put in the paper the day after the one that his mom wrote:

http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/starledger/obituary.aspx?n=john-l-lutz&pid=138983924

Most of it is pretty much the same, but my mom's name is changed from Kaplan to Lutz (as was done 12 years ago, but like I said no one in his family seemed to notice...::SHRUG::), and I think it just puts us in a more favorable light instead of having all the focus be on his mom and sisters.

Ummm...I think that's all for now. More soon.

--Emily

SO not sure what to call this entry right now. Basically, here is the url (I tried to make it a link, but for some reason it did not show up ::SHRUG::) for the obituary that John's mom wrote and put in the Star-Ledger (which is one of the main NJ papers). I have a print copy of it myself...but the only reason I really wanted the people that read this to read it is because it is so RIDICULOUS.

http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/starledger/obituary.aspx?n=john-l-lutz&pid=138952264

That is really all I wanted to say for right now. I have no more words at the moment (aka I'm speechless). More soon (but probably not until friday or saturday).

--Emily

A Speech (sp.?) for John...and other things

As promised, here is the speech (sp.?) that I wrote and was going to say at the reception after John's funeral (which is on wednesday, btdubs), but decided not to after MA so rudely told my mom that what she wrote and was going to say was "too personal". ::SHRUG::

I will always remember the first time I met John. My mom brought him home after one of their dates, and though I don't remember exactly what happened, I remember laying on the floor and knives being involved somehow. I remember being scared, but at the same time trusting this strange man that I had just met. After he married my mom, it took me a while to adjust to the fact that he was living with us, but eventually I did. The one thing that we really bonded over was our mutual love of animals. I know that going to my aunt Judy's house in Mt. Kisco or watching shows on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel will not be the same without him.

When I went to see him with my mom for the last time on sunday (after he had passed away) I wanted to tell him that I loved him one last time, and I was working up the courage to do so, but when I saw him I was too scared to say anything. I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, but I ended up getting him half on his cheek and half on his lips. I can't really think of any way to end this, except to say: I love you, man.

And now a poem that I wrote for him one father's day:

J is for Just being there for me when I need someone to talk to, to get away from the bad things in my life.

O is for Open which I feel I can be with you, maybe more than anyone else.

H is for Helicopters which you love to build.

N is for No one else but you could be my step-dad.

I don't really know what else to say now. I should really go to sleep because I am going in to work (at the preschool) with my mom tomorrow because I'd rather be out of the house and busy (at least for part of the day if I am not going to be working any of my own jobs) than be sitting at home doing nothing and being upset about John. I will write more (and hopefully about happier things) soon.

--Emily

Because I feel like I need to update...

I wasn't really sure what to call this post. The past couple days have been CRAZY (well...mostly just yesterday and today...but still...). You know how I posted several weeks ago (1 / 8 to be exact) about how my step-dad (John) was diagnosed with lung cancer towards the end of 2008? I don't think I mentioned that he had been in and out of the hospital...but he had. Anyway...then I posted again last week about how he only had between 2 weeks and a month left, and the cancer had spread all over.

The moral of the story (and I'm sorry to those of you who read this and didn't know yet that this is how you have to find out): John died yesterday.

I'm not really sure what to say next / how to proceed with this entry from here. There has been a lot of fighting going on between my mom and John's mom recently (and just tonight one of his sisters kind of got involved with it too). For a while John's mom felt that my mom wasn't doing a very good job taking care of John, and they were trading back and forth (i.e. when he was not in the hospital or at the hospice center, he was either here at my / my mom's house or at his mom's house...when he was at his mom's house my mom was still kind of caring for him i.e. bringing him medicine when he needed it / going to stay with him once when his mom had a doctor's appointment and didn't want to leave John alone...but that's kind of a different story). After a while things settled down because John got kind of demanding and couldn't get up stairs anymore, so his mom found it hard to take care of him as well. More recently, however (and this started even before John passed away) my mom and John's mom have been fighting about arrangements for the funeral (i.e. payment / what kind of service to have, etc.). My mom and I looked up average funeral costs online one night and found that they are approximately $9,000 ($8,900 to be exact), so we figured that between my mom, John's mom, and his three sisters (aka 5 people) that they could each pay $1,800 and that would cover it. I don't know exactly what happened after that, but for some reason I feel that my mom told John's mom about the whole money thing and for whatever reason she wasn't happy with it. My mom seemed to think that if she had given John's mom a check for $9,000 dollars that she would have been her best friend. When we went to visit John on friday, his mom did not even acknowledge mine. Her husband (John's step-dad, Dick) was very nice and he came over to talk to me and my mom, but John's mom just walked right past mine without even saying anything.

I'm gonna side-track for a second: The people who read this know that yes, parts of my family (on my mom's side) are pretty rich (My one uncle who was big in the stock market and now has all kinds of animals on this HUGE property in Mt. Kisco, NY, and my other uncle who was on 20 / 20 on ABC and now has his own show on Fox Business Network). However, both of these uncles married into the family. My mom did not get so lucky. Yes, my dad was an eye doctor, and had more than enough to support himself and then a little more (he wasn't really rich, tho...and I'm not complaining). My parents got divorced when I was young and then my mom married John, who was by no means rich. He grew up on a farm in NJ and worked with his father's welding business for a while. He went to college, but I don't remember if he graduated or not. He was on the rescue squad for a while and did various jobs with welding and in dental labs and stuff before he started his trike business. The trike business did him well for a while, but suffered during the recession, and was never really able to get back on it's feet before John got sick. The moral of this story is that John was not made of money and left my mom in debt for various reasons that I don't really feel like going into here and now certain members of his family are expecting my mom to do god knows what (aka pay for the entire funeral, among other things). Honestly...this is the last thing that my mom needs now. I don't know what else to say.

When we went to the hospice center to visit John for the last time (yesterday...after he had already passed away) My mom and I were going around and hugging everyone (his mom, his aunts, his cousin. etc.) and when we got to his mom she said that john loved me very much and mentioned how much I helped him, but she did not say anything to my mom. I told my mom afterwards that she was acting like a 2 year old...and later she said "not even that...she was acting like a 1 year old", so I was joking and saying that because she's 70 years old in real life, if you were to subtract 68 or 69 from that, that's how old she really is (and I thought that was funny of course because of '69'...ok I said it I'll get my mind out of the gutter now...LOL). It's just "very bizarre" as my best friend from home put it. There's not much else I can say about that.

In other related news, one of John's sisters (I'll call her PB) called me on my cell phone today to tell me that there was an open slot if I wanted to read something from the bible. She also said that if I wanted to say something at the reception after the funeral that I could do that too. I told her that I had something written, and I would feel more comfortable saying it at the reception. Later, one of John's other sisters (whom I'm going to call MA) called my mom and it seemed like the conversation started off innocently enough (I heard my mom asking about catholic funerals and what the normal procedures for saying things were...then she read MA what she had written, which apparently wasn't good according to MA, although I had written it and it seemed appropriate to me...my best friend from home said that usually not even the family says anything at catholic funerals and they are more like mass services, but I still think it would have / could have / should have been appropriate for my mom to read what she had written at the reception after the funeral) but then MA must have told my mom to stop yelling at her because I heard her say what she always tells me and Ben when we tell her to stop yelling at her ("You want me to yell at you? THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN I YELL AT YOU!!!"). I don't remember where exactly I was going with this...except to say that I don't really want to say what I wrote either now. I wrote it for me, I have it for me to put in my scrapbook (and post here in a bit, and maybe read at the shiva we are going to have at my house on thursday) and it doesn't really matter to me whether John's family gets to hear it or not at this point. ::SHRUG:: Right now I really just want to post some song lyrics (of several songs that John loved and that make me think of him. These are all Fleetwood Mac songs, btdubs. Fleetwood Mac was one of his favorite bands and one that we listened to a lot together, especially when we were driving in his PT Cruiser):

Don’t Stop (The reason why this song relates is kind of sad because in addition to it being one that we would listen to a lot together, it kind of makes me think about how John was the last couple weeks that he was alive, because he didn't really know what was going on since the cancer had gone to his brain and affected his short term memory, so like he kept asking if / when he could come home or go to his mom's or stuff like that. In other words, he was always thinking about what was going to happen in the future, as if he was going to get through this, which I guess in a way was good, but it's sad to think about now).

If you wake up and don't want to smile,
If it takes just a little while,
Open your eyes and look at the day,
You'll see things in a different way.

Don't stop,
thinking about tomorrow,
Don't stop,
It'll soon be here,
It'll be better than before,
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

Why not think about times to come,
And not about the things that you've done,
If your life was bad to you,
Just think what tomorrow will do.

Don't stop,
thinking about tomorrow,
Don't stop,
It'll soon be here,
It'll be better than before,
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

[Instrumental]

All I want is to see you smile,
If it takes just a little while,
I know you don't believe that it's true,
I never meant any harm to you.

Don't stop,
thinking about tomorrow,
Don't stop,
it'll soon be here,
It'll be better than before,
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

Don't stop,
thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop,
it'll soon be here,
It'll be better than before,
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone.

(Oooooh) Don't you look back,
(Oooooh) Don't you look back
(Oooooh) Don't you look back....FADES OUT

Go Your Own Way

Loving you
Is it the right thing to do?
How can I ever change things
That I feel?

If I could
Maybe I'd give you my world
How can I
When you won't take it from me

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up's all you wanna do

If I could
Baby I'd give you my world
Open up
Everything's waiting for you

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
go your own way

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day

You can go your own way...
Call it another lonely day...
you can go your own way...

Say You Will

Somethin' in you brought out somethin' in me, that I've never been since
That part of me that was only for you,
That kind of romance
Comes only once, that kind of love
That kind of fever dance
That you love because you become someone else in an instant

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance
At least give me time to change your mind
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Somethin' in you put a hold on my heart
It's hard to believe now
Here in the place that will never be dark
I remember that place...
That kind of touch, electricity of love
That certain kind of grace
That you love because you become someone else in an instant

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance
At least give me time to change your mind
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance (say you will)
At least give me time to change your mind (say you will)
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance (say you will)
At least give me time to change your mind (say you will)
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance (say you will)
At least give me time to change your mind (say you will)
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance (say you will)
At least give me time to change your mind (say you will)
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

Say you will, say you will give me one more chance
At least give me time to change your mind
That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can
Get you to dance

What's The World Coming To

What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?
Everyone's gone to the moon
What's the world coming to?

Every night, every day
In this house filled with shame
I can say I care
But there's no one there

There's no truth in my life
There's no light in my eyes
And it's all I guess
That I'll ever miss

What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?
Everyone's gone to the moon
What's the world coming to?

I can jump right off and fall right into the ocean
I can come right out and think just what I say
But if I don't call for a reservation
They'll just turn me down
Turn me inside out

I don't say what they want
I don't do what they say
So I'm on their list
So I'm gone, I guess

What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?
Everyone's gone to the moon
What's the world coming to?

What's the world coming to?
What's the world coming to?
Everyone's gone to the moon
What's the world coming to?

I'm sorry that this is so long. I think I'm gonna put my speech (sp.?) in another entry that will follow shortly after I post this one. I guess that's all for now. I can't think of anything else to say.

--Emily