I was told that last night I was talking in my sleep. I was more mumbling as I couldn't get a report of what it was that I said. But I had a long dream that when woken by the alarm I thought to myself, "I can't wake up, I need to get back to my life with the Osbournes.” Because I was indeed best-buds with Kelly Osbourne, or at least someone like her that, due to our friendship, I had full access to their home. This was easily the most entertaining dream featuring celebrities since the one featuring Brian Austin Green and Ricky Schroeder in a murder-mystery camping situation that was a lot like a Lifetime movie or after-school special.

This dream had no exciting twists and turns but it has full on interesting events. Firstly, I was in the Osbourne house alone. I had come back from swimming with Kelly at the damn beach and she was running out to go shopping for this party we had to go to. So I was driving a SUV and parking in the Osbourne’s garage. I realized there was camera people outside which meant that there was no way I was exiting the garage to enter the house in just my bathing suit. There were boxes blocking the entrance to the house, which led directly into Ozzy’s & Sharon’s bedroom but I couldn’t remember what stack of boxes I had to move. So I kept moving stuff around and finding that it led to no where. Eventually, I figured out what stack had to be moved so I built a shelf to put the boxes on and then went into the house and took a shower in the master bathroom.

Upon exiting the shower, I realized that Ozzy & Sharon had returned home and were preparing for that evening’s party which was somehow related to my older sister’s wedding. I heard Ozzy right outside the door in his closet talking to Sharon. I peaked through the crack in the door and saw he was naked with his back to me. (Yeah, in my dream I saw Ozzy’s super-white butt). So I knocked on the door and said, “Hey, Oz, I am getting out of the shower. I got home right before you.” He mumbled some things and then told me I could come out. I said hi to him, kissing him on the cheek (face cheek, he was wearing a robe now). Sharon called me over and explained details about the party which she was throwing for my sister’s friends and other young people who were in town for the wedding. I guess she was trying to let people know they were so thoroughly average that they had friends like my family.

I took a limo with Ozzy, Sharon and Kelly to the party. Ozzy was much like my dad as far as everyone seemed to ignore him while I joked around with him, even though I didn’t understand anything he said. When we got to the party, there was press out front taking pictures. Other slick Hollywood types were attending as well. My family and the groom’s family arrived and we went to sit in some cozy nook. While my dad and Ozzy were drinking, I was told by my sister that I should go talk to the groom’s men along with my younger sister.

If that wasn’t strange enough, the two men we were talking to were black. Not only were they black, but they were related to my sister’s fiancé, who I never saw so I can’t say if he was or not. The chances of my sister ever dating or marrying a black person are simply very low. They had gifts for us to welcome us to their family: a mug with a black fraternity logo and a camping travel kit.

Obviously, there is a good reason why I wanted to return to this dream when I woke up. However, I was unable to get back into this world and was forced to face the day. I have not smoked for two days now and find it pretty easy to quit this time. I felt considerably good this morning as I was laughing to myself about this dream while getting ready. I can smell and taste much better already and find the breathing remarkably improved. I am pretty shocked at how fast my body is recovering, but that is probably because I only smoked for 2 ½ months before quitting this time rather than 8 or 9 years of nicotine to be flushed from my body the first time I “quit”. The reason why I mention this is that I am using “the patch” and sleep with in on to fight my desire to have a cigarette in the morning which is very strong. I would have to say that having such a steady stream of nicotine all night long gives you some sweet trippy dreams.
Thursday, January 22, 2004

---

I have "morning" classes this semester so I thought it would be best to pack lunch rather than waste money. Of course, I forgot to actualy bring said lunch with me so I was stuck wasting money. Rather than spend every minute at school as I had in the past, I decided to go on a road trip. I see the signs for Princeton every time I go through downtown, and randomly picked that direction as my break was plenty long for me to go get a cheese-steak in Philly is I so desired, or ate beef.

Shortly after passing the low-lying industrial areas on the outskirts of town, there wasn't much for a good deal of the trip. It was just the occasional strip mall and "garden apartment" complex. Such a landscape was so depressing that I tought I must have gone the wrong way or that Princeton wasn't right off the road but I should have turned somewhere. I made a right turn off the main road and turned around in the stone quarry parking lot. I was going to go left but the sign at the sign at the light said that Princeton was still in the direction I had been travelling. I did not think it was that far away, and maybe it wasn't so far but 10 strip malls look like 1,000.

Finally, I knew I was approaching some place that could be called Princeton by the colonial architecture, with backyards of 30 room homes facing the Raritan River. The far apart estates turned into closer together Victorian masions and then finally smaller Edwardian homes and small stores that aren't like any chain found in any strip mall that I passed en route. I drove around for only a short while, noticing a certain air that is completely lacking in the town I go to school in. It was distinctly academic, slightly stuck-up and completely well-bred.

There were no nail salons or hair-weave places, there were no groups of teenaged mothers waiting for buses or hanging out in front of 99-cent stores. Despite redevelopment efforts, the town my school is in is ugly compare to Princeton. Actually, it's hell compared to Princeton. I hadn't gone more than 4 blocks passed the Ivy League school of the same name when I began drifiting into dreams of renting an apartment above "Cate's Collectables" and "Homer's Home Furnishing" while I have my post-grad school job in Treton. This town in Georgetown, the West Village and my current town all in one. This town is worth living in. The town where my school is living in had over 4 murders within blocks of my school in a matter of months. There is a reason why I commute.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004

---

When I finally was bored on Saturday afternoon, I knew I was ready to go back to school. Winter break was so full of places to go and big evens, week after week, that it seemed as if I was constantly preparing or recovering from something. If it wasn't that, then I was catching up on reading or knitting or other diversions I normally have little time for. Saturday, I finally was bored. I wanted to have some on going project to do, I wanted a time-line longer than a week or less. I am reading for another semester. I think getting down to being so bored you sleep in order to pass the time is finally enough rest, finally enough relaxation, is the marker of being ready for vacation to end. Before that, you aren't really willing to return to work / school. Before that, you return because that is all the time that was allotted to you. It was easily the first time I was bored in Winter Break 1998 / 99.

Now that I am 27, I realize that I am old enough to say things like "babe" and have habits of an adult. Being 27 required that transistion that every age since 24 had required. It's the shock that there is nothing particularly exciting about aging any more, but rather it is completely terrifying. I decided to embrace it. I decided to embrace aging as much as I can. I may even begin to wear cardigans with appliqued animals and sequins. That's how old I am.
Monday, January 19, 2004

---

Spending a weekend away is suppposed to teach you new things about your boy. Maybe I learned a couple new things, but mostly it was the same as being home but with slot machines and table games for entertainment instead of the television and bars. I knew he was implusive, and therefore lost most of his money on the first night while I managed to win back the little I lost the first night and then only lost a bit more the second. I knew he was charming and loving as he held my hand whenever we walked sside-by-side. He was just as defensively chivalrous as he would not accept my money to pay for drinks. I learned nothing new except for outside of our regular environment, we can still have that great relationship where we knoww the slight difference in body signals between "I need a hug" and "I want a kiss."

We met a guy from California on Saturday night. The boy thought that he was gay but I knew he was just a mild-mannered bland straight Californian. The boy coined the term for this guy's sexuality "burrito straight." While chatting with burrito straight, he asked if we were "born and bred in New Jersey." He knew the answer, of course, because of our accents. Burrito straight also informed us that my Jersey accent was stronger than the boy's, something that was a surprise to me because I have always teased the boy about his prevalent Essex County pronunciations. I decided then burrito straight could not tell the difference between a decidely Jersey accent and then general inflections of the entire NY Metro area. I decided that the boy may have more typical Essex Co. inflections that pepper his language whereas ever word that comes out of my mouth is not burrito straight but bagelicious.

I told my older sister about this encounter when I visited her in PA the next day. The first thing she asked before I got into the theory I had as to why anyone would think my accent is stronger was, "were you drinking?" I was in Atlantic City, at a bar, so of course I was completely trashed. She then shouted into the other room to her husband, "When do I sound very Jersey, honey?" and he shouted back, "When you're drunk." The conclusion was then that I only sound so darn Jersey when drunk but most of the time I definitely do not have a stronger accent than the boy. This was decided after a lunch in a small PA restuarant where the waitress asked us, "Can I get you something to drink AWHILE?" Which I suppose means awhile we read the menu, which is nothing compared with the inability of people from NJ to say mall over maul.

p.s. I got an A in my third class. I deserved that damn A, and 2 others as well.
Monday, January 12, 2004

---

I have two grades posted so far. And I suppose I should be happy about them. But whenever I think about what those grades are I feel a little sick, a little upset, a little disappointed. Because I am supposed to be perfect.

My two grades are both B+. That is not the grades I wanted to get. I wanted As. I worked for As and believed that I was going to get 3. If I am lucky, I will get one. I just wanted to start this whole thing with a solid foundation of strong grades. Instead, I did just good enough. If any of those B+ and been Bs, trust me that I would not be writing this but out for retribution and redemption.

Last year at this time I was complaining about 2Point5. I suppose, in contrast, 2 B+s aren't nearly as bad as 2Point5. 2Point5 is getting a free ride in a good graduate program, woking as a consultant for her old 2Point5 employer and making B+s. If I had continued to work there and not go to grad school, the only think I would be looking forward to now is getting a 3Zero and not getting disappointed over B+s.

(Which, by the way, can be strongly attributed to the fact that there are no A-s and professors are faced with giving an A or a B+.)
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

---

"Vacation" is nearly half over as I am just beginning to relax. Christmas came and went, New Year's came and lingered a bit too longly the morning after. I met the rest of the boy's family, the first girl to ever meet his father. I have almost been dating him for a year, the longest that I have ever dated a boy.

He and I went shopping last weekend to finish getting gifts for his family we visited later that week. We went to a deparment store not in a mall which is a wholly different and interesting experience from the mall versions of such department stores. The notable difference is the complete lack of crowds and, from this, a more organized store. I was sneaking around looking for a gift appropriate for an 11-year old girl I hadn't ever met. The sales man rearranging men's shirts attracked my eye. There was something about him that was very familiar but I couldn't figure what. This is the feeling I constantly get in New Jersey, where anyone could be someone I'd encountered earlier in my life that I have forgotten completely. There is the feeling vague familiarity not much different from seeing a minor celebrity bringing toilet paper home or picking up dog shit. Mixed with that feeling is the utter fear or anxiety that this may be someone I should know and react to as the long lost friend that they may want to pretend us to be. The sales person gave me that feeling, plus a little quickening of the pulse.

However, I was in no mood to encounter anyone at all. I had thrown on the cleanest clothes at the boy's house and was looking forward to buying soup after as I was suffering from a Christmas-to-New-Year's cold that required I blow my nose every 2.5 seconds or sniffle like a coke-head. I hoped the person was no one I knew at all, just a face of a sales person I'd encountered before or one of those faces that look like so many others. When I finally saw his face, I did completely fake half smirk-smile I give everybody who I know maybe looking back at me but I am purposely avoiding actual eye contact. I knew who the boy was. I knew right away it was the boy that I tought I would be obsessed with forever.

I semi-secretly obsessed over the boy for my senior year. I drove him places and made him laugh. We gave each other birthday gifts valued under a dollar. I knept his until it was lost in my house fire. Maybe without that token to constantly remind me of him, a cheap keychain with an odd key that he couldn't remember what it opened, I lost whatever it was that I felt so strongly about then. I looked into old journals, when I used to write to myself in journals, and I actually titled one "Why I was ever remotely interest in _____ (just so I'll remeber in 1,000 years)." The reasons were precisely what a 18 year old would have to say, things that maybe even now I would still have to say.

When my old roommate found the "love of his life" in a girl that he had a crush on for many years, we had a discussion about the one we knew we should never pass up. He, of course, named his "soul-mate" and I named this boy I saw working at the strip-mall department store. Just 3 years ago, I thought that, if given the chance, I would give a relationship with that boy a try. And when I was given a chance, I turned my head and blew my nose in the soggy tissue in my hand.

p.s. I coming live from my very own laptop. I finally have all the software loaded and updated and everything connected. I am so cool now. All I need is a digital camera and a palm pilot and I'll be the perfect uber-nerd.
Saturday, January 3, 2004

---