almost jumping

My parents got a beautiful new imac, and a new printer/scanner. AND THEY ARE FINALLY GETTING DSL!! (Right when I leave... thanks a lot.) So here is my first attempt at scanning something- we've never had a scanner before, so this is new and exciting.

Me, at age 5, on the family farm in Stiles Junction, WI, holding a cat.

I met a really great guy yesterday. Yesterday morning I took an early bus downtown to meet this boy who will also be going to the university of Chicago, he was a little bit late and I had to wander around for a while, but it was really worth it. I'm so excited to meet kids from my school... this was like a preview. He's super nice, very easy to talk to, and very much like every kid i know. I'm used to boys like him. I guess I want to get away from that Island "lets sit on the beach and smoke pot" mentality, but it'll be great to have someone around who is familiar and will remind me of home. There was no amazing mental connection with him, but I still really had fun and I do want to see him again.

Then I went to work, which was fun, cause I have SO FEW DAYS LEFT! We had very few customers so I spent a lot of time sitting around eating and talking to my coworkers. After work I went to Singles Going Steady and crawled around on the ground, searching for posters to decorate my dormroom. I found one for Ted Leo + the Pharmacists and another from The Capitol Hill Block Party of 2004. Honestly, neither poster is that great, but they'll do until I find some ones I really like. I planned all this so I rode on the same bus home as my dad, which was nice. We watched episodes of the Ricky Gervais Video Podcast on my ipod all the way home.

As soon as I got home I showered, changed, burned the Format's cd, and ran out the door and on to a ferry to Port Orchard. One of my closest friends is leaving for college today, so a bunch of my best friends and I went to her house, watched SNL dvds, and ate pizza and cake. I slept over there and then took an early ferry to Seattle so I could go to work.

I got to leave work early! Life is good and happy, but I miss Mare already.

My boss has been trying to bribe me to work next weekend. He says if I work on Sunday, he'll pay be $50 in addition to what I normally make. (Thats a lot of money... more than time and a half, I'd make like, $140 that day...). I have worked every weekend this summer, with the exception of the weekend I graduated, I never ask for days off, if they need me to work extra, I say yes yes yes oui oui oui. I deserve a break, don't I? Its like putting a price on my friendships/happiness. How much will it cost to make Anna Rae ditch her friends and Bumbershoot? I waffled around a bit, and finally, for once, put my foot down and said "NO!". I have been waiting all summer for this one little weekend, I can't let them take it away from me. So now they are threatening to lock me into the restaurant on Friday night. Pray for me to stay strong.

One thing that I'm excited about is that I should finally get to meet Oliver this week. Oliver is a boy from the University of Chicago who lives on an island near Seattle, he doesn't come into Seattle all that often, but everytime he does we've been trying to meet up. But I keep blowing him off... work, plans, my friends... I feel terribly guilty. I don't want him get the impression that I don't want to meet him, because honestly, there is nothing I want more than to meet someone from my school. He's coming into Seattle on Tuesday and I have to work that day (like always) so I think we'll meet early in the morning and go to a cafe or something before I go to work. I hope it actually works out this time, he seems like a cool kid.

Tomorrow I'm taking the kids I babysat all last summer to WildWaves. I was pretty much their nanny last year, driving them around, fixing them lunch and tying their shoes. Its not an easy group. The kids are awesome, but they are difficult... ages 13, 11, and 7. The 13 year old is too old for a babysitter, and he acts like an asshole to prove it to me. The 11 year old worships me so much that its past endearing and more like obnoxious. The 7 year old is cool. He's my favorite (shhh!). I wonder if I'll have the energy to get through the day.

I'm sorry I'm so dramatic, and that I say the wrong things at the wrong times.
Hey you, I may not be perfect, but at least I'm happy, and isn't that all that matters?

(and Flo, what are your plans for next week?)

Music- Rainer Maria "The Awful Truth Of Loving"

1) I trained my replacement! YES! A new busser!

2) The window washing guys came today... and one of them was incredibly gorgeous. I wish I was five years older.

3) I got to leave work early, at 2, cause the new busser took over.

4) With my free time after work I went shopping (but didn't buy anything), and I found this great store I've never been in. When I was trying on shoes they were playing Lily Allen. In a STORE in SEATTLE.

This morning I said goodbye to Christine, who I've known since first grade. She's more like my sister than my friend, I don't have any pictures from when we were six on my computer, but here's a few from when we were 13 or 14 at the beach on the Washington coast. The first picture was taken today, a couple hours ago after we ate breakfast. She's one of those few friends that I know I will have for my entire life.

this is sorta a big deal, but then again, i would have still wanted to go to u of chicago if it wasn't in the top 10 universities in the US.

i get so stressed out at work. and all i'm doing is cleaning tables and shit. it makes me worried that i'm never going to be able to find a job i actually enjoy because i'm so fucking uptight.

i had a marvelous evening last night with florence, we saw the Devil Wears Prada and wandered around Pacific Place talking nonstop. i haven't seen her in a year, and we have a million things to say to each other.

Fuck my friends for leaving me, can't they wait a while to go to school?

oh, and gilles, can you send me a postcard, please?

i'm reading There Are No Children Here and it makes me seriously scared of going to Chicago. Not scared enough that I'm not excited anymore, but damn, this place is a different world. There is no ghetto in Seattle that is anything at all like Cabrini-Green, Ida B., or Henry Horner. We're such pussies here. I want to help these children.

hey you. i KNOW people are reading this blog. Why don't ya'll comment every now and then?


I'm collecting the covers of the Stranger and I'm gonna put them up all over my walls at college!

Yesterday my best friend and I went to the New Angkor Market after eating delicious Pho up in White Center. We walked all up and down the rows of the market looking at all the crazy Asian foods and products. We stumbled upon bins of kitchen supplies at the end of the store. There were colorful plastic bowls, butcher knives, little tea cups, rice strainers, and all sorts of things. We bought ourselves a pack of 12 utensils. The pack cost us $1.39 and now we each have two forks, two spoons, and two knives to take with us to college. They are crappy little pressed metal utensils with yellow-orange plastic handles. You may see this as trivial, but these are my first forks and knives of my adult life, I'm going off on my own and now I have something to eat with! Its one little piece of growing up that I now have.

Last night... fondue, champagne, and SPICE WORLD the Movie! It was also my first real goodbye, to a friend of mine who is leaving today to go to USF. How crazy that we're all finally starting to drift off to college. I should probably be embarassed that I sang along to the Spice Girls during that movie-
I still know every word to all their songs! It was a strange contrast. I was sitting with my friends, celebrating us moving on to the real world, while watching a movie from when we were all little kids. We don't really want to grow up, do we?

Spice Girls: We're the Spice Girls, yes indeed. Just Girl Power is all we need. We know how we got this far...
Ginger Spice: Strength and courage and a Wonderbra!
Spice Girls: Would this work with only one?
Baby: Just with me I have no fun.
Spice Girls: Would this work with only two?
Scary Spice: We need more for what we do.
Spice Girls: Would this work with only three?
Sporty: Three's a crowd, bad company.
Spice Girls: Would this work with only four?
Posh: No way, girl, we need one more!
Spice Girls: Listen up, take my advice - we need five for the power of Spice. Give it up, give it out, take a stand, scream and shout! One, two, three, four, five - Spice Girls!

(this is probably the worst movie i've ever seen.)

I'm reading this book right now about Elena and Nicolae Ceaucescu. Its absolutely enthralling. I think this is where I realize that I'm kinda an odd kid, and that I actually am a huge nerd. I've always been fascinated by the really morbid things that have happened in the past. I don't know why, I can't explain it. I mean, its not like I'm obsessed by dead things or anything. I suppose I'm just interested in how societies can go wrong and how people can let tragedies happen (or even create tragedies). As a little kid I read book after book about the Holocaust, and one of my favorite books was "50 Greatest Wisconsin Crimes". The Wisconsin crime book was amazing, I read about murders and bombings to and from elementary school on the school bus. The school systems of the US and France have failed miserably in their efforts to give me a rounded education. It wasn't until two years ago that I even heard of Ceaucescu and all the terrible things he did in Romania- and I'm sure if you asked all the kids in my high school if they knew who this man was all except for five or six kids would say they had no clue who he was. There are so many things that I want to do and learn, I just hope that I find time for them all.

To me, there is nothing better than the elation you feel when you slip out of daily life into a place where all is forgotten, then there is nothing more crushing and frustrating than being forced to return.

So, I have found out where I'm living next year, and according to this awesome website I will be living in pretty much the coolest, most enthusiastic house on campus. It seems like everyone is really active in school activites and has a lot of fun. I also learned that my House's offical song is "Gay Bar" by Electric Six. This song brings back such awesome memories of France for me. I know I'll love living in this place. If you are also at all interested (which you probably aren't... but anyway... you should check out pictures of it and stuff on its website right here. And hey! The dining hall looks like the Great Hall at Hogwarts!! Sans Dec!

Tomorrow my mom and I are going to Sol Duc Hotsprings to camp for a few nights, hike a bit, swim a lot, and relax. I just can't wait to get away from the city and stop thinking about work.