I'll Sit and Wonder of Every Love That Could Have Been

I did NOT finish the knitting olympics challenge on time. I'm way behind. Nowhere close to done. My personal life got in the way of knitting, as per usual...so...man, I suck so hard. Congrats to everyone who did finish. Y'all rock my face off! I will post pics of the shawl when it is finished.

Now Listening: Death Cab For Cutie - The Sound of Settling

Match Point

I saw Match Point tonight. The more distance I get from it, the more I liked it.

There was one scene where the innate Woody Allenness was incredibly apparent, and then it just became very Woody Allen for the rest of the film. All the way down to the fact that the whole last 20 minutes it was like, "OK, you're going to listen to Opera now!" Although I can only recall ever having seen one Woody Allen movie (Everyone Says I Love You - again something I mentioned during the Friday night debacle - evidently all topics have now been covered), it did strike me as very Woody Allen in the end. [It was the scene before he enters the apartment building, with his tennis gear slung over his shoulder that convinced me of this.]

Anyway, it was fun, but the people in front of us kept whispering loudly to each other, playing telephone. There were about six of them, so one on the end would say something, then the second person would laugh, the third person would ask what was said, and it went down the line like that incessantly after a certain point in the movie. And they had behaved so well for over an hour at this point...I don't know. Some people are just jerks.

Also, I got an IM from a lost friend who I have been wanting to talk to so badly for so long now...I truly missed her, and now...I think every thing is ok.

I'm very happy about that.

Capote

I went to see Capote with Ben, Jess, Emily, and Matt at the Somerville theatre. Afterwards, I commented on how it was recommended that I read In Cold Blood (and To Kill A Mockingbird, but I had read that) before watching the movie, but if I held fast to the read the book first rule, I would never see any movies!

Irish Car Bombs & Loaded Questions

Last night, Jessica, Ben, Emily and Matt came over. We were going to play Balderdash, but ended up deciding we had enough people for loaded questions, instead. Before the games began, we did the Irish Car Bombs...

["Oh my, this is disgusting"]

["The dixie cups do float! Oh no, my shot is just floating on top of the Guiness! I'm going to pour it out"]


As you can see from the progression of the pictures, the car bombs were not successful.

During Loaded Questions, one of the questions was "What is your favorite word for the male anatomy?" Ben had the pleasure of reading off the answers for that one:



And Emily demonstrated knitting: movie style. You know how when they knit in the movies or on TV, sometimes they do it upside down? Yeah...:

The highlight of my evening, however, was when Matt showed up with a card for me. It was a sympathy card, but he relpaced some of the words: "Such a sweet little soul job could never be forgotten. With sympathy on the loss of your pet job." Seriously the funniest card ever.

Infinite Fun!

So, Dear Public, I'm Here to Confess That I'm The One Who Freed Us From This Mess

I want to give a big thank you and hugs to anyone whose been supportive in the past few days. Emily, Skylar, and Matt, Harvard, Alisa, Jessica, Sara, Peter, my parents. And anyone else I might have overlooked.

I know I am strong and will get through this. In fact, Ben kind of hit the nail on the head when he said there was a slight twinge of relief in my voice, because I certainly didn't want to be stuck here forever (i.e. until grad school). To be completely honest, I'd been flirting with the idea of looking for another job anyway, and was probably about a month away from actually doing it, and really, what's a month? I'll tell you what a month is. It's the difference between me being non-committal, and me being a victim of circumstance, and you know what? I'll take it.

I am a little excited, to tell the truth. A lot scared, but a little excited about the possibilities.

I also think I've made some headway on the grad school decision. Houston isn't lookin' so bad anymore...And maybe St. Louis wouldn't be so scary this time around. You know? It's nice to have options sometimes.

Now Listening: XTC - I'm The Man Who Murdered Love

Some of God's Greatest Gifts...And All That

So, I don't want this to be the little corner of the Internets where I whine and drone on and on about my sad little life. Everything that has happened to me has happened for a reason, and I can cope with that. This is not wah-fest '06 or anything.

Having prefaced with that...

2005 was a rough year for me. In January, my grandmother passed away. My grandmother who happened to help raise me - who I was terribly close to, and the guilt I felt about being in New York when she passed on (as though I was supposed to have been able to change the fact that I was going to college 2000 miles away because she passed on unexpectedly). I missed her, and it broke my heart, but it also broke my spirit. I didn't know who I was, or where I was headed, and so I clung to the one thing I knew, which was me and college boyfriend, even though I had been questioning the relationship for a long time. I had to find a job after college, but none of that mattered, because I had a guy, even if I didn't have my lovely grandmother anymore. The job would come.

But the job didn't come. Resume after resume went out, and the companies I did hear from weren't interested in someone without a B.Arch, or paying living wage, which would have been a bigger deal in Manhattan than, say, Texas.

Then, in June, my whole world came crashing down. Three days before I was going to move everything I owned into a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, I was dumped. I was dumped in the middle of my graduation week, which didn't stop him from coming to the graduation even though I had to pay $150 for his extra ticket. I guess he thought he was doing the right thing, even though he showed no respect to my parents the whole time and let me endure it all with red rimmed eyes while I was shaking hands with the president of MIT, while I was taking pictures in my cap and gown, while I was trying to be happy that such a happy day had finally come, even though I was torn apart inside that my grandmother couldn't be there.

So armed with my degree, but with no place to go, no job, no apartment after my summer was up at WILG (and I was lucky I even had that...if the rooms had all been rented out as they usually were, I would have been in trouble).

First things first, I had to find a job, and probably not on that putrid island called Manhattan, which was big, but not nearly big enough, or far enough from college boyfriend. I changed tack and started applying in Boston, Cambridge, and the surrounding T-accessible areas. I found a living situation in a matter of weeks, but on top of all of all of this, I was trying to pick up and mend the pieces of my heart. I truly didn't know where to begin. Even when it all fell into place, I lived disjointedly, disconnected from all of the good fortune I had because of my wonderful friends - and my family. For months I lived this way.

Then I did something pretty stupid. I started dating a friend. He went to Harvard and he was my best friend's high school friend. I don't regret dating him, and part of me will always love him. As a friend. The feelings I have now are...well, they're a little sad, a little...something. But they're nowhere near as bad as the not knowing. The searching. The agony of waiting for him to come around or not come around.

For a brief, shining moment, I was truly happy. It was on my birthday, and a small buffer of time around then.

So, for those of you who don't know where this is headed, I was laid off yesterday. I have two weeks left of paid work, then I'm out. Unemploymentville, population: me.

Life has come full circle, and I'm where I never wanted to be again. Why couldn't the roulette wheel have stopped spinning on January 14th, instead?

I know that there's a bigger plan out there for me. I know I just need to have a little faith. I know this is just a rough patch (they're all just rough "patches"), and eventually soon, I will be past it. I know that these experiences enrich my life. It's just so difficult to see that when I'm standing in the thick of the shattered pieces of my broken dreams.

But for now, there's portfolio work, unemployment lines, and interviews galore (God-willing).

And maybe...there's a little bit of a glimmer of hope, too.

My Johari Window

My Johari Window

Click there and go help me fill out my Johari Window! This is a big trend in the blogosphere, and I think it's an interesting social experiment...So I jumped right on this bandwagon.

And you should too!

I had some time to walk around before my orthodontist appointment yesterday (why is it that when you are in a rush, the trains take forever, but when you leave when you're supposed to, you catch one train right after the other and end up being 20 minutes early? Oh, Murphy), so I took some photos around the Longwood area. I wanted some pictures of the pretentious marble Harvard seals in the courtyard of the Harvard Medical School building, but by the time I ambled over there, my hands were too cold to get a shot. I was not dressed weather appropriately because I didn't have a chance to go home from work.

Anyway, this shot was the only one I was happy with, but it was fun walking around, despite the cold.

Then, my orthodontist made me wait 30 minutes. Such service!

At least I had a book. Last time, I forgot book, knitting, etc. and ended up stealing a copy of Spin from the office. There was one New Yorker and the Boston Herald in the office this time, so I'm glad I went prepared.

MC on the Red Line last night: Me with a box of girl scout cookies, you with skis and beautiful blue eyes

Yesterday on the T, I saw this ridiculously gorgeous guy. He had skis and was reading some sort of graphic novel, standing by the door. I glanced at him, but then he saw me looking so I quickly looked at the subway map above the door, squinting so he'd be sure that I was not staring at him. When I let my eyes pass over him again when I was done "looking at the map," he laughed at me! So, I just stuck my nose back in Bless Me Ultima, which was the train book of the day, and proceeded to become absorbed.

At Harvard, the woman sitting next to me got off the T, and he came and sat next to me. I took out one earbud just in case, but he just read his graphic novel after making eye contact right before he sat.

When I got off the train, I had to jump over his skis, and he looked at me once more and smiled.

I should have slipped him my number. Seriously. What did I have to lose?