I feel like this was a big weekend...

...but being all sick I missed a lot.

First things first.  It looks like, within the next week,  or two, I'll have two jobs instead of none.  Hopefully.  One as a babysitter and one at a restaurant, hopefully.  Neither is totally official yet.  But I think that there's a good chance that both will pan out. Which is great actually, since I don't know how to manage free time.  Best to fill my hours with things to do so that I'm forced to find time for things like homework and laundry.  Right now though, I'm glad to have the freedom to sit home with this horrible headcold and mope about my sniffles.

My mom is, as we speak, moving into her new apartment.  It's strange that my family is moving and I have just been sitting home with my tissues and will be largely unaffected until I visit them next. I may not be going down for spring break this year, what with hopefully starting to work again next week, so I'm not really sure when that will be.  I do miss them though.  I'm pretty sad that I'm not flying down yet.  And if I really don't go down, I'm sad that I won't have the chance to speed down the highway with Bridget in the shitmobile.  In fact, I may never have that chance again, as it seems the shitmobile is no more! Mom has a new (to her) car to go with her new apartment! Her sisters drove down in her mom's previous vehicle this weekend to give it to her, and stayed to help with the move.  They're the best! And so is G-ba for finding such a generous way to recycle her car.  G-ba, by the way, apparently replaced that car with a sexier model, a fire-engine-red number with all the bells and whistles.  Snaps for G-ba!

My own life has been its usual self.  A smattering of homework, some scattered naps, and a few good nights of hanging out with the gang.  Friday night was great. We got to see Marissa for the first time in a while, and that was nice.  Rich left for VT to go see his best friend Kate around ten thirty, and at eleven Ben threatened to tickle me.  This led to about ten minutes of hysterics, and I only came out of the corner when Ben pinky swore he'd never tickle me ever as long as we live.  I'm petrified of being tickled.  Completely petrified.  After that, Tim defeated a bottle of rum (which has now been given a place of honor above the stove, like a drinking trophy), and somewhere in the middle he and Max had a juggling contest. All in all, a success.  Then I woke up Saturday with a vicious and vengeful headcold.  I suspect I got it on a job interview I had on Thursday--the kids had been sick all week, and my interview to be their sitter consisted of hanging out with them and their mom for an hour.  New kids, new germs.  Ah well.  So Saturday I intended not to go out, but Bridge, Ben and Mims wouldn't hear of that, and I allowed myself to be talked into going to Lisa's, where I essentially took a nap while my friends played a board game.  Then we met DanWhite, and as the hilarity began to ensue, I went home and watched "My Fair Wedding" with Kayleigh until sleep.  Today was Superbowl Sunday, and I spent it largely hanging out listening to music in my room.  I went to the store and bought some comfort food, and I had Bridge and Anna over of course, but mostly just stayed in bed.  Then Kati and I hung out for a while.  Then, or rather now, I'm doing this. 

And now for something completely different.

Easter Eggs and Hidden Tracks.  These things make me insanely happy.  I mean really.  Little extras at the end of movies, weird quirks in computer programs, and CD tracks you are only likely to find if you first buy a real CD, then play the CD on in an actual stereo, and fall asleep for quite a while. I get really psyched about them, and when I go see a movie I'm likely to sit through the credits just for the chance to catch one.  If every director put them into his movies, they'd be less special, but I do wish a few more of them would consider how happy they make me. Harry Potter and POTC tend to be good about them :)  For a funny example, type about:mozilla into your browser.  I mean, if you have Firefox.  It does different things on other browsers.  I think Internet Explorer flat out disabled it.  But it's amusing either way.  The wikipedia page on the subject was amusing as hell.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_book_of_mozilla)  And it makes you hate Internet Explorer and AOL just a little more than you already did. 

Now I'm going to sleep.  Maybe.  Although really three isn't late lately.  I'll likely stay up this late tomorrow too, as Stormin(g) the Castle (Rich's radio show) is on from 1:30 am to 3:30 am.  If you'd like to listen (and you should, he's good)  you can just click here

Ugh.  Okay.  Sniffles aside it is definitely time to go to bed.  It's just hard to be tired when you've done nothing but sneeze all day.  Sleep sweet, all.

<3 Rach

PS--Cousin Luudle, I love you and miss you and am thinking of you from across the universe!  You are such a magnificent person <3

I guess that's why they call it the blues...

I am a college student, and as such, I admit to spending the occasional weekend night drinking with friends.  Not generally in excess, and not in any situation that would be considered less than ideal.  Any family reading this, do not be alarmed!  Now that I've made that disclaimer..

Last night I got fairly well smashed.  I decided that I would stop worrying about everything on my mind and just try and be young, have a good time.  I suppose keeping track of how much alcohol I actually drank was one of the things I stopped worrying about.  This little experiment in adolescence led to a good half an hour of loudly exclaimed drunken wisdom, conducting conversations from a horizontal position significantly lower to the ground than my conversations generally tend to be.  My friends were wonderful sports about it (possibly because I have had conversations with many of them from similar angles when they overindulged) and they let me say my peace about every topic from the recent election in Massachusetts to the myriad reasons that Pocahontas is the most inspiring of the Disney princesses.  As I sobered, this progressed to some measure of confusion as to why I was on the floor, and complete disbelief when I was informed that, yes, I had been on the floor for twenty minutes.  And while I was on the floor, completely blocking the path to the restroom, other guests of our small party had been forced to go next door to my apartment to use mine.  All in all, an embarassing night.  My friends must be such wonderful people to deal with me.  One friend was especially splendid, and obliged when I begged "Don't leave until the room stops spinning! I can't face the spinning alone.  It's just too much."  To that friend, whose name I shall keep to myself due to the fact that I've clearly said we were drinking, thank you very much for holding my hand until the spinning stopped.  You are, as usual, my hero.

On a more pleasant and altogether less embarassing front, PianoMike seems to be on board with the idea of starting a band.  We went to the Curry Student Center today and played around with the grand piano for a while.  He played "I, Giorni", a composition by Ludovico Einaudi, so beautifully!  That song makes me cry when I play the CD, but hearing it live was much better.  He did a lovely job.  We did a little bit of Simon and Garfunkel, and decided that this week we're going to set about learning some songs.  And, eventually, find other musicians to play with.  Or perhaps that should come first?  Well, either way, we're moving forward with this idea.  I had the strangest sense of something exciting beginning today when he was playing.  Maybe devoting some time to making music will be good for both of us. I know I've missed singing fiercely.  I've also been very suddenly interested in art again.  I've been drawing on every available surface, and itching to get my paints out.  I'm not really an artist, but I do enjoy it.  It is as though every painting I haven't done, every song I haven't sung, every poem I haven't written over the past year is just clawing its way out of me.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I was once pretty creative. I think I will be again.  One night last week, I opened my window and it smelled like spring.  I think that's a good sign.

"Someday out of the blue, maybe years from now, or tomorrow night, I'll turn and I'll see you.  As if we always knew, someday we would live again, someday soon."

-Elton John, "Someday Out of the Blue"

Monday you can fall apart. Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart. Thursday doesn't even start...

Had a party at the apartment last night.  Lots of fantastic pictures for Facebook, not a single one of which is "taggable" (we're clearly drunk in all of them, we can't tag them). 

We started out with Kayleigh making cheesesteaks for everyone (well, almost).  Then we started the festivities.  Kayleigh invited Lucas, aka Train Guy, to the party, and we all liked him I think.  It felt like he fit in well, which is nice.  Love having new additions :)  Later, we had a MUCH more random addition, which is I believe the funniest part of the evening.

So I was downstairs having gotten into some sort of footrace with either Anna or Rich or Sam.  I know, I know.  Keep the party contained.  But sometimes, a girl's gotta run.  So I'm in the lobby, not really minding my business, when a freshman wanders in claiming to be looking for "Rachel" in ###.  Now, ### shares the same door as my building but it's got a different set of stairs.  We were intrigued by the coincidence. So then, instead of letting this kid go on his merry way, several of us engage him in conversation, and he decides we seem like more fun than the party he was on his way to (or perhaps he never was on the way to another party, and heard my name to try and weasel his way into ours...and it worked).  So to keep everyone from continuing to shout at this poor kid in the hallway, I bring him to our humble abode.  I gave him the tour, refused to give him alcohol, and allowed him to hang out with us for a while. Then, this kid gets cocky, for reasons we don't really understand. We had essentially been harassing him from the moment we met him in the hallway, and yet, the cocky.  So at some point, after he declared that he was more than capable of hooking up with Bridget (a statement which nearly got him knocked out by Bridget I'm sure, and she could do it), and informing us that he'd been kicked out of the last party he was at because he got in a fight, I decided things had gone on long enough, and I forcibly removed him from my apartment, in my oh-so-subtle drunken Rachel way.  After briefly making sure he hadn't taken anything (though we obviously hadn't let him out of our sight the whole time).  Then, he bolted with the tequila (which I hadn't been letting him drink anyway).  So two of the guys have to chase him down.  When they caught up to him, he tossed them the tequila and bolted :)  So much for his bravado and self-proclaimed muscular prowess.  It was like living an episode of the Jersey Shore. "DonJohnson" (not his real name, rather the name we gave him), wherever you are, you're not invited to future parties.  But it was nice to know you.

 And now for something completely different...

Mikey and I are going to start a cover band (which hopefully will progress into a regular one?) Yes, it was just a drunken idea, but I think that we've got talent that's just sitting here.  And I think we have fairly similar taste, and have the same ideas about the kinds of things that should be covered.  And...AND...he just got into Joni.  In other words, this is gonna kick ass.

So yeah.  That was Friday night.  Then I had a wonderful Saturday morning, had french toast with Katidid and Mimsy for lunch, and sat around writing on my blog for a little while.  Later tonight, kidsitting.  Later later, probably some more questionable life choices.  I do love college.

<3 Rach

"I wonder what it's like to be the Rain Maker.  I wonder what it's like to know that I made the rain.  I'd store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one.  You can come and see them when I'm done.  When I'm done..."

-"Real World", Matchbox Twenty