Tis hard to be back in the frozen North Country (as 100.3, THE POINT calls it) after a long, enjoyable weekend in Jersey. The air pollution keeps in the warm air.

This weekend:

-Wrote an insane amount for NaNo, taking my book in a new direction. And now it has a title!
-Climbed into my freezing cold attic wearing high heeled boots while tipsy to retrieve my high school yearbook to look something up and win a bet
-my high school picture reminds me I used to be a blonde. Ug
-Watched “Love, Actually”
-cried at the “To Me, You Are Perfect” part
-and the part where Emma Thompson confronts her husband about cheating
-Was accused of being a sap for aforementioned crying
-Duh
-This is why I prefer to watch my girly movies (I Capture the Castle, Eternal Sunshine, assorted Mandy Moore movies, among others) alone. Because I like to maintain my image as tough as nails

-Recieved Newsweek with Bush’s face on it. My parent’s arrived home:
Me: Oh yeah, and we got Newsweek. It has Bush’s smug face on the cover
Dad: Put it in the recycling
Me: I already did.
-Advised Jon that he should totally give up computer engineering and become a male Asian model
-Was hit by Jon for suggestion
-Got amazing, high class brunch food
-Made appeals to the Divine
-Cooked an insane amount
-Chilled with the cats, with a drink and some Dostoyevsky.
-Read bunches of essays, found authors I want to emulate
-Researched grad school programs, envisaged myself 35 and already a completely insane history professor
-Drove through deserted suburban streets
-Diner dwelled
-Fought with pillows. And my fists!
-Slept with all the lights on
-Kicked
-Insulted people
-Was read to

I love my Jersey weekends.

Brent: …so I was drinking Wild Turkey last night…
Me: Ooh! Did you have lemon juice first
Brent: No, but that was nice
Me: I’m so glad you still get references to IT.

(Earlier in the Day)

Ray: Come to Florence Rachel! We all float down here
Me: Bringing up inside jokes from 8th grade, I love it.
Ray: Yeah, are your Skidmore friends going to do that for you? I think not

An Ode To O-Town

I saw Brent & Ray last night (“You boys are impossible”/ “Impossibly witty!”)
Truly. If I hadn’t become friends with them (in 6th grade, we were such nerds…little has changed), I could have been normal, and popular. Actually, that’s a total lie. I would not trade “The Loser” status; it gave me a permanent dislike of the female species, an interest in observing social dynamics and an obsession with “IT” by Stephen King. According to Ray, I am Elaine Benes (from Seinfeld). According to Brent, I’m judgemental.

Kevin (aka “Coolest Person of 03’) is getting all optimistic on regime change. I am maintaining my position that Republicans, much like dolphins, are tricky bastards, and it doesn’t really matter what Kerry does, because it is impossible for Bush to lose the election. Although I am rather impessed by the ability of the Kerry campaign, thus far, to ward off attacks.

It will be an exciting time to be in Washington this summer. Too bad I don’t want to go.

The Rachel and Christina Drive to Jersey Extravaganza

Last night:
“There’s no crying at Skidmore!”

“You’re still up?!?” “I’m eating cereal at 3AM. Mostly because I’m hungry, but also because I want to spite Brent”

Today:
Drive thru windows!

“Are you feeling crippled today?”

And THAT is why the Lord created men (the song too)

The guy with the weird hair…they won’t even let him look up.
Keyboards are SO 80s!

“It’s that orange truck again, it’s coming to get you”

They’re selling doctors? Isn’t that illegal?

Proof Xina and I could never have been friends in high school: she liked the Back-street Boys, and now it’s posted here for everyone to see, and mock. (And she led a contingent against a group of N’Sync fans, and she knows the names of all the Back-Street Boys)

In regards to “The Sign” (Ace of Base, yo) There is a tunnel of bad pop music that goes from Sweden to the US. But it’s still relevant!

Liz Phair ‘sold out.’

“Rachel is an institution” –Xina
New plan: Just like Caesar wasn’t a title until after Julius Caesar died, I am going to take over the world, and then after I’m assassinated, my name will be a title for ruler. That would rock.

EZ-Pass GO! ‘Jersey beats New York! Jersey beats New York!’

Crossing the border into Jersey and playing “Livin’ On a Prayer”

God Bless PLJ

Sweet home New Jersey
Where the skies are so gray

I’m going home this weekend, because I can’t concentrate and I need to get tons of work done. So its all about lots of delicious Jersey diner coffee, some reading, and lots of Honors Research. That and I’ll probably up-date live journal a lot, because thats what I do when I’m at home, and no one else is home.

Also, I am not a poetry person, but “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock” is wonderful. The self-consciousness in that poem is awesome. My English-major housemate would kill me for describing Prufrock in such uneloquent terms. Sorry Di!

“I am no prophet- and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker”

“Deferential, glad to be of use
Politic, cautious, and meticulous
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed almost ridiculous
Almost, at times, the Fool.”

Welcome home. You’re SO Jersey. You know Wildwood
and Seaside are the most disgusting places on
earth, and only good for drunken after prom
vacations, you know there’s always a
“short-cut” to someplace. Isn’t
Jersey great? I mean, where else can you go 80
MPH and STILL be the slowest car on the road?

How JERSEY are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I think the last time I was this excited to go home was Winter Break (yay for 6 week breaks) at Hampshire, because of all the misery and loneliness

Things here are certainly not miserable. I’ve had my own brand of fun with being political, and learning how to speak relatively articulately, and fun at Christina’s b-day party and then being a belligerent bouncer.

I’m just tired – of the election, of work, of HWSNBN. I’m ready to go home, go for a wacky drive with Brent, and eat diner food (Perhaps some improv-accapella-musical-theater will also be necessary). Plus, maybe I can convince Ryan to do the all-night Black Friday thing this year, because it was so much fun, and gave me great stories to tell. (Pe-king woman, the lady in the green sweater, etc).

I’ve used etc a lot.

So yeah
It’s nearly the end of the semester, classes end in a week and I have tons of papers to do and no motivation to do them. Yay, run on sentences.

It’s really odd to believe the year is ending, especially when I associate the end of school with warm weather, and it’s going to snow tomorrow. Stupid upstate New York…in 3 weeks I’ll be in Florence where the weather will be warm. I should be really excited, but I’m not yet because of all the bureaucratic stuff I still have to do before I leave. Plus I’m going to be gone for 6+ weeks and will really miss Ryan, because we’ve never gone longer then 3 weeks without seeing each other (and usually it’s a lot less than that) and diner trips with Brenty, and Jersey, even though it’s the same old same old at home. I still want to take a drive on the Pulaski Skyway and witness the strangely beautiful view before I trade in smog and turnpikes and factories and cars for villas and green hills and architecture.