Well, well, well. How ya doin? Don't really answer that... I don't have the time. The main topic of this lil blog is going to be how spending time with Kim makes me realize what an idiot I am. But, before we get there... I have to let you in on my roomate situation. Way back when, when I first dreamt of going to college at the age of two, I began dreaming of the ideal roomate. First of all, notice that I said roomate, not roomateS. Ever since I was a toddler I knew I wanted only one person to share my dorm with. If you only have one roomate you are basically forced to become all buddy-buddy with them... well, or hate them. But having more than one roomate would mean that this isn't a guarantee. It could be the others who become really close and you're the ugly duckling who gets left out. Okay, wrong fairy tale or nursery rhyme or whatever that story is...maybe it would be more like Cinderella and the stepsisters... except the other "stepsisters" are not necessarily evil. Anyways, because I'm just a little on the shy side, ahem, I could see that very easily happening with me. Besides only wanting one roomate, I kind of wanted one from far away. Like Arizona or some other messed up state that seems half way across the world. I don't know why I've wanted that. I'm just so used to New Englanders. Someone more foreign would be fun. If you can consider Arizona foreign.

So, if you can't guess what my roomate situation actually is.... well, then..... you're not very perceptive ;) I have three roomates. Count 'em...1...2...3! There aren't even any quads in the dorm we were assigned to. That means we're going to be in a triple sized room, being forced to live like sardines... college female sardines! On the bright side, they all seemed nice over the phone. Ashley is from Massachusetts, Caitrin (yes, Caitrin, not Caitlin- I like her name) is from Rhode Island, and Lisa is from Maine. So much for diversity. I'm just kidding. They all seem really cool, no psychos (except me), and it may be fun having four roomates. I hope we all become really close. My worst fear is it'll get cliquey or something. The bad thing though is even if we all do become good friends, we will be kicked out of our quad eventually. Once the juniors go abroad they said they're switching us to different rooms. Freshman in triples have the option of staying in their room, but the quad-girls definitely have to split up. That may not be good. Well, we'll see what happens come August 28th.

Now, onto how Kim makes me realize my insanity. I know I'm nuts, with little common sense... but it is never more evident than when I'm hanging out with Kim. She came over yesterday and we decided to go to Olive Garden. We had to make a brief trip to two banks beforehand though. Why two you ask? Be patient; I'll explain. The lady in front of us at the first ATM took out all of the money, leaving Kim nothing and forcing us to go to another bank where she had to pay the extra buck seventy-five. After waiting 45 minutes for a table, talking about Tanya Tomato and Bene Breadstick, and eating our dinner, we got 4 chocolate mint things from our waiter. I got all excited that we got two each. Kim, however, reminded me that she didn't like chocolate so I got to have all 4 to myself! I thought to myself, 'oh man-this is crazy! I get all four!'. On the wrappers it said "grazie" in fancy print. Not knowing italian and not being able to read fancy print very well, I thought it said "crazie"...like crazy, just spelled funny. So, I started to laugh. Kim insisted that I told her what I was laughing about- you see, she enjoys laughing at my stupid thoughts. I told her that I thought it said "crazie" on the wrapper then I realized it said "grazie". (It is imperative to know that I pronounced it as "gray-zee", thinking it was some brand name or something). Kim kind of stares at me and says, "yeah, Trisha. Or maybe it says 'grazie'. You know, like italian for thank you?". I could not stop laughing at my stupidity. I bet you can't either. Go on and admit it. I can take it. I'm capable of laughing at myself once every ten years or so.

This whole grazie thing reminded Kim of a story which I don't really want to share. I'll just get to the best part of it. Just read this next word and think about whatever immediately comes to mind... you ready?.....POLISH. Okay. Did you think of the nationality or of the beauty product? Did you ever realize that both words are spelled the same way? I never did. I mean- I knew it, but I never made the connection. It blows my mind.

So, that whole chocolate italian thing was stupid comment #1. There's more. She came back to my house and we watched the movie Camp. It's about this musical theatre camp and it was kind of cool. But, that's besides the point. I'm talking about my Jessica Simpsoness here. One of the guys in the movie had OCD and in his mind he would count up the number of letters in every word people said. He gave some examples during the movie when he was explaining his problem to his friend. Of course, I had to try to figure out if the numbers he was saying were right. Well, I kind of misunderstood his problem. I gave each letter a number, like A=1, B=2, C=3 etc. and started adding all the numbers together that were associated with what he was saying. After like 10 minutes of math, I finally realized that the number I was getting wasn't what he said in the movie and that I made a mistake. It wasn't A=1, B=2... I don't even know where I got that from. Like I said before, it was just that he would count up the number of letters in every word people said. So like, "I am stupid" would be 1, 2, 6. "No one is dumber" would be 2, 3, 2, 6. You get it right? Well, that wasn't even my stupid mistake #2. That was just necessary to explain my next dumb comment. I asked Kim what the number would be for two-hundreth. She said, "like two, zero, zero, t, h?" And I said, "You mean, tooth?". I know you probably can't even figure out where on earth I got that from. Neither did Kim and she was laughing at me so hard! Let me try to explain my thinking... even though I admit it's messed up. When she said "Two" I pictured the word "too" in my head instead of the number 2. Then, when she said "zero, zero" I just pictured two O's as in the letters, probably just because I was already thinking in letters from the word "too". And then she said "t, h". So I thought of tooth. Kim informed me that even with my thinking it didn't make sense because then it would be tooooth... which she said with a long, drawn out "ooo" sound, making me feel even more like an idiot. I realize you're probably dumber now after reading that whole explanation. But it's a true story. And, if it eases your mind any more, two-hundreth would be 11 if done correctly. In case you cared.

I wish my lack of common sense ended there. But it didn't and it doesn't. I was having a discussion about horoscopes with Kim and Brian. I'm a cancer and Brian's a leo. I told him that he was a lion and I was a tiger. Take a minute to think about it. I know you can figure it out. He said to me, "you're not a tiger. You're a crab". I instantly realized my mistake. I was thinking of the chinese horoscope... 1986, year of the tiger. I corrected myself and said that I'm a crab because I have a hard exterior and soft, mushy insides... or something like that. Kim told me she doesn't think I have a hard exterior. I insisted that crabs do have hard exteriors. She gave me that 'what are you an idiot?' stare again and said, "I'm not arguing that crabs don't have hard exteriors. I'm saying you don't." As if my previous comments weren't stupid enough, I had to say that there is such a thing as soft-shelled crabs. ....more stares from Kim.... "that's just how they cook them Trisha. They still have hard shells when their alive". I really do know all this stuff. The words just came out of my mouth the wrong way, I swear. I'm a tiger based on the chinese horoscope, but because of my July 14th birthday I'm a cancer, which is a crab, all of which have hard shells. See! Proved my point. Whew... glad I didn't make another mistake there!

Okay, so that last one really wasn't a common sense thing... because I really did know my stuff. It was more of a "don't think before I speak" thing.... which is basically an oxymoron when it comes to me- I only repeat everything I'm about to say like 12 times in my head before I actually say it. Anyways, this last one is an example of a pure lack of common sense. And wouldn't you know it? My lack of common sense for once proved to be helpful and efficient! Due to a little bit of luck. We made a pineapple upside down cake. You see, Kim and I like to make things that end in "cake". So far we've done pancakes, angel food cakes, and pineapple upside down cakes. We've decided that crab cakes are next... even though neither of us like crabs. I'm getting off topic again. I made two errors while baking this time. First, when melting the butter and brown sugar to a syrup consistency on the stove, I decided to use a plastic spoon. I should have opted for the wooden. The spoon melted. Not only did it ruin the spoon, but it got bits of plastic in the batter stuff. Oops. Just so you're aware, that's not the example of helpful, efficient common sense. That one's coming up right now. I may be a terrible cook, but I can separate egg yolks from whites pretty darn well. I separated the three eggs, putting the yolks in a bowl and the eggwhites in a plastic cup because they weren't needed until later. Well, when it came time to use the eggwhites, I realized that we had to mix them before adding them into the rest of the batter.  I didn't really feel like getting out a whole other bowl, so I used the electric mixer in the plastic cup. Kim was certain that the cup would crack and I would get eggwhites all over me, but no! It worked! Woo-hoo for lack of common sense!

The last little thing I'm going to put in here is pure randomness. It too proves my insanity, but in a different way. Amy's away message said "Shower then work. Yippee!". So, being the sarcastic person that I am, I decided to IM her saying something like, "shower and work doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, but hey...whatever floats your boat". However, it all seemed too trite to me. I didn't like 'float your boat' or other common alternatives like 'tickles your pickle'... so I decided to make up my own. I asked Kim for assistance. Once we got started and discovered rhymezone.com there was no stopping us. Here are some of our favorites... miraculously, if you use your imagination-well, I'm not going there...

whatever swells your magic spell
whatever tans your broth of a man
whatever zips your chips
whatever buries your cherries
whatever shakes your snake
whatever shook your gobbledygook
whatever's fishin your economic and social council commission
whatever embraces your interplanetary spaces
whatever resumes your microphone booms
whatever grapples your pineapples
whatever moans your eau de cologne
whatever unclamps your incandescent lamp
whatever wipes your pipes
whatever clots your granny knots
whatever pats your naked mole rat's cowboy hat
whatever plugs your slugs
whatever shaves your tidal wave's concaves
whatever squats in your philadelphia pepper pots
whatever's rumpling your dumpling
whatever chills your phone bills
whatever toots your vertical flute
whatever will grease your royal canadian mounted police
whatever shocks your metamorphic rocks
whatever shames your baptismal name
whatever misconstrues your belgian beef stews
whatever harrasses your relative molecular masses
whatever bestows your toes on van gogh's sloppy joes and throws crows at a golf pro's strip show with an electric glow from head to toe!!!!!!!

Between these 27 expressions and LLOL, Kim and I are going to start some major trends. Come on.... you know you wanna say "whatever shames your baptismal name". Admit it!

I'm giving my new roomates my screename. If they read this, they're going to think I'm even crazier than I really am. I swear, I'm pretty normal. It's Kim's fault. To most people, I appear the exact opposite of how I seem based on this blog. Maybe it's some sort of identity crisis. Disregard that. Anways...in reality, I'm just a little shy, a little fun if you get to know me, a little sensitive, maybe a little scatter-brained on the inside...but mostly normal. Ask anyone who doesn't really know me too well. They'll assure you of that :) !

Yesterday was my birthday. Well, actually it's after midnight which means the little heading thing above this entry is going to say I wrote this on the 16th, so erase that. Two days ago was my birthday. Woo-hoo! 18! Because we all know that I care about being "an adult" just that much. After all, 18 is the magical age. The transformation from infancy to maturity happens overnight, of course, on that most extraordinary of all birthdays. Look at me now- free to go into adult book stores, buy lotto tickets, vote, and most importantly- sign my own name on important stuff, instead of my parents... and we all know I'll take advantage of each of my new opportunities, available to me ever since my inauguration into adulthood… please, don’t forget to note the sarcasm there. On the other, more negative side, I'm now forced to grow up and face the world- do my own laundry, among other things, with the complete responsibility and wisdom that is characteristic of all adults. I mean, two days ago I was just a kid. But now I'm an adult. Amazing how that works, huh?
 
So...I don't know why exactly, but every year I cry on my birthday. Not happy cry... sad cry. I think it’s partially because- well- how to word this…Okay, I’ll give this way a shot. Bear with me here. Everybody feels like their birthday should be different. More special. But for me anyways, it feels just like any other day… if not, more sad than normal… so I cry. It could also be because as I get older I’m moving farther away from childhood. Go figure. That makes sense. LLOL (that’s literal laugh out loud). But you know what I mean… no more innocence, no more carefree lack of responsibility, no more playing stupid games with little friends, no more crying when your parents tell you to finish your vegetables… it’s a depressing thought. Eh, who knows why I cry every year. I could come up with a million possible reasons why, and I’m probably wrong on each and every one of them.
 
 This birthday wasn’t all bad… I did cry… but it wasn’t all bad. I slept in late… until like 2:00. I was lazy and watched TV for a bit. Then I got my lunch of shrimp cocktail… the only seafood I really like and wouldn’t you know it, I love the stuff… and my favorite cake ever- a chocolate raspberry thing from Julia’s bakery. So sinfully delicious. Then, I went shopping for a bit. Not clothes shopping…but college shopping. Which for some reason gets me very excited. You should have seen me showing off my new bedding to Brian. I love it to the extreme! No one should get that excited over new college stuff. Anyways... then I went out to Friendly's with Brian, Amy, Kim, Meghan, and Chris. It was fun. I got stared at by some random guy outside who thought my dancing to the random music they play in Friendly's was funny or something. Then broccoli was thrown in my lap "by accident", after I got a real fairy from Kim, a huge card from Amy as payback for like 7 years ago, and...most importantly, my gray shirt back that Amy borrowed around this time last year. Kim suddenly wasn't feeling well, and her getting up to go to the bathroom somehow made the waiter people come sing Happy Birthday to me. A miracle, isn't it?! Yes, all this happened against my wishes and despite Meghan's efforts to be quiet about it. She would only whisper happy birthday to me when she came in because she knew I didn't want to be sung to. You see... I had this incident a few years back that has scarred me for life. Well, life up until now at least. I went out to dinner on my birthday and my mom had the waiter people sing to me and I started to cry because I was so embarrassed. Ever since, I have refused to go out on my birthday for that very reason. Although the waiter's singing to me was Kim's fault, or rather, Kim's sickness' fault, she was also the one who made it bearable for me. She started like dancing in her seat throughout the song, to keep me laughing. I'll admit- it was funny. I shouldn't have been surprised by that though. Kim will dance at any chance she can get... even if it's to Happy Birthday in the middle of a restaurant.
 
So, we stood out in the parking lot for a bit. We decided to go back to my house to watch Who's Line Is It Anyway which was starting in ten minutes. I rush off to my house to get home in time. Apparently, I was the only one. No one else showed up. Shows how much they really care about me and my birthday! The least they could have done was make up a decent excuse. But Kim insists they were almost arrested and kicked out of the country. Oh, no wait. That was the excuse I used for not talking to her all last week. Oops. My mistake..

I started work this week. My first real job and it's not even a real job. Most teenagers will work at a store or a restaurant as their first job... with regular part time hours and minimum wage. Me however, well... I'll be lucky if I work more than 8 days this summer. Plus, a "day" of work is really only 3 hours. I'm a substitute aide at an elementary school in Darien. And let me tell you... it is the best summer job that ever exsisted. I work in the summer school with special ed preschool kids. Some of them are a handful because they're really low functioning. But most of them are a lot of fun and absolutely adorable. The best part though is I have like zero hours compared to all my friends who work, I don't need to do nearly as much as them, and I make way more money. I get $27 an hour! No joke! And this is basically what I have to do... sit near the kids while the teacher works with them- just to make sure they pay attention and don't like run away or something, and then play with them during their free time. Tell me that isn't incredible! The pay is great, the kids are fun, the hours are amazing...not to mention they force me to get out of bed before noon, or 6:00 p.m. for that matter. Yeah, yeah, it's true- One day that I wasn't working this week I overslept a little. I normally sleep in really late but 6 o'clock is my new record. So, I like to sleep through the day and stay up until 5 in the morning... nothing's wrong with that. Anyways, don't tell anyone... but word on the street is that as a substitute I make even more money than the regular aide's. Ha ha ha... I make more money than you do...na na na na nah nah!!!

Also, this week I went back to dance. I went to ballet on Tuesday. It was really weird being there. The entire week before, I just thought about how much I wanted to be back at dance, take class, and see everyone again. While I enjoyed it once the day arrived, I felt out of place. I was actually nervous walking into the room- like my heart was pounding. Don't ask me why... I just felt like, 'Okay. I graduated. I shouldn't be here. They're looking at everyone else for auditions in the fall. They're done with me here. What am I doing?'. It probably didn't help that my mom (and practically Linda too) told me that the only seniors who would be going back for classes over the summer are the ones continuing in dance. I don't know. It was just awkward for me. I didn't know where to stand in line and I didn't even feel comfortable looking Debi in the eye. Of course, she approached me to say something to me... just like she used to. But, it still wasn't right. Maybe I'm just sad that "my time" at Lee Lund is over. Does that sound like the most logical reasoning to you? Or, do you think I'm just neurotic?

So, I went to NYC again yesterday. Let me just tell you... I love that good old place! I love the whole rushed feeling of the city, all the different types of people, the smoggy air and the never ending noise! Everytime I go down there it makes me wish I were going to college in the city, and majoring in performing arts.... even though when I went to visit NYU I hated that there was no campus. So, I'm difficult to please. But really, I love the feeling I get when I'm down there. For some reason, it also makes me feel very independent and grown-up. Explain that one for me...

The reason I went to NYC, as if I need a reason, was to see my cousin Stephen in an off-broadway show. It was funny when we walked into the theater. There was this little like, pre-show waiting room thing with couches, icicle lights and stuff. We were the only one's there except for this little, old lady sitting in one of the chairs. Before I was able to adjust to the ambiance of the room, the composer/ lyricist/ librettist/ co-producer/ pianist/ lawyer/ gay rights activist walked in and offered us wine. He then proceeded to hand out programs and warned us that he was running short on them and therefore, he wanted us to hand them back after the show so he could recycle them for tomorrow's performance. Meanwhile, the little, old lady is happily sipping her two cups of wine in her chair. The composer/ lyricist/ librettist/ co-producer/ pianist/ lawyer/ gay rights activist began explaining the concept of the show. All I really got from his talk was that it's suppossed to be confusing and that we have to allow ourselves to be confused in order to appreciate the performance. Umm....okay. I turn around and the little, old lady is gone. Guess she just stopped in for some free wine.

Before the show started, someone else walked in. He proudly told us he plays the best friend of the older brother on Malcolm in the Middle, some guy on a ranch. He seemed disappointed when we said we didn't watch the show. But if you watch the show and know this guy...well, then... I met him! So there. Six more people showed up and then the show began.

I don't exactly know how to describe the show to you. The composer/ lyricist/ librettist/ co-producer/ pianist/ lawyer/ gay rights activist was right. It was the most confusing thing I ever saw in my life. This is basically what I got from it... prepare yourself. Six tie-dyed monks/ghosts with masks walk onstage doing some type of interpretive dance and then a priest walks through them sweeping the floor. That's scene one. There's also a black guy with a lisp who is portrayed like God, but he's against organized religion. They use the words "dreams", "fear", "reality", "religion", "love", "truth" and "vision" like ten thousand times each throughout the show, and I'm still not sure why. There's a scene where they're dancing under a fuchsia light...which consisted of marching in place and a sort of swaying move that reminded me of Britney Spears' "Crazy" video, the part in the chair. We later learn that that sweeping priest is gay but also the father of the character my cousin plays. And the next thing I know, my cousin's trying to kill himself, but doesn't. But a girl who isn't suicidal ends up dying at the end. I'm sorry. I know I'm confusing. But trust me, if you saw this show, you wouldn't be any less confused. It's one of those things that I can picture really eclectic and cultured people going to see and have deep conversations about for hours afterwards. But for everyone else it's just an hour and a half of incomprehension with a few good songs mixed in. Stephen, if you're reading this... I love you.