glimpses and beer
this is a song that is much needed during a week-long marathon of schoolwork: it's chill, but moves along. that reminds me for some reason; i meant to mention in my last entry that when my cousin was driving the two of us back to the city before the superbowl, i had just conducted an interview with my grandma for oral history class, and i read aloud to him my scribbled half-script of what she had said as we traveled on the LIE at dusk. i don't know; i just wanted to remember that.
my weekend in pittsburgh was many things at once. my family and i had all gone there suddenly because we realized we couldn't wait till summer to see the lockwoods (that's wesley and his family to you folks), so we met up with them there for a couple of nights. there was snow on the ground, and we went to the carnegie museums for art and natural history, which of course i loved, but they couldn't hold a candle to the met or AMNH--sorry, i'm spoiled now--and not just because they actually demanded admission. for dinner we went to the church brew works, where i had the most delicious pizza of my life and also felt strangely sacrilegious, since the huge restaurant was basically a converted old roman catholic church with the brewery vats on the altar. mostly it just felt good to see the lockwoods again, especially wesley, since i was relieved there was nothing weird between us after north carolina.
the highlight of the trip, though, was my excursion down forbes avenue to carnegie mellon. i met up with orie for a little while, which was really nice, mostly just hanging out and talking and playing guitar in his room. on a side note, it made me miss the "seniors", aka smithtown class of '05, who i'll always think of as seniors. then i strolled across "that grassy field thingy you guys have" (i'm sorry, i don't have a "quad" or whatever you kids are calling it these days) to see gabby! i felt so bad that she had been working so hard all week, and i especially felt bad that i couldn't stay for very long. we basically just talked as we navigated the icy sidewalks from frat party to frat party with her friends, looking for a party that had started (they hadn't really, yet). i definitely have to go back one day without my family, so i can stay over.
it sounds weird, but bear with me: i feel really privileged that i got to visit cmu like that, because while most people never get an answer to questions that begin with, "what if...?" i feel like i did. i felt like i got a glimpse of what life would be like right now if i had chosen cmu over nyu--because seriously, if i hadn't gotten into nyu, i would have chosen cmu in a heartbeat. and based on just saturday night, it would have been a really good life. a little part of me wonders if i made the right choice, but the rest of me wholeheartedly screams, "YES, you did!"
after i got back to new york, life was a blur of starting my volunteer work/research at revolution books (where i meticulously alphabetize books on black power, philosophy, and bob dylan while asking awkward questions about communism and dodging attempts to recruit me for the revolutionary party), seeing "young frankenstein" on broadway with my sister in the front row for her birthday and laughing just about the entire time (though that might be because we love roger bart and megan mullaly and sutton foster and christopher fitzgerald and andrea martin, not always mel brooks) spending five hours at barnes & noble (okay, that was only once, and it was GLORIOUS, just me, hot chocolate, a warm apple tart, four travel books on israel, and five magazines--smithsonian, poets & writers, O, writer, and cosmogirl), watching a disappointing academy awards show with the suitemates (john stewart wasn't as funny as usual, there were very few surprise winners, and nothing crazy/controversial/amazing happened), mistaking a mirror on the back wall of a pizza place for the extension of the restaurant (i wandered in, walked right up to my reflection, realized what was going on, then practically ran out in embarrassment), having a "sex and the city" marathon at a friend's dorm (the hbo version really is different than the sanitized tbs one), visiting the botanical gardens in the bronx with others for hamna's birthday (note to self: the metro north train comes once an hour. little did we know that information when we bought tickets and watched a train pull up and pull away again, figuring, "oh, another one will come in twenty minutes or so!" pure, pure torture), gossipping with bridget on the phone while walking around harlem for class, witnessing an intense discussion/debate after a documentary about preparing for the military in israel, realizing that as much as i desperately want to go there, i cannot and will never agree with all of its policies, and wondering if it's hypocritical to still study abroad there, uncomfortably discovering that the female workers at a vegan bakery on the lower east side wear INCREDIBLY SHORT dresses as a uniform, eating cupcakes from said store with emily at adelphi while engaging in what has now become a standard emily-sara conversation, visiting my dad for dinner at penn station and not being able to stop talking about the trip to ireland in august, hearing a homeless man ask me if i was pregnant while i was eating spaghetti at penn with alison before she left for oswego (i always knew empire waist shirts were unflattering; now i have proof!), reuniting with so many people on on their spring break at starbucks and bridget's and nick's, and wanting summer sometimes so bad it almost hurts.
really, though. as i left the ancient ginger parking lot off of 25A to go back to the city sunday night, i realized that right now, all i want is to go windsurfing right before the sun goes down, drive home through nissequogue while sitting on a towel and singing along to my summer CD, take a shower, and go to cool beanz with my hair still wet to see everyone milling around that same parking lot. i'm really happy with the way everything is going with me right now, and really don't want to miss out on it all in anticipation of the future, but still.
my weekend in pittsburgh was many things at once. my family and i had all gone there suddenly because we realized we couldn't wait till summer to see the lockwoods (that's wesley and his family to you folks), so we met up with them there for a couple of nights. there was snow on the ground, and we went to the carnegie museums for art and natural history, which of course i loved, but they couldn't hold a candle to the met or AMNH--sorry, i'm spoiled now--and not just because they actually demanded admission. for dinner we went to the church brew works, where i had the most delicious pizza of my life and also felt strangely sacrilegious, since the huge restaurant was basically a converted old roman catholic church with the brewery vats on the altar. mostly it just felt good to see the lockwoods again, especially wesley, since i was relieved there was nothing weird between us after north carolina.
the highlight of the trip, though, was my excursion down forbes avenue to carnegie mellon. i met up with orie for a little while, which was really nice, mostly just hanging out and talking and playing guitar in his room. on a side note, it made me miss the "seniors", aka smithtown class of '05, who i'll always think of as seniors. then i strolled across "that grassy field thingy you guys have" (i'm sorry, i don't have a "quad" or whatever you kids are calling it these days) to see gabby! i felt so bad that she had been working so hard all week, and i especially felt bad that i couldn't stay for very long. we basically just talked as we navigated the icy sidewalks from frat party to frat party with her friends, looking for a party that had started (they hadn't really, yet). i definitely have to go back one day without my family, so i can stay over.
it sounds weird, but bear with me: i feel really privileged that i got to visit cmu like that, because while most people never get an answer to questions that begin with, "what if...?" i feel like i did. i felt like i got a glimpse of what life would be like right now if i had chosen cmu over nyu--because seriously, if i hadn't gotten into nyu, i would have chosen cmu in a heartbeat. and based on just saturday night, it would have been a really good life. a little part of me wonders if i made the right choice, but the rest of me wholeheartedly screams, "YES, you did!"
after i got back to new york, life was a blur of starting my volunteer work/research at revolution books (where i meticulously alphabetize books on black power, philosophy, and bob dylan while asking awkward questions about communism and dodging attempts to recruit me for the revolutionary party), seeing "young frankenstein" on broadway with my sister in the front row for her birthday and laughing just about the entire time (though that might be because we love roger bart and megan mullaly and sutton foster and christopher fitzgerald and andrea martin, not always mel brooks) spending five hours at barnes & noble (okay, that was only once, and it was GLORIOUS, just me, hot chocolate, a warm apple tart, four travel books on israel, and five magazines--smithsonian, poets & writers, O, writer, and cosmogirl), watching a disappointing academy awards show with the suitemates (john stewart wasn't as funny as usual, there were very few surprise winners, and nothing crazy/controversial/amazing happened), mistaking a mirror on the back wall of a pizza place for the extension of the restaurant (i wandered in, walked right up to my reflection, realized what was going on, then practically ran out in embarrassment), having a "sex and the city" marathon at a friend's dorm (the hbo version really is different than the sanitized tbs one), visiting the botanical gardens in the bronx with others for hamna's birthday (note to self: the metro north train comes once an hour. little did we know that information when we bought tickets and watched a train pull up and pull away again, figuring, "oh, another one will come in twenty minutes or so!" pure, pure torture), gossipping with bridget on the phone while walking around harlem for class, witnessing an intense discussion/debate after a documentary about preparing for the military in israel, realizing that as much as i desperately want to go there, i cannot and will never agree with all of its policies, and wondering if it's hypocritical to still study abroad there, uncomfortably discovering that the female workers at a vegan bakery on the lower east side wear INCREDIBLY SHORT dresses as a uniform, eating cupcakes from said store with emily at adelphi while engaging in what has now become a standard emily-sara conversation, visiting my dad for dinner at penn station and not being able to stop talking about the trip to ireland in august, hearing a homeless man ask me if i was pregnant while i was eating spaghetti at penn with alison before she left for oswego (i always knew empire waist shirts were unflattering; now i have proof!), reuniting with so many people on on their spring break at starbucks and bridget's and nick's, and wanting summer sometimes so bad it almost hurts.
really, though. as i left the ancient ginger parking lot off of 25A to go back to the city sunday night, i realized that right now, all i want is to go windsurfing right before the sun goes down, drive home through nissequogue while sitting on a towel and singing along to my summer CD, take a shower, and go to cool beanz with my hair still wet to see everyone milling around that same parking lot. i'm really happy with the way everything is going with me right now, and really don't want to miss out on it all in anticipation of the future, but still.