it's me and the moon, she says

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:20:04 GMT

so this might come as an unexpected shock to many of you. i do apologize for not giving any advanced warning, but, i'm really not good at these sorts of things.

i know this sounds rash, but distantstar02 is through. yes, as soon as i finish typing this entry, the livejournal you are currently reading will be defunct. well, not completely, because i will leave it up and you can go back and read it anytime you want, but i'm not sure why you would want to do that. so for all intents and purposes, yeah, this lj is old news.

but, wait, before you put this on the wire....i made a new journal, and those of you on my friends page, you're already on my friends list. so add my new name back and we can be one big happy livejournal family once again. i guess i just wanted to have a better idea of who was reading my entries without making it completely friends-only, and well the only way to do so was to start from scratch.

if you want the link to my new journal....IM me or send me an email or just leave a comment and i'll see what i can do for you. hasta luego

....you won't be leaving me.

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 00:53:20 GMT

ok i hate it when i go to work out and they have the food channel on. well, this time it wasn't the actual food channel, but it was a cooking show. it's like, run faster you fools so that you can burn off enough calories to allow yourself to eat this, thereby propagating already unhealthy attitudes about food consumption, the thing that brings half of the people sweating around me to the sports center in the first place. that's what we call it in wheaton - the sports center - but i still call it the workout place because i've called workout places that since i was like 5.

so i'm sitting here eating turkey chili which is actually healthy....until you put a ton of cheese on it and mix it in and then put more cheese on top, like i do every time i eat it. seriously, i know how to make anything healthy unhealthy, and most of these techniques involve adding lots of cheese. i wish that i would just LIKE healthy food or maybe even derive satisfaction from eating healthy food. believe me, i've tried. and failed. miserably. i also like beer way too much but that's another story.

my brother rented old school tonight so we're gonna go watch it right now....then after that i will probably go to bed IF i can manage to stay awake through the whole movie.

on unwashed miscreants

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 21:44:19 GMT

quiero regresar a madrid....

where people had a sense of perspective. and they realized that there were better things to do than waste their breath propagating the spread of ruthless rumors that really have no basis in reality whatsoever.

i love hearing the asonine things people have been saying about me. i have two questions for you. first of all, who do you think you are? and, secondly, did you not think that it was going to get back to me?

actually, no, there's one more question. don't you have better things to worry about? perhaps you should spend some time on introspection and self-examination, and you'd see what a hypocrite you are, thus revealing the reasons that i'm presently laughing to myself.

i claim not to care what people say about me, but i've found out that i really do care. because i am definitely worked up about this right now, as much as i wish that i weren't. and it's obvious what people's motives are, or at least the motives that got all this started, and i know that i didn't do anything to deserve this. correct me if i'm wrong but i think i'm a pretty harmless person. i just hate to think that there will be people i will meet next semester who will look at me like i'm trash.

it happens too fast to make sense of it.....

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 15:36:45 GMT

i really need a job, and there are none to be had around here. i guess i should probably call that temp agency, but i really don't want to spend my precious christmas break typing data into a computer when i should be eating cheese and frolicking through the aisles of target and rummaging through piles of abercrombie sweaters once everything goes on sale after christmas. my dad tells me i shouldn't go into abercrombie because there is a huge anti-abercrombie sentiment brewing that is unprecedented in all anti-abercrombie movements (even the one about thongs in kids abercrombie). thing is, i know everyone hates that store, but if i want to buy like a navy blue sweater or a button down shirt or something, what's wrong with that? perhaps i shouldn't be supporting a company that puts out magazines with naked college kids having threesomes in a field on horses but.....

for some reason i have a really hard time caring. hey, at least i'm not dumb enough to pay 80 bucks for jeans that already have holes in them. let's look at it that way.

i hate it when there's someone you really miss, and when you look around you keep thinking that you see them for a split second until you realize that the person you're glancing at really doesn't even remotely resemble him....he just happens to have the same color hair. it really gets annoying after awhile.

oh and speaking of which i worked on my screenplay for a little while last night. which basically consisted of me laying around on my bed listening to different songs that i thought would help me think of something. i still only have 8 pages. but at least the 8 pages i have are pretty good.

did you know i missed you?
i miss you....

Sat, 20 Dec 2003 07:14:16 GMT

so i went out for my first night on the town since i got back....i even took a nap today so that i could stay up past 9!! sam and i went to houlihan's and i ate lots of really unhealthy but satisfying american food that i'd been missing out on. like, seriously, it's no wonder spanish girls are all so skinny. their food sucks and they have no dessert. we talked about how, when you're pms-ing, stupid little things make you cry. like one time i was watching an investment banking commercial and i got all teary-eyed and i knew it must have been about that time. katie novel met us there, but she had already eaten, so we talked for awhile and took advantage of the free refills. i hated that they don't bring you more drinks in europe, because usually i drink like four diet cokes and i am so not about to pay for all of them.

after houlihan's we met up with chris, dan, dave, mike, cory and danielle at bakers square. the neon sign was messed up so it said "bakers are," and so as we're driving up sam and i are like, "bakers are what??" suffice it to say it was real funny. but it was great seeing everyone again, talking about our past drunken exploits and filling them in on my escapades in madrid. i missed just sitting around and ripping up napkins into little pieces and balling them up and throwing them at people while we talk about how ridiculous we are. also, what's with all these TV shows about rich girls? who comes up with this garbage? i haven't watched TV since before i left for spain so i'm realizing that i'm really out of the loop.

after all this i came home and found myself at the computer, talking to the people i was just hanging out with. it's funny watching everyone sign on, wheaton people first and then the people who live farther away. i also talked to bestfriend for about 5 seconds and james who i'm realizing that i just can't wait to see next semester.

speaking of which, apparently there are certain people at SLU who think i am a slut and who like to tell all of their friends about it. i don't know if they read the makeout portion of my livejournal from the beginning of my madrid experience, or if they are just bitter, or what, but it really upsets me that people who don't even know me are talking shit about me. first of all....i most certainly am not a slut and i think that my friends would vouch for me. thanks, james, by the way. secondly....i'm a carrie bradshaw by nature. i fall in love and i fall hard and as i pick up the pieces of my broken heart i amuse myself in between, and i write about all of it. i'd write about other things, like school and inside jokes and maybe the occasional work of poetry or prose, but that's really not as much fun for me. and third: just thinking that people are thinking badly about me is just upsetting. like, i feel like complete shit at this moment, when i have no reason to. i guess i liked to think that people are more mature than that, that they mind their own business, but what can you do?

i remember anthony telling me that his friends had read my livejournal or something and warned him about me....and nick said that i'm just 'famous' back at SLU with all their friends....and not only is it scary that so many people know all this stuff but it's even scarier that i have no idea who any of them are. for gosh sakes they are probably reading this and laughing at me. i suppose i'm just an exhibitionist - at least when it comes to my livejournal. so it's my own damn fault, at least partially. but making out with a few foreigners doesn't make you a slut....i just thought it was sort of funny. but then again, i do have a very different sense of humor than most people and i wouldn't have imagined that people would eat this whole story up like they did. oh well, i really could care less what people think of me, but hearing about it just sort of made my heart sink and i needed to write about it.

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:35:59 GMT

as good as it feels to be home again....

i woke up with a lump in my throat and what felt like a gaping hole in my chest, like the whole world was pressing down on me and i was acutely aware of how empty i felt, like no matter how deeply i breathed i'd still be suffocating, the water rushing in as i gasped for breath.

jody and i sat in the EXACT same seats on the plane as we did when we flew into madrid. as if i wouldn't be sad enough already remembering sitting between jody and anthony on the flight there, we had to be in the exact same place. but maureen did a great job being anthony's place taker because we had a great time rocking out to the tunes on channel 6.

i woke up this morning and i felt like i was gasping for breath. i opened my eyes and i was all alone. no jody across the room, no maureen down the hall, no incessant banging from the construction on the roof of our apartment building. all alone in that big bed i remembered the mornings in paris, in greece, in zaragoza, in some random town in basque country, in madrid, when i woke up with his arms around me. when he'd draw a breath and draw me in closer. and i realized that even though i did a great job of not forgetting anything when we rushed off to the airport on 2 hours of sleep, which was definitely not enough to sleep off the alcohol, i left my heart behind.

i've been trying to write him an e-mail but i don't know where to start. what do you say to someone who means the world to you, who's a whole world away and who breathes you to life.....

this semester i learned that love manifests itself when you're not trying. when you stop being afraid of the way you feel and let your smile betray you and reach out and let someone know you're thinking of them. he said that your friends are reflections of yourself, and i can only hope that he is reflected in me. being with anthony made me a better person, brought me to life and caused me to grow in ways i never could have imagined. i'm clutching these puzzle pieces he gave me and i can only wait until i see him again to put them all back together....because i gave my heart away. and right now i'm wondering what the weather is like in milan.

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 09:05:23 GMT

ok so history is over and done with and i totally kicked ass. two down, two more to go. yesterday i talked our journalism teacher into taking one of the questions off the final....and there were only 3 to begin with....haha. well, actually, i didn't really even talk him into it. i was just like, "dr. baum, you are only going to have MORE stuff to read after we take this test!" he was complaining about how he had to read all the stories he assigned us to write. "why don't we just not take it?" i suggested. he looked around the room and then up at the ceiling for a few moments, obviously giving it some serious thought. then he was all like, "ok, how about you guys just answer two questions?" and so we did, and it took me all of like 20 minutes. i think i'm gonna go home and shower.....i wore my SLU hoodie that i slept in and my hair on top of my head in a messy bun just to amuse all the people on the metro this morning. no matter what i will always be decidedly american-looking.

it is now five days until party in the air on iberia takes us home again. i am seriously in disbelief. like, last week i was in denial, and this week i'm like what the hell is going on. i apologize for the continually asonine entries but i'm seriously incapable of having a coherent thought right now, which is probably bad since we are in the middle of finals.

i have been all moody and introverted the past few days. i hate it when i get like that, i'm no fun at all. i do not want to go home, not one bit. i wish that i could go home over break and come back here in january, but we've been over all this already. life has taken me by the ear and it's pulling me along like and insolent child but i REALLY REALLY REALLY don't wanna go.....

also, our roommate who i don't like buys crustless bread from the grocery store. what the hell? isn't that for like spoiled brats under the age of 5? if you are in your 20s and you still haven't gotten used to crust i seriously think you have a major problem.

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 09:10:09 GMT

journalism final in 2 hours. history tomorrow, turn in film project on saturday, then islam on monday. can´t wait to get this over with....except that means it´s time to go home.

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 17:20:14 GMT

if anything can make my world better it's a night at casa de cerveza. i would like to apologize to anyone who actually read my last entry because it was absurd....spelling errors and the words 'really' and 'just' five times over....what has gotten into me? oh well, i'm gonna go home and work on my film project for a little while. i think it might actually turn out kinda good. i was having a shitty day but i listened to music with anthony in the library and for whatever reason seeing him bounce around and having the headphone fly out of my ear when he moved too much made things a whole lot more fun. ok, that's enough for now, more later.

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 00:44:04 GMT

so my last weekend trip is over and it's time to study for finals. even though i had a great time i feel so....i don't know....sad, i guess. i feel like i have seen and learned and cultivated so much since i've been here, and i'm not ready to leave yet. but in 9 days i'm being drop-kicked back across the pond and there's not a whole lot i can do about it. right now i'm listening to songs trying to visualize what i'm going to write for my film final, which has everything to do with things that have happened here in spain, and it's only making me feel worse. i hope that when i get home i can look back on all this and feel good, but right now the denial is wearing off and reality is setting in and i don't much like it.

we had quite the road trip this weekend though - me, maureen, andrew, dave, tom and anthony packed in this little citroen we named the "melon" and drove around the north of spain for three days. we saw some amazing landscapes in bask country that i didn't know existed in spain. i just sort of assumed that all of it was dry, but the north is green in a big way. basically we just kind of played it by ear, decided where we wanted to go along the way and followed the map. it was the perfect way to round out my semester, just exploring the part of the country i hadn't been to yet. maureen and i were going to do london this weekend but the tickets ended up being too expensive, and i'm SO glad we ended up staying in spain. i'll go to london eventually, but this is the last time i'll be spending so much time in just one country as far as i know, and there was (and still is) lots of it that i hadn't seen yet. among the different places we went....loyola, zaragoza, this bombed out town from the spanish civil war that i can't remember the name of and i have to remember to ask tom tomorrow, monasterio de piedra which had some beautiful waterfalls. we drove through both pais vasco and navarro, doing so on some really windy, narrow roads on the sides of mountains. we'll just say that i feared for my life half the time seeing as how we had four of us in the back of the car and didn't wear seatbelts the entire time, but i was overtaken by the scenery half the time so i didn't give it too much thought. we did catch a glimpse of the piraneas mountains (i can't spell tonight) and some really cool sunsets - the clouds were set out against a purlply-orange sky, and there was a moon that looked full to me for two nights that glowed behind them once the sun fell.

i think i'm gonna hit the sack right about now, and hopefully these scenes i have to write for my film project will materialize as i'm falling asleep. that's always when i develop the best ideas - and hopefully i will muster up the strength to roll over and write them down on my legal pad instead of trying and failing to remember them in the morning. but right now all i can think about is how love really stinks when you know you have to let it go, and you're really not sure how in the hell you are going to say goodbye, or why you should have to in the first place. i feel like my shoulders are being pulled into the ground - like i've been trying to look up but gravity's getting the best of me. and driving all over this weekend had made me feel so free.....but i guess it's back to reality. i just feel so.....down.

anthony's quote

Tue, 02 Dec 2003 20:41:55 GMT

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you k now, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
-Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ

Tue, 02 Dec 2003 19:10:57 GMT

so why do things have to start getting good just as the semester is coming to an end? i really don't get it. but i feel so ridiculously happy that i almost don't care. somehow everything with anthony and i just fell into place and as much as i wish it all happened earlier, i'm grateful that it happened at all. i wish i knew why things happen the way they do, but for now i'll just hold on to the belief that there's a reason which will reveal itself in the future. i figure i can't be sad about something this good so i'm staying positive and enjoying these last two weeks.

lisa left yesterday, and since i'm getting sick and i'm butt-ass tired i didn't go out with her and jessica last night. she did come over for a little while though and we got to chit chat and say our goodbyes. she's working on talking our moms into taking us to new york over christmas....and as unlikely as that is (if you know my mom you'd understand) if ANYONE could talk her into it, it's lisa. i went with her to visit her senora yesterday though, who is so incredibly eccentric!! she cracked me up. jessica and i are going to go visit her next week, she's that cool. she like goes out dancing and stuff and even though she says she's a waitress lisa isn't sure what she REALLY does because supposedly she gets dressed up all nice to make salads and desserts and then comes home at like 7 in the morning, so something doesn't add up. but anyway, i had a great time hanging out with my cousin and i can't wait for new york should my mom actually go for it :o)

so right now i'm buried in piles and piles of work that i've been neglecting which would explain why i'm finishing off this 40 left over from the other night. i just like beer too much. dinner's in 20 minutes thank goodness because i'm starving since i can't afford to eat a normal lunch because i drank away all my money.

Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:53:54 GMT

holy shit. i just got through history class, though i have no idea how. jody and i rolled out of bed drunk off our asses at 11:20, i put on a pair of jeans and my glasses and grabbed my abono and our reader for discussion and we got to school right in the nick of time. i think i may have sobered up somewhat since then, but because i have no money to get coffee or diet coke or any sort of food i´m just going to have to let this wear off for the time being.

last night was the spanish anti-thanksgiving and lisa and her friend jessica met up with us. it was a rockin´ good time even though some of the food was scary....i did have some croquetas though, me and lisa´s favorite thing :o) she told me some hilarious stories about jimmy and we talked about the cousins for awhile. apparently my family is going to baltimore for easter and i hope that means i´m included!! i haven´t been to baltimore in forEVER. that would totally rule. you will have to excuse my inept use of language right now because my brain is so not functioning. we have gone out every night this week and i´ve pretty much been wasted every night this week....and all last weekend too starting wednesday night.....i think i am falling apart. but i´m having a great time.

so anyway, lisa and jessica went home because lisa was pooped from her journey, and the rest of us (this being anthony and caroline, andrew and his friend from home but i forgot her name, dale and alex and their señora´s son pepe who is like 33) went to this spanish bar where they were having a spanish concert and hung out for awhile. i am so obsessed with caroline, i can´t remember if i wrote about her in my last entry because i was probably drunk when i wrote that one too. she´s out of control when she´s drunk, which is after having like 2 beers, and she gossips like a fiend. i love talking about people haha....i mean don´t we all? it´s funny to hear about who she knows and who i know and her stories about peeing on stuff. bad girl challenge anyone?? so yeah, we hung out there for awhile, and then went to o´connells again....we pretty much end up there at some point every night. caroline´s hostel is like right there and she wanted to change and pick up her little bro who is 16 and really cute. so i think we maybe spent an hour at o´connells and i met some dude from switzerland and ran into colin and greg and brian and chris and some more SLU people since you always see people you know there, and then it was off to palacio. that place was out of control, seriously. it´s a discoteca that´s like a huge palace, tons and tons of cool looking rooms filled with people. you pay 9 euros to get in and you get one drink, so of course i made the most of it and got a vodka and red bull and chugged it. it wasn´t long before everyone was falling all over the place because we were all drunk off our asses but i had a great time dancing. i think some naughty things happened on the dance floor but thankfully everyone else was even more wasted than anthony and i were so i doubt anyone noticed.....i hope not though because that was pretty bad. that was actually my first discoteca experience besides pacha, cause i still haven´t been to kapital yet but i doubt i will even go. they´re fun but i can only go once in awhile because i´m always scared of being violated by overbearing spanish men. i was wearing this black skirt that has strings hanging down from it and random people kept pulling on them but i was so inebriated that i didn´t even notice until they had been doing it for like 5 minutes.

and then there is anthony´s birthday present that i gave him on monday. i made him this cd and wrote a letter to go with it, which i mentioned in my last entry....before the dance performance on wednesday night i went back into the dressing room and pulled my red felt michael jackson hat that i wore for tango out of my bag, and this folded up piece of paper falls out. i unfolded it and sat down and i could barely read it because i had tears in my eyes.....the letter he wrote for me is honestly the nicest, most wonderful thing that anyone has ever given to me, and in the moment when i first read his words i couldn´t possibly have been any happier. i really don´t know what the nature of our relationship is. it´s like, we´re really good friends and have a great time just hanging out, but then he does this thing that he always does that drives me completely nuts.....he comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist and puts his head on my shoulder and i smile sheepishly as i fall into him. or we´re dancing and all of a sudden our lips are almost touching and we just laugh and squeeze each other and start dancing like weirdos. whatever is meant to happen between us, i guess it wasn´t meant to happen now, but i´m so glad that this connection has developed between us. i know that i´m going to cry when i get home....i don´t know if i will cry when i leave, but when i see my family and pull into my driveway and bring my bags up to my room and i´m finally by myself i know i´ll cry. i´m not gonna lie, some of those tears will be shed for him. ok, a lot of them. haha he actually just sent me a text message as i was typing that to see what i am doing today. anyway, he said that he doesn´t want me to leave here in sadness, and i won´t....i´ll leave here knowing that i had a great semester, traveled to so many unbelievable places, and met some amazing people, and i´ll carry these experiences with me forever. yeah i´ll be bummed, but when i picture the way that anthony smiles....God he has the most adorable smile....i´ll just remember how happy he made me and everything will be okay. maybe we´re just meant to be friends, and it´s certainly true that he enriches my life in that regard, but sometimes i just know that there´s something more. i think we both know that, and we´re going to hang on to that for now, and work on our puzzles on our own until i see him again.

lisa says that when my lj entries are too long she stops reading them because her boss comes over, so in honor of her being in madrid i´m going to cut my drunken ramblings off here. it´s just been one of those weeks, and next week is going to be one of those sucky weeks when i do all the homework that i´ve been putting off....

Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:33:04 GMT

life has been crazy, thus my complete lack of updates.

i have so much to say that i´m having trouble typing anything at all. i guess i could start by saying that paris was awesome. maureen, katie, juliet, notre dame matt, joaquin and anthony were there and i couldn´t have asked for a better group to travel with. we saw everything - notre dame, the eiffel tower, versailles, the louvre, musee d´orsay, arc de triomphe, the champs elysees, the eiffel tower sparkling at night, montmarte and sacre cour. i can´t wait to go back there someday. i had a blast with juliet - i didn´t really know her that well until paris and now that i know her better i absolutely love her. she´s full of energy and always makes me laugh. katie´s sexual prowess was both refreshing and empowering, and joaquin´s stories of killing squirrels and the cookie monster eating his cookie during the PBS pledge break amused everyone. matt was obsessed with davinci code, which i still have to read. anthony was anthony in all of his various forms....i.e. kermit, retard, sean connery, yoda. i will never forget when he rolled out of bed and then slept on the wine bottle opener. us sleeping in one bed never really works out because i apparently hog the whole bed and steal all the covers, but hey, as far as i´m concerned as soon as the lights go out it´s every man for himself.

so i was having such a good time in paris that i decided i for real wanted to stay another semester. after giving it a lot of thought and tormenting myself for the past week i talked to my parents, and dave called my mom on thursday night to convince her that i should stay. sadly it didn´t work out, and it´s finally hit me that the semester is coming to an end. i´ve visited so many amazing places and made so many wonderful friends and i just wish that i had more time, because i know i´m not done here. but i guess i´ll have to be. i know i´ll have a great time at SLU next semester too. i pretty much have fun wherever i am or whatever i´m doing, unless it involves math, so i´ll make the best of it. i talked to sam and james online last night and it made me feel better about next semester. i have so many friends at home that i miss and can´t wait to see.....

the dance performance is on wednesday, which means dress rehearsal today and tomorrow. since my days here are numbered each one is going to be crazy. speaking of which, my cousin lisa is coming in town for thanksgiving!! i haven´t seen her since hawaii like almost 3 years ago. i can´t wait to party with her, since our family events are always relatively tame. anyone who knows my parents would not be very surprised by this.

so when i first wrote this entry i ended with the letter that i gave to anthony, but i decided to take it out. i think it´s one of the most beautiful things i´ve ever written, and if you happened to read this before i removed it, go you. but then i realized that i didn´t really want anyone else to read it because i wrote it for anthony and call me a dork but it´s something special.....usually i don´t hold anything back in my lj but i decided to this time.

"i close my eyes and believe in wherever you are....an angel for me."

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:18:07 GMT

holy moly, i´m going to paris tomorrow and i can hardly believe it. i just sent my class schedule to my counselor....9 AM on mondays, 9:30 on tuesdays. tuesday thursday i have three classes in a row, two classes in a row monday and friday, and wednesdays i have poetry from 2:10-4:40. man....after having class at 12 and 12:30 and having like two every day here in spain, with only one on friday, has really gotten me spoiled. this 9 am stuff is gonna be a swift kick in the ass when i get back in the spring.

but then there´s this whole going back thing.....i´m beginning to think that i might just stay the whole year. i dunno, i´m going to think it over this weekend, talk to my parents about it. i really really want to stay, travel some more in both spain and in europe, work on my spanish and party hardy in madrid because i love it here and i love life here. i got this thing in the mail from SLU madrid today that was like, "still thinking about staying the whole year? cause you still can!" and i was like shit you had to tell me that now when i thought the decision was made for me....

oh well, whatev, hopefully this weekend will be all it´s cracked up to be and ghetto packing 7 people into one hotel room won´t be a totally bad idea. it´s off to study for journalism and pack the maleta.

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 12:34:01 GMT

so this update has to be real quick because i have to go the library and get my study on. i realized that i forgot to mention my trip to granada before we went to greece. i took a bus down there by myself to meet up with nick, kevin, immaculata and maureen who went earlier in the day (they missed their bus to sevilla because everyone was wasted the night before, myself included) and i wound up talking to this obnoxious spanish guy named alejandro who was wearing a neckbrace because he got into a car accident while in madrid. he calls me like every day and i feel bad because i never pick it up, but oh well, i figure he´ll get over me eventually. such the heartbreaker i am.....haha

but anyway, we spent hours wandering around the alhambra. i took almost 60 pictures of the thing and i didn´t want to leave. i picked up washington irving´s book "tales of the alhambra" and i´m gonna read it when i am home for break. sometime i will post some pictures of it, the place was beautiful....filled with gardens and fountains and lots of islamic type decor which is very intricate and mesmerizing really. it was filled with so many stories both fictional and historical and i could have stayed there and let my imagination run wild for an indefinitite period of time.

last night we went to blended, this little cafeteria type bar right by school where the guys always go, and just hung out and drank beer until about 3. i took a bunch of pictures of joaquin and anthony being gay, and there is a really cute one of anthony and i hugging like we love to do when we are drunk. sometimes i think the kid is playing me and other times i think he´s so adorable, a perfectly innocent oversized child. like last night he would sometimes put his hand on my leg or put his arm around me and it was like it was perfectly natural the way we touched each other. he didn´t do it because he wanted ass or for any other ulterior motive, he just wanted to touch me. and that makes me think that he really does have feelings for me. the boy is very confused right now, that´s all i know, and i´m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

we got our paris tickets and hotel rooms yesterday!! holy shit, it´s gonna be amazing. i´m going with a bunch of really cool people and we will be packed in one hotel room and i´m sure i will snuggle up with anthony every night. it will rock my socks off for sure. i can´t believe i´m going to see the eiffel tower and the louvre and eat cheese and drink wine on the street.....such a romantic city....i always thought i would fall in love there but i´m not sure what the likelihood of that is. i don´t much care though, i´m going with my friends and this guy who i have taken a terrific fall for and whatever happens it´ll be fun.

so time to go study....tonight we are eating at this mexican place, it will be pretty low-key i think, and then tomorrow night joaquin is having people over at his apartment. he has this awesome balcony thing and he always puts candles in empty or almost-empty wine bottles and the wax drips down them so perfectly. you look up and the empty blue sky and see the dome of a church in the corner and even though you can´t see any stars because you´re in madrid you feel perfectly infinite. "love is to be lived, not remembered" - mahmoud darwish

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:13:44 GMT

so it´s been awhile since i´ve managed to write in here. i got back from an amazing trip to greece on monday night and found myself knee deep in homework so i should probably be working on that right now instead, but i´m going to take a few minutes to write about the trip.

first night we got there, had dinner together which was some scary seafood, then got on a ferry to travel to crete. the ferry was packed with people but we at least had our own closet sized rooms for four people. maureen and i roomed with anne elise and claire, two super cute freshmen who are out of control. we got into crete at 5 am, checked into our hotel and then visited the palace at knossos. basically we saw a lot of rock piles in crete but our tour guide (the archaeology teacher) shed some light on the subject. that night maureen and i went out with the only 4 boys on the trip, tom, andrew, aaron and anthony. not surprisingly i went back to anthony´s room that night and things ended up being a little weird. he actually just walked into the computer lab so thats enough of that.

after crete we went to athens for the rest of the time. the acropolis was absolutely amazing. the agora was cool too because it was neat hearing about the death of socrates and the government in athens and all that stuff. tons of people just came into the computer lab so its a little bit out of control in here right now. anthony is booking the hotel room for paris next weekend....i cant wait to go!! but anyway, back to greece. one night maureen, katie, claire, anne elise, karina, fat dani, andrea and i went out and at the end of the night maureen, andrea and i ended up in this greek bar drinking for free with 40 year old men and smoking huka. i absolutely loved it. everyone in greece speaks english and is totally nice. katie is coming to paris with us i think and andrea might be coming too. i sat next to andrea on the plane on the way to greece and that girl is completely insane, i love her. she´s a freshman permanent student but has a wisdom beyond her years....shes a very witty girl and she always makes me laugh. katie is also totally awesome, always making random comments about mexican showers and orgies and such. yesterday after school she took us to this great little store by her house and i got some cute shoes for 22 euro.

this is probably my most disorganized entry ever and i´m not sure what to write about next. i guess i could talk about our last night in greece, where we hung out on the roof of our hotel (which had an amazing view of the city) and got wasted with the 4 guys. anthony decided that he wanted a gyro so he wandered the streets of athens for about an hour by himself at 1 am and comes back with 2 gyros in hand....i still cant believe he made it back alive. their history teacher kevin hung out with us for a bit also which was fun. the night ended with anthony knocking on people´s doors like an ape, riding the elevator and taking pictures, and me and 4 guys passing out in one bed with anthony curling up on top of me like a little boy. tom and i were gonna get in the pool once the workers left the roof at 3....but we passed out. it´s probably better that way since the pool was freezing and i didnt plan on wearing a bathing suit.

so for a few final words on the trip....anthony and i were laying in his bed listening to clarity on his headphones and at my favorite part of for me this is heaven (the piano part towards the middle) he kissed me and even though i think he is kind of a fuckwit that was probably one of the most insanely romantic moments of my life.

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:41:17 GMT

just got out of my islam midterm. it was a piece o' cake. it could have been so much harder but she made it insanely easy. thurday we are going to the mosque, woo hoo!!

last night we went to ducados for anne's birthday. i've been kind of sick lately but i took a few shots and felt wonderful as per usual. we were gonna go to top room but apparently it ended up not opening, so we all just hung out at the downstairs bar. i was really tired so i went home at like two, but i was too drunk to go to sleep without feeling sick so i listened to one of my mix cds and sang all the words and danced around in my bed. jody called my cell phone at 6:20 because she needed keys....so i dropped them out of the window and they got stuck in the fucking tree. so i take jody's keys, go downstairs and let her in, and she drops our giant pillows out of the window and onto the tree to knock the keys out, and after about four tries they finally fell out. at the time i was pissed because i was really tired but talking about it today i couldn't stop laughing.

journalism was a joke today as usual. we pretty much talk about random shit the entire time and nick and i laugh really hard and write notes on each other's notebooks. today we had a countdown going until 1:30 because that's when they start serving pizza in the snack bar....but we don't actually get out of class until 1:45, so nick decided that next week he will leave class, get pizza and bring it back for the last 15 mins of class. we don't do anything in there anyway. we have another article due on tuesday and i think i am going to go to a lecture and write about it....next i will have to find a topic for my feature story and i have no idea what it will be.

tonight i stay in and study, sad. but this weekend i think we are going to sevilla for a couple of days. who knows, plans seem to change constantly. all i know is that we are going to greece on tuesday and i am incredibly excited. anthony sends me random weird text messages and i laugh at what a dork he is....but it's his dorkiness that makes him so endearing. i hate hate HATE having crushes on people, but i actually love it so i shouldn't say that.

something corporate's new cd comes out today, north. i wish i could have a copy of it in my hot little hands, but i am going to try to download it for now instead. so i hope all you computer geeks out there are ripping the cd onto your computers so i can download it from you.....

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 11:12:13 GMT

so we went to barcelona this past weekend and it was AWESOME. a very cool city on the mediterranean with lots of stuff to see and do. we got there friday morning at 7 AM and it was pouring rain and freezing cold all day....if the weather had been better we would have had enough time to see all of the stuff we wanted to. there was this marketplace we didn't get to, and the picasso museum, but i hope to go back someday and spend a few more days there. we hung out with our spanish friend tomas who taught us how to say mess around and friends with benefits in spanish.

we saw the olympic park and lots of gaudi's architectural wonders, the most spectacular being sagrada familia, a huge cathedral that won't even be finished within my lifetime. sadly my camera batteries ran out and i forgot to charge the extra pair so i didn't get a lot of pictures, but i figure that i can get copies of jody's and maureen's. on friday night we went to this dance club that was in an old theatre. there was a live band at first and i danced with some spanish dudes....they weren't very good but it was amusing anyway. then they played house stuff which i don't like all that much but it was ok to dance to for an hour or so. we hung out with logan, this guy who was staying in the same hostel as us. he is in the navy but is taking time off to travel around europe by himself. a very interesting character.

today is anne's birthday so we are going to top room tonight....i'm sick and have a midterm tomorrow but i am going for a little while anyway. a week from tomorrow we are going to greece!!!

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:09:12 GMT

nick thinks it´s "nice" that i have a livejournal. we are sitting in the computer lab right now and it´s pouring rain outside, thunder and all. my feet are soaked and we have to go to islam in 45 minutes. i also have a cold and a horrible cough. but other than that, life is good.

lately there has been some turmoil in the apartment, you could say. things are better now but last week was probably one of the worst of my life, in terms of how completely shitty i felt. i don´t really feel the need to talk about what happened, but it just sort of made me acutely aware of the fact that i haven´t felt like myself since i´ve been here. i´m having a great time on the outside, but sometimes i just feel empty and i don´t know why. "weak inside, but thriving just the same...." a quote that makes perfect sense to me now.

things with anthony are a bit confusing, to be honest. last night we were hanging out (finnegan´s, fin bar to watch some baseball, then pacha) and i had a great time with him. we talked about paris and the trip that we will take just the two of us and held hands and kissed and made fun of each other and it was wonderful. but i´m afraid of investing myself in something that isn´t there. we weren´t drunk last night (well....i was for a little while) so it´s not like we only act that way when we´re drunk, but we definitely only act that way when we are out at night. at school you´d have no idea that we have any vested interest in each other. and i don´t know if it´s because he´s nervous or i´m too shy or both. i hope that we will talk about things sometime soon, but at the same time i don´t really know what to say. we only have two more months together as it is, and then i´m going back home and he is staying here. apparently cleveland isn´t that far from chicago - we talked about that last night. but, i mean, who knows. i told myself that i didn´t want to date anyone while i was here, but i also didn´t anticipate falling for someone like i have. i wanted the freedom to make out with random people and have a good time and not worry about anything. but i don´t want to make out with random people. i just want to kiss anthony.

who knows....it´s probably a bad idea to get involved at this stage in the game. but fear is certainly a part of it....a fear of how much i will miss him when i get home, of how hard it will be to say goodbye. maybe i´m thinking too much into things, since i do have a tendency to do that. but i´ve spent far too much time trying to suppress the way i feel and i just don´t think that i can do it anymore.

last weekend maureen and i went to avila and ran into two guys from school, which was pretty much the most random thing ever. we ate lunch together and then decided to go to salamanca that night, which was maybe an hour bus ride away. we drank wine on the steps of an old cathedral while listening to two guys playing the violin and the guitar, some of the most beautiful music i have ever heard. the way the buildings were lit up at night was breathtaking - i took a bunch of pictures but they really don´t do it justice. tonight we are going to barcelona, taking a train overnight and arriving in the morning. our friend tomas is working there for a few weeks and has an extra hotel room if friends want to visit him so we can stay there for free. i´m a little under the weather so this trip is probably a bad idea, but i can´t pass up the chance to visit barcelona. i mean, you can´t go to spain and not visit barcelona.

"and this is what she said gets her through it....if i can´t be happy now, then when? if not now, when?" i´ve been listening to that jimmy eat world song a lot. the piano in it kills me.....i absolutely love it. and i feel like the lyrics resonate in the way i´ve been feeling lately. don´t get me wrong, i´m having a great time here. i just feel weird and i can´t really put my finger on what´s wrong with me.

Mon, 06 Oct 2003 13:06:06 GMT

well, i was going to get on here and write about our weekend and our trip to toledo yesterday, but i can't get this image out of my head.

jody, anne, kyle and i were walking to lunch when we saw a man lying in the street. he was flat on his back, head turned to the side, his skin turning a greenish blue color. blood was flowing from the back of his head, which appeared flat, pooling in the gutter on the other side of the street. a woman bent down and kissed his forehead and cried. it was at least 10 minutes before anyone got to the scene, and the first person to arrive was a policeman. a woman with a doctor's bag eventually ran up and listened to his heartbeat with a stethoscope, but it was obvious to everyone that he was already dead. someone brought out a white sheet and covered his body, and i can't shake this image from my mind. the bright white sheet against the streams of blood, the truest red that i have ever seen. the women yelling in spanish on their cell phones trying to get an ambulance that wasn't coming. one woman bent down and started to perform CPR, although it was obvious that she didn't really know what she was doing. but couldn't bring herself to keep her hands on his chest. the sound of an approaching siren that eventually went away as everyone held their breath, one hand over the mouth as though if you let go life would be sucked out of you. and i wanted nothing more than to hug someone as i whispered a prayer for him, when a man came up and told us that he jumped from the fifth floor of the apartment building.

and i thought about how i hadn't hugged someone for so long - here in spain everyone gives each other a kiss on each cheek when they say hello and goodbye. at first i liked it, because it's a more intimate way of greeting someone, but at that moment i wanted nothing more than to have someone wrap their arms around me and remind me that i'm still alive, because for those few minutes i couldn't feel anything, couldn't see anything except white and red and the pallor of his skin, green and blue with death. but instead i crossed my arms in front of me and looked at the ground.

i have dance class in half an hour and i really wish i didn't have to go.

Sat, 04 Oct 2003 15:17:55 GMT

i really should be doing homework right now, but instead i went shopping and now i´m in the internet cafe. yesterday i got a new pair of jeans and a corduroy miniskirt from zara and a sweater from h&m. i still really need shoes but i am very distracted by clothing. we walked around sol with anne and amanda and spent about 2 hours in h&m....it´s a big store.

last night we went over to ari´s to pre-party and then went to this club where we had to trick them to let us in. and after all the effort it wasn´t really all that great. i kissed brian again and i don´t really know why. i honestly don´t feel anything for him anymore. it´s not like we made out or anything though, just danced for awhile and kissed. never again. it´s funny, i thought that i wouldn´t meet anyone that i really liked while i was here in españa. like maybe i would have crushes on people but makeout with whoever i wanted, which is basically what it´s been like so far. i certainly didn´t anticipate feeling for anyone the way i feel about anthony, and ever since that night at the meter bar the only person that i want to kiss is him. like i honestly felt nothing when i kissed brian last night. i didn´t even really want to. maybe i just wanted to see if i felt anything at all, and i most certainly didn´t. i just hope that anthony comes back from germany in one piece.

but anyway, last night we also decided to drunk dial people in the US so we called jody´s james, my james, giselle and tommy....i think that´s it but i´m probably too drunk to remember. ari also sent a text message to christian from my phone that said "i want your sex" and i´m still not sure how i´m going to get him back for that one. christian said he would be back here december 8th so maybe i´ll see him one last time, which would be kinda funny.

tomorrow, toledo. or at least that´s the plan.

Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:37:39 GMT

you know that whole wanting to stop yourself before you fall for someone thing that i was writing about? well, let's just say that it's certainly too late for that. last night we were at the meter bar with a bunch of people from school just talking and stuff and i told him that when we were sitting next to each other on the plane i felt so dumb because i had a crush on the first guy i met in spain.....and we weren't really even in spain yet!! and he told me that on that plane ride he knew that we were going to hook up. i was laughing hysterically because i had the same feeling but i thought that maybe i was just getting carried away. so not only was i laughing because it was funny, but i think it was laughter of relief also. i was so afraid that he wouldn't feel the same way about me, because i'm always afraid of that. he is just so adorable and i can't stop thinking about him.

some girls from school got a little fuzzy chick for a euro while they were in barcelona and they brought it to the bar last night. randomly during the night you'd have the chick passed to you because people were just passing the thing around the bar, and i was afraid something would happen to the poor thing. but so far it seems to have survived.

this weekend we are going to sevilla i think, but i heard that it is going to rain there so i'm not sure if we will do something else instead. the weather got chilly here all of a sudden, and it was pouring rain yesterday. it's still warmer than chicago though so i'm happy.

so last night we came back from the bar and we brought kevin with us because we wanted to make grilled cheese sandwiches on this sandwich maker we found in the kitchen. i was so excited for grilled cheese, you have no idea. we are all standing in the kitchen trying to be as quiet as possible, jody plugs the thing in and you hear a SNAP and sparks fly everywhere and the power goes off in the entire apartment. i was laughing so fucking hard that i thought i was going to pass out. and then all of a sudden maureen was in her room with kevin, and i was like wow i didn't see that one coming at all, no sir. pathi got up and turned the power back on somehow.....i feel really bad that we woke her up. i just hope that sandy (that's our other roommate from NY) got up on time and that her alarm wasn't messed up or anything. we have a battery operated one so it didn't matter. jody and maureen also decided to make rice krispie treats in the microwave before dinner, and our senora was scared of them. she took like one bite and then said that she would eat the rest for breakfast.....but i have this sneaking suspicion that it ended up in the trash.

Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:11:00 GMT

italy: check.

i don't really know what to say about this weekend....suffice it to say it was out of control.

now christian is sending me text messages saying that he wants to see me again and that he is going to come back to spain next weekend and i am kind of scared of him....he's 27 which is way too old for me but i had a great time with him. i dunno. saturday night he was talking to me in italian and i was just like holy shit marry me now.....italian is the most beautiful language and he was saying the cutest things and then translating them for me after i gazed helplessly into his eyes for about 5 minutes. there was a whole group of guys who were here in madrid to celebrate max's last weekend before he gets married, and max was completely insane. he would keep just grabbing us and making out with us and i was like WOAH you are getting married. i wonder what his fiance would think if she saw the videotape and the pictures.....they were like videotaping EVERYTHING and i was like do you realize that this is very incriminating evidence. and i was like whoa and he was like yeah and i was like what.....just kidding i am making fun of myself.

sometimes i just think that kyle is so cute and i wish i would stop because i just want to be friends with him. i also highly doubt that he would ever like me and i don't want to fall for someone who would never fall for me.....not fun. i have a crush on about five different people right now, this is so uncharacteristic of me. we are finally sending back james' designer sunglasses today, he keeps sending us angry text messages. i want to be like "you have to come back and get them" because i really want to see him again, but i probably never will....very sad. we were walking down gran via on saturday and i saw a guy who looked EXACTLY like him but had blonde hair. i pretty much stopped in my tracks and my heart stopped beating for a split second because i thought it was him. jody and maureen said something before i did so i know that i wasn't being psycho or anything. i've made out with a handful of guys since i've been here but he's the one that i always find myself thinking about and i wish i knew why.....

i have to leave for dance class in about 10 minutes but i don't really feel like going today. we have been hanging out with ari a lot who is in my dance class....he's a really funny guy, he like always talks about smoking and it cracks me up. i like to hear him talk about LA though, i often wish that i still lived there. but i'm over it. this girl he is kind of dating back home is johnny depp's niece, crazy isn't it?

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:57:39 GMT

i've been done with class for awhile, but jody and i are still at school checking email and doing stuff online and whatnot. in a little while we will walk home and then maybe do some shopping. tomorrow night i think we are going out with kyle and some of his german friends who are visiting him this weekend, which should be fun except that kyle will want to talk to them in german the whole time. last night we went over to ari's apartment and chilled with him, alicia, and his two roommates. one is from ibiza and one is from tenerife. they are pretty nice guys, all just randomly ended up together. ari cracks me up and i love him. i'm also jealous because he goes to school in santa barbara. i wonder how dani is doing.

so i've recently become obsessed with this song, i'm saving the lyrics in here because i think they are really cute. also if you want to download a funny spanish song that i hear all the time, look for 'quiero besarte' by roser. there are a ton of songs here that i like but i never know the names of them. it just so happened that the video for this one came on spanish mtv when i was in the snack bar today so i wrote down the name. it reminds me of when i was riding in the car with anthony and i was all like, "quiero besarte" since we were making an effort to talk in spanish that night, and he's all like, what?? it was pretty funny....

you know when you're falling for someone and you just want to hang on to something and stop yourself, because you're scared of making the same mistakes all over again? these love songs make me swoon again....i was hoping maybe it's indigestion from all this spanish food but i am beginning to think otherwise. maybe i should be alarmed by the fact that i wish i could keep myself from liking someone, but i suppose that i can only detach my emotions from my actions for so long before i trip over myself and fall head over heels once again. dammit.

but anyway, on to the lyrics from this song that i love. dl it and try to get that spanish song also so you can hear what kind of stuff they play in the clubs here, it will make you smile.

tell me what you thought about
when you were gone and so alone
the worst is over
you can have the best of me
we got older but we're still young
we never grew out of this feeling that we wont give up

here we lay again
on two separate beds
riding phone lines
to hear that familiar voice
and pictures brought from memory
we reflect on miscommunication
and misunderstandings
and missing each other too
much too without you, let go

we turn our music down
and we whisper
say what your thinking right now
tell me what you thought about
when you were gone and so alone
the worst is over
you can have the best of me
we got older but we're still young
we never grew out of this feeling that we wont give up

jumping to conclusions
made me fall away from you
i'm so glad that the truth
has brought back together me and you

we're sitting on the ground
and we whisper
say what your thinking outloud

tell me what you thought about
when you were gone and so alone
the worst is over
you can have the best of me
we got older but we're still young
we never grew out of this feeling that we wont give up

we turn our music down
and we whisper
we're sitting on the ground
and we whisper
we turn our music down
we're sitting on the ground
and next time i'm in town
we will kiss girl
we will kiss girl

tell me what you thought about
when you were gone and so alone
the worst is over
you can have the best of me
we got older but we're still young
we never grew out of this feeling that we wont
feeling that we cant
we're not ready to give up

we got older but we're still young
we never grew out of this feeling that we wont give up