telling the future, with 85% certainty

it would appear that interesting things have been going on within my family while i've been away. in the past five months, two cousins have had babies; and my aunt remarried this morning, which nobody told me about until literally last week. another cousin is getting married in may, and i'm going to be one of her bridesmaids.
so i think i can guess what the dinner conversation is going to be this christmas: babies, weddings, and omg who's next?!
part of me is really hoping that doesn't happen, because relationship discussions with my family tend to get intense and kind of awkward. i'm very much single right now, and even though i'm too young to be thinking about my shelf life i'm still worried that i'll end up alone forever and so i don't like talking about my lack of a meaningful long-term relationship.
on the other hand, i don't intend to have children (my reasoning is a separate post in and of itself). and i do enjoy reasonable debate; so i may just cause trouble over the dinner table instead.

another year, another thanksgiving

and my first one on my own. well, perhaps not completely on my own; just my first one away from the family.
the friends and i had epic plans for this evening, but were stymied by our failure to plan properly; so the cooking has been put off until tomorrow, and instead i treated myself to dinner. a nice, solitary dinner at legal seafoods with a copy of les miserables.
and i thought good and long about where my life has landed me lately, and realized that despite how miserable i can get, i have a lot to be thankful for and very little actually worth complaining about.
i have a full-time job that doesn't suck, and will soon have insurance again through said job.
my family loves me enough to understand that sometimes it's better to stay away from home for a while, and is okay with that.
and there are people who love me enough that i can occasionally light up their lives. they may not be the ones i live with, but they exist.

feeling sentimental

i come home in the evenings to a house full of light.
of everything that's changed in the past few months, this is what i notice most. the laughter, the hugs, the "where were you? we missed you at dinner!" - that's what's making the difference. yes, my job kind of sucks; and yes, i kind of hate not being a full-time student right now; but i live with people who like me, and maybe even love me, and that makes everything worthwhile.

next to normal (complete with spoilers!)

it's almost a month since i saw next to normal on broadway. on the surface, it's a very simple show to summarize: a family made dysfunctional due to mental illness. i suppose just from that description, it would be easy to write it off as something akin to schadenfreude, since after all, theatre is a form of entertainment and this show is centered on someone else's misfortune.
but at least to me, that's not at all what it is. perhaps this is only because it's been years since i was anything approximating normal, but i found it heartwrenchingly relatable.
the audience is taken all the way through diana's breakdown, from every character's perspective, with vivid and all too realistic descriptions of the accompanying mental states. and to sit there in the mezzanine and realize that i have been where she was...well, it was frankly terrifying. the entire show is just so. fucking. real. that by intermission i was back in that old state of wide-eyed terror over where my life could end up.
i cried the entire way through. even watching the family make its way out of that darkest place i cried. but somewhere along the way, a glimmer of hope turned up, and got brighter and brighter with every song (quite literally) til by the end things looked less bleak for both them and by extension, for me.
i don't know where i'm going with this review, so i'm going to stop here, but all in all this is a wonderful show. musically amazing, wonderfully acted, and utterly real. i'm going to see it again, and probably send my parents tickets as well.

things are looking up

i'm no longer unemployed! i had an interview at barnes & noble on wednesday (was it? maybe it was tuesday...) and i start work on monday!
and so i had to go back to ny today to get my social security card from the safe deposit box. been home for 7.5 hours so far, and not one argument with my parents. i guess it's kind of shitty that it weirds me out to not be fighting with them, but this is a really surreal feeling.
like, they just paid for my fall classes, and i owe them (even more) money now, and there *still* hasn't been any arguing.
now i guess the next thing to do is figure out this whole insurance thing, and get myself a new therapist. again.
still, i am breathing easier now.

baby sisters

my little sister turned 13 last week, and it terrifies me. i remember realizing a few years ago that she was turning 10 and being freaked out then, but it's worse now because she's only a year away from high school and i still clearly remember the morning she was born. it makes me feel old to come home and discover that she's grown another few inches, or to call and find out that she took the SATs last weekend and is now treasurer of her school's service club. one day next year she's going to start high school, and then eventually go to college, and then graduate, and i am just going to be getting older and older while she goes through the same stuff that i did. i try to call her every so often so that we don't disconnect, and every time i do she talks and talks and asks me for advice and it struck me a few weeks ago that she looks up to me. worst realization ever, especially considering that she's probably smarter than i am. she tells me about the musical she's planning to audition for and i realize that i still haven't watched the video from her last one, this past spring. and then she reminds me that she's taller than i am now, and i think of all the times i used to carry her around, because she was my baby sister and that's how things go, and it makes me a little sad that i can't do that anymore. but then she asks me what to do about the boy that has a crush on her and i remember that i'm still her big sister, because never in a million years would she ever talk to anyone else like she talks to me. i guess i just have to get used to her growing up.

birthday weekend

you know how you who your friends are? the people who fly up from florida and/or drive 500 miles one way to spend less than two days in boston for your birthday. and who think that a copy of the american bartenders' handbook is a good birthday present.
this weekend has been seriously epically amazing. dinner with 30 friends being seriously rambunctious at vinny t's; wandering out to a bar in the pouring rain; blowing things up in the microwave because wikipedia said it was a good idea; a zillion other things that i can't remember...
birthdays are awesome. i have the best friends ever.

dear parents

home #1

people keep complaining at me for deciding against spending my summer in new york. and i wish i could tell them all to shut up and get their own lives on track, but that's probably rude.
when i was deciding what i would do this summer, i told my parents quite plainly that coming back to long island was the last thing i wanted to do, and that i'd only do it if i couldn't find a research position up here. and you know what? they were completely okay with it and understood exactly where i was coming from. unfortunately, most of the other people i know are behaving rather selfishly about the whole thing. i will be doing what i want to do - working in lab, flying kites, and spending time with awesome people - and if people really cared about me they'd understand that.
home is not where you grew up. home is not the place where you sleep every night. home is where you feel you belong. and for me, that's here.

blackness

Incognegro

this post popped up in my google reader this evening. and i have to say, i understand all too well.

one of my cousins called me a white girl last year, for a variety of reasons culminating in the fact that i told her i was taking a white boy to prom. she then proceeded to tell me she'd find me a prom date. a black prom date. and at first i was irritated and hurt, but then i thought more about her and her life and i realized that if she approved of what i did with my life i would have to seriously rethink every decision i made.

we're not close anymore. she's too black for me, i'm not black enough for her. and it's a shame, but i'm most definitely better off. i don't care what people think of me, especially not black people. i date white boys. i'm naturally monogamous. and i'm ambitious as can be. those three traits seem to count against me. but whatever.

"all my skin folk ain't my kin folk" - Zora Neale Hurston

we're related?

you know what's weird? finding your relatives on facebook. especially ones you don't know too well. and then having really awkward convos on facebook chat. it's just weird.

update!

hey guys! so sorry about the lack of actual coherent posts recently; apparently when germs party it up in your chest cavity they invade your brain too. but i'm back to reasonably normal now, so this post i guess will just be a mashup of everythingness.

i'm back in new york. i was sleeping on the bus on the way home until the ride got really bumpy all of a sudden and the first thing i thought? WOOO NEW YORK AND ITS CRAPTACULAR ROADS! and its glorious sketchyness!

and within five minutes of walking into my house, we ended up in a discussion of ebola versus leprosy and which disease is worse and then segwayed into what my family would do if i brought home a lesbian lover for the holidays (just FYI, i am straight, this was only a hypothetical discussion as far as i'm concerned hehe). i really do love my family and its randomosity :).

also, i broke 100 readers today! you guys have no idea how happy this makes me: like i can be seriously bummed out over something unrelated, but when i see my hit counter jumping it makes me all smiley and happy :). so thank you all, dear readers.

oh sisters :)

so i was going through my pictures folder, cuz i need a head shot of myself for a project, and i found a crapload of photos my sister took this summer of her & our cousin while i was somewhere, no idea where. the two of them apparently find photobooth just as amusing as i do :)

the photos are just so ridiculous and cute and it made me miss her extra all of a sudden.

but i'll be seeing her on saturday!