Boy oh boy!

You find me once again in the very position I was in last Friday, save the difference that I don’t feel like going out with other people because I am really worried about something right now. This something continues to prove my previous theory that everyone is screwed.

In order to take my mind off of this problem and to pass the time while I stay up worrying, I think I’ll introduce some of the people in this program. It’s not like I know these people very well, but at least I don’t hate them yet, so that’s saying something.

On the very left, let me introduce you to Adrianna Klara Gyorfi. She likes caprese salads, and hates people who steal credit card information.

In the middle we have Arwyn. She worked in an international camp in Switzerland this summer, and she is a cookie-cutout of what a camp counselor for kids should be like. She can turn on her good nature like a light switch, and she practically breathes sunshine and skittles, just what little kids like. She also has a very expressive nose. Talk about lucky.

On the very right we have Rachel. Note the very obvious absence of last names, simply because I have no clue what their last names are. Rachel is 6’1” and plays violin. She has very long legs. She is a woman of many mysteries for me. Despite her very long legs, she still manages to be the slowest walking person I know. The only reason she doesn’t walk slower in the street is because she might fall asleep in mid-step. However, it’s great fun walking with her because since she walks so slowly, she notices a lot of things. She’s got the slow moving gait all Romans seem to have (called the “Roman Ramble…” Thank you, thank you, no applause is necessary, I came up with that elaborate alliteration myself…), so already she fits right in.

This here on the left is Lauren Frausto. I know her last name because she is my facebook friend. She has the same exact birthday as my sister, and they are going to be turning the same exact age. What’s wonderful about her is that she finds me funny when no one does, and I find her to be absolutely hilarious, so we both keep ourselves continuously mildly entertained. She’s got a younger brother going to our school, and she dislikes pants. She also spent the semester before this in Pisa.

This is Caroline on the right. Caroline is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and she is studying art history like me. The difference is that she probably has grand life plans with her major, whereas I still am gloriously clueless about what exactly I can accomplish with an art history major. She enjoys pasta, and is great about making me feel ok about being lost with grand ideas of philosophy and such. She likes to wear the color black.

And now onto the more important introduction, since this person can actually make my life miserable very easily. My roommate Diana Zhou.

That glamorous girl in the middle with the long black hair and the tan belt is my roommate Diana. She, too, likes the color black, and she also likes to study. And play the violin. Notice that I am surrounded by a large group of accomplished and eager people. I always knew that I was accepted to this school solely to make other people feel better about what they've accomplished, and Diana Zhou proves this. If she feels down because she hasn't memorized all 500 pages of her Monday night reading, she can come to me to feel better, since it's guaranteed that I've not even finished reading the first 5 pages. It's the same thing at the gym. I feel I am the best motivator there, since all the fit people can see me huffing and puffing there and say to themselves "If SHE can do it, SO CAN I!"

Diana loves strawberry jam (hey hey!) and meat. She also dresses very well and has good taste in music.

I must go worry now!

Dedicated to all my roommates, current and former

I received a rather frantic e-mail from my former roommate, Libby, today. The gist of the email was something like a frantic “please get me my cynicism fix ASAP!” plea.

I think it’s funny that people are still looking to me for the wise voice of negativity and disparagement. Especially since Libby seems to be a degree or two less stressed now than in the summer when it was so hot that brain juices boiled and ear wax ran out of people’s ears in rivulets. No matter how hard I’ve tried to return to a sort of 3^rd grade optimistic outlook about everything, it seems I’ve got to try a wee bit harder, since after a mere week here among strangers a couple of girls already know who to talk to after they’ve watched Pippy Longstockings or have read Pollyanna.

I actually used to enjoy Pollyanna. It’s the story about a small girl who brings sunshine into a dreary household. Basically, wherever she breathed a bunch of daffodils and daisies would grow, and wherever she walked, unicorns and fairies would follow. Then she breaks a leg or something, and all the people who she profoundly touched thought she’d be crippled, but then of course she ends up being healed.

The story now annoys me exceedingly and I think it has nothing to do with her good nature. It’s more to do with the idea that she gets healed and the grand myth of good things happening to good people continues.

But anyhow. Back to Libby’s request.

It’s recently come to my attention that I will never save the world.

This cruel realization came about the same time that my cell phone for Europe, the one that Motorola decided would be brilliantly constructed out of bobbypins and finger nail trimmings from the local dump, gave out entirely. I can now only hear someone on the other line if they are bellowing into the phone as if to cover the distance between us by sheer voice power and carrying distance. There are few things I hate more than poor reception in cell phones, the few being stuck in a room with a rabid, hungry animal and when strong body odor smell permeates my space and stays there.

I hated this phone from the start. It is a flip phone, which is nice, because I’ve got a penchant for squashing keys flat, especially if the phone is in my back pocket and I sit down. In that case, when I take out my cell phone from my pants after a long day, it is nearly paper thin and can be rolled into a crepe to be served with a dollop of nutella. However, this phone has the cool function that if and when my phone decides to ring, the minute I open up the phone to see who is calling, it answers. This has led to many an awkward situation, because even though I love everyone who calls me, that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to talk to them, for one reason or another. Maybe because I’m not wearing the correct shirt, or because it’s an even day instead of an odd one.

Whatever the reason, this is one of the many things I hate about this phone. In addition to that, it is impossible to store numbers in the phone book. There are a thousand different reasons I could list as to why it should be implemented into the CIA or FBI or whatever other agency to torture prisoners for information. The long and short of it is that I am getting NOWHERE with this phone. I was so happy because I had fallen into the rhythm of my new phone. When I got the white beauty, it was a near crisis situation. I remember appealing to friends, family, and enemies for guidance on how to use this mystery machine. Now I would give anything to have it work here. I still pull it out daily and sigh mightily over its beautiful color display and cheery menu options.

With this phone, I am greeted with a bleak, dreary screen rudely demanding my PIN number whenever I have to turn it on. No wonder my grand plan to become a cheerful and optimistic person to be around is evidently failing miserably. How can I be expected to be cheery and optimistic when I have to carry around a fickle, temperamental device wherever I go because it might suddenly decide to revive itself or permanently commit suicide?

So this saga of my cell phone furthers the idea I have that bad things happen to bad people, but bad things happen to good people as well. In short, no one has a chance.

Hey Mom, sorry about that outrageous phone bill...

There are very few things I can be proud of about my looks. I will be the first to admit that it’s my sister who got the better genes (hence her long, silky hair and the haystack adorning my head), and my mom at my age managed to pull “chubby” off in a cute way instead of looking like a nearly 21 year old oompa loompa with a porcupine on her head.

People can complain about the reekingly bad odor emanating from each of my pores, the thick trunks comprising my legs, and the barrel stuck in between where my legs end and where my neck begins. However, they could never find any fault with my white teeth. Mostly these compliments came from Hungarians. This did not surprise me too much, because I mean, look:

Hungarians living in Hungary don't even have teeth. Smiling with teeth (and having them) is a strictly American trend started by Julia Roberts and Jessica Simpson, who generated the myth that unless you're smiling to the point where your face muscles will rip, your cheeks will dislocate, and your ears will migrate to the back of your head, you're just not worthy of recognition. I mean, look. It looks like I go home at night and pinch my face back with clothespins in order to attain maximum smiling flexibility.

It looks like I'm in danger of throwing my neck out when I smile.

In any case, keeping my pearly whites gleaming initially were not due to my own devices. In elementary school my mother, sister, and I were blessed with a fellow Hungarian dentist in town who would insist on seeing all three of us frequently in order to see just how badly the paprika and gulyas were corroding our teeth. I would go there once a month and my teeth would be petted, plumped, and plushed to where someone talking to me could see his reflection in my front teeth, which grew to the size of a horse's. During this time, it wasn't even necessary to brush my teeth at night because I knew Dr. Minye would take care of all of this for me the next day.

During this time I learned to love going to the dentist. I didn't particularly like the dentist, because he always gave me a slight case of the shivers, but there was always unconditional pampering at the dentist.

Then dentist Dr. Minye moved to San Diego. And from then on each member of the Gyorfi family were screwed.

The American system of dealing with teeth was completely alien to me. What? Going to the dentist ONLY TWICE A YEAR? Who would floss for me? Who would be my spiritual leader in dental work? This meant I actually had to learn how to brush my teeth and floss, and it was then that I realized it was a cruel, harsh world without a Hungarian dentist to take care of my smile.

We went through the cycle of Mentadent double squeegie toothpaste, sparkly Aquadent, minty Crest toothpaste, etc, and so on, and so forth, but finally found our saving grace with Listerine. This potent brew in a plastic bottle basically guaranteed it right there on the bottle in bold letters that there was hope for someone who had nothing going for her except for teeth the size of elephants and ears that sat against her head instead of flapped in the wind, and we henceforth adopted Listerine as the 5th member of our family (the dog being the 4th).

Listerine-ing became of favorite pasttime of mine. Saturday afternoon, got nothing to do? Listerine! Have lots of math homework you can't do? Listerine! Need to take out the trash? Listerine! My threshold level for Listerine reached unattainable heights until soon I was substituting Listerine with water. I basically bathed in the stuff.

I came to Italy armed with several bottles of Listerine, which I made last until the very beginning of August by carefully rationing the last drops remaining in the last bottle, and by keeping a mouthful of Listerine in my mouth for days at a time. In Spain I was lucky enough to find a store stocked with only one variety of Listerine, but it was still there! And now I've returned to Italy. Where there is no Listerine to be had.

I am a nervous wreck.

My consumption of coffee has grown significantly, and my Listerining days are over until someone takes pity on me and sends me a truckload. I've considered a variety of methods to keep my teeth shining, and this morning I considered plastering the Orbit whitening gum onto my teeth for half an hour to see if it would sort of act like Listerine whitening rinse, or like Crest Whitening Strips. And it's not only the whitening, cleaning power I miss about Listerine. It's also the minty-ness. I bought a small box of "extra strong" tic-tacs, and it's 6 tic-tacs simultaneously that can provide the mint I crave.

I bought some loser Plax brand mouthwash here with a flavor labelled as "soft mint." WHO THE HELL WANTS "SOFT MINT?" Even though it no longer has the same effect on me due to my continous use, at least Listerine was STRONG in the beginning. It had enough power to blow away an army, make an onion cry, and whither bacteria by just being openend. I think "flammable" should have been written somewhere on the bottle.

So if anyone has any compassion for me at all (meaning, my sister, who is sending something already) he/she would send me at least a SMALL bottle of Listerine. Something that I could use at least once every other day, and just content myself the rest of the time with smelling when I have the urge to experience some of that minty goodness.

Plax. The brand for LOSERS.

Bruce, I didn't know that Pulis are waterproof. They're hair is like wool, though, which is relatively hard to get wet. That might be the answer? I'm not too sure.

And if you want to keep up with any pictures I might be taking, take a look at my picasa web album pictures, whose link is now adorning my sidebar, and can be found here.

Sitting in the usual Good Cafe

I’m back in Italy, soon to continue my overpriced, character-forming, thought-provoking college education. The general sentiment over here is one of rejoicing, mostly over the idea of a maid coming in to make my bed each day. For ladies and gentlemen, I am living in the very hotel I stayed in at the very beginning of the summer. Remember? The one that made me pay 60 euros for a shuttle service I never used? The very one that is now telling me I did not pay the 60 euros?

That’s right. I gave the 60 euros to someone who probably pocketed it. The lesson for everyone reading this is that SOME PEOPLE JUST AREN’T NICE, even if they are old and have a beard. What I SHOULD have done is pinned the 60 euro to my forehead before hanging myself from the bathroom light fixture. Then someone would have been bound to notice, such as the maid, and since maids who scrub toilets and make beds are nicer than embittered men working long hours punching in reservations at the concierge, she would have taken it to the correct person, or taken it home to her young, underfed children, so the 60 euros would have been going to a good cause instead of to some old man’s chewing tobacco.

I don’t know many of the people in the program. Correction: I know hardly anyone on this program, aside from the precious few who tolerate me because I know how to get to the grocery store and how to ask for the check. You’d think these enviable and marketable qualities would put me in the in crowd of the group. Not so! I’m the one sitting in the hotel room at 12:41 AM instead of going out with the others. Precisely 41 minutes ago I did NOT feel like going out. I felt like July 41 minutes ago. Then, ala Adrianna in true Adrianne fashion, about 25 minutes ago I decided that I AM MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER FOR CHRISSAKE, and that the people in the program aren’t intimidating, and I should go out and mingle. Naturally, no one answers their phones so that I could join up with them, most likely because they’re thinking “GOD, she’s going to want to wear her purple polka dot tube top with hot pink pants, isn’t she?” Hence my current isolation in the hotel room where “60 Euros, thief!” is written in every corner.

The only choice I have now is to do laundry. By hand. On a Friday night.

Awesome.

I could make this night more interesting by while washing clothes, I could come up with sweeping judgments about everyone in the program. Or I could ponder over what career would indeed be a good fit to my flighty character.

What I am more inclined to do, however, is come up with what superhuman power I would want to have if I could have any in the world. Last week, I traveled next to a very smart and practical girl on the train from Bodroghalom who told me that she intended to be a doctor, since there were too many lawyers out there. Nevermind how directionless and unaccomplished I felt at that moment, I was relishing the fact that she was addressing me in the formal, and that she wanted to talk to me! Adrianne! The Hungarian with the American accent!

So we talked about magical powers. And I realized I would not know which one I’d want.

SO, The Magical Power Adrianne Wishes She Had Tonight (because tonight’s theme is evidently flightiness):

To be able to turn into anyone from any century at any time.

Think of how cool that could be! I could suddenly decide I’d want to be George Washington in the 20^th century, and granted, it wouldn’t do much good, but it might give you really neat knowledge or skills or anything.

I could revive Al Capone when I need someone mobbed, I could be Annie Sullivan when I need to teach a blind child, and I could be Florence Nightengale when I have to heal thousands of sick people.

The possibilities are endless! And no one could say “you don’t know what it’s like to be me” because, lo, now I can! Naturally, I guess this superpower would lead to a huge identity crisis, but some sacrifices have to be made for the sake of the betterment of the world.

I could also become that person who I gave the 60 euro to and give it to the right person instead of keeping it.

So I hope everyone else’s school year has started off with a blast because golly, the excitement is well-nigh uncontainable here.

Don't get too hopeful

My sister is desperate for new reading material. This is evidenced by a series of gmail chats we’ve had together, where she’s got the unusual talent of starting an interesting turn of a conversation right when I have to leave, and right when she has to go to the bathroom.

Today, I also happened to talk to Rory Kelly, which went something like:

Me: Hello! How are you?

Rory (after a significant pause): Hello! How are you?

Me: I’m in Hungary. With my grandma. I have to go pee.

Rory: Oooooookkkkkkkkk.

Rory: I have to go to school.

(I hate it when people say “ok” on the internet. Hence my disappearance from aim for the summers. I just need to take a break from people making me feel awkward on purpose. “ooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkk.” God. It’s like each o and k stands for something, like “obviously out of our orbit, kompletely kooky krazy karacter.”)

So you can see that I have been significantly less coherent with people than I have been on this blog, despite the draught that’s been going on here on this semi-website.

I have been in Hungary, where there is also a series of protests going on, which Diana and I went to see today. Who is Diana, you ask? She will be my roommate in Rome. This makes her the…12^th roommate in the series of roommates I’ve had since entering college. This is not counting bed mites, ghosts, or cockroaches.

There are these political protests going on in Hungary, which, if you were in Hungary, would be a big deal, but since you’re not, might seem to be as important as an old lady in Uzbekistan running out of curry last night. I’ve been getting the weird sensation that all these occurrences that have been happening since I’ve been going to countries more or less on my own happen because the people want me out. Take for instance the soccer victory in Rome. I barely got out of that alive. I stepped in a mud puddle with such suction power that I thought I was in a quicksand trap in the middle of the Sahara. And last year with the approval of gay marriage in Spain, I was puttied into a nearly jellied form of some sort of an extraterrestrial being reeking of booze and boys when I dared to venture into a square where people were celebrating. My clothes reeked so badly, in fact, that 6 weeks later, after I had washed said clothes, my mother smelled them, wrinkled her nose, and said "Now really, Adrianne."

Then, more recently when I was in Menorca my last week, as I was languidly wandering the streets, trying to decide if the sky was bluer than the day before, a large, robust man bellowed into my ear, nearly catapulting me across the street, shouting:

“Campioooooooooooones, campiooooooooooooones…,” because, evidently, Spain had won some sort of a basketball match.

Who woulda thunk.

But I’ve got news for Europe AND for you.

I am not leaving this place OR this blog. So deal with it.

And now I’m going to bed.

Where am I?

I am in the land of cheese, chocolate, and cheer






































































































And yes, Shikha, I am referring to polar bears on an island specifically. Way to go catching really intricate pop culture allusions.

I can't wait until October when it continues.

I suck at keeping in touch. Sorry.

I had a dream about my blog last night

So I put a great deal of pictures up at Kodak Easyshare upon my sister's suggestion.

Only after finishing it did I realize that in order to see the pictures, you had to type in people's e-mail addresses. And I am way too lazy for that. Plus, what if someone wants to see the pictures and I don't have their e-mail address.

Because I am so lazy, I then took the immeasurable amount of time required to resize my pictures and "Save to Web" them. Which, really, took A Very Long Time. Plus, it took A Very Long Time to upload them as well, along with labelling them. And I'm still working on the second group of it.

But, behold! The Work section of my time in Menorca. Play will be significantly larger.

You are reading the blog of someone Not Cool

Last night when I was walking home on a completely deserted street, a black cat ran in front of me. Not just once, but TWICE. It had the whole street to itself, yet it still chose to dash in front of me. I stood, transfixed, knowing I was supposed to do something, because the good luck I’ve been having can’t last. I visited a small town yesterday, and as I was just strolling along the sidewalk, a huge truck carrying lots of metal canisters stopped suddenly and a whole bunch of these metal barrels came tumbling down a few feet in front of me. Now THAT’S luck, everyone.

So I stood there, and weighed the consequences. I could either live life on the edge, and hope that since it ran in front of me twice, the bad luck would have somehow cancelled itself out. Yet if it hadn’t, then there was a very big chance that I would be abducted by a dozen of cannibalistic aliens before I got to my hotel at the end of the street.

Against my best judgment, I did nothing.

And today, the beginning of my bad luck streak has begun.

Kristopher Capello has tagged me to list 5 songs corresponding to 5 moods.

Now, people like me don’t just go listing favorite songs on a whim. As I was sitting wondering how I was going to do this, I realized that I don’t think I’m even an advanced enough organism to HAVE 5 moods, since my mood varies between pissed-off and livid. And I am the type of person who:

1. While walking yesterday, I tore off a leaf from a plant. And for the rest of my walk, I stared critically at my leaf, trying to recall the ATP cycle with all of its glorious biological mysteries, while marveling at HOW MUCH REALLY goes on in a simple leaf.

2. The biggest decisions I’ve had to make in the past week has been to decide when to turn over onto my belly or my back while tanning, or if I should walk on the shady or sunny side of the street.

3..Today at lunch, I realized that I could still sing all the lyrics to Britney Spears’ “Lucky."

I´m not the person to ask to reveal musical taste. It´s like asking Oscar on Sesame Street to make you perfume, or asking Hellen Keller to put together a flattering outfit for you. You don´t do it simple because their opinions don´t matter. It´s apparent, especially after number 3, that asking me to list 5 different songs to 5 different moods is just EMBARASSING.

Which is precisely why I’m going to do it. And probably exactly why Kris nominated me to do it, because he knows how much I abhor saying anything about music to anyone.

My moods are very basic and simple. I think I listen to songs to be put into a certain mood most of the time, so I’m just going to do what I feel like, and no one can criticize me, because everyone already knows my taste in music is not like the “cool people’s” taste in music.

To Be Put In A Happy Mood: “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” by Dean Martin. The second one is, yes, I know, a Christmas song, but that’s the point of Christmas songs, isn’t it? To feel happy! So, YOU might think these songs are lame, but they always bring a smile to my face no matter how bleak everything seems, especially when I sing along with them.

When I Am Excited About Something and Feel Like Boogie-ing Alone: “Flores y Tambores” by Orquesta de la Luz. So this is a salsa band from Japan, and I found out about them on one of the several CDs I found when I got into my latin music kick, which has lasted for a while now, and which drives my mom up the wall, because she says all of the music sounds the same. I like this song because I’ve listened to it enough times to understand what’s being said (it helps that there isn’t a whole lot of lyrics), and, I don’t know, even though I’m one of the whitest people out there (ok, maybe not after 4 weeks of beach), I still really do like salsa music, and I have a great time listening to the music and pretending I could actually dance. Either that, or Luna Llena by Elvis Crespo.

GO AHEAD AND LAUGH. WHAT DO I CARE? At least I can SING TO THEM.

Romantic Mood: From 3:20-end of Juan Diego Florez and Vesselina Kasaroa singing...hmmm, this is a downloaded version, but of them singing together right after they’ve met each other and they fell in love at first sight. Admittedly, there are other operas that are more obviously romantic and their melodies basically drip instead of flow, but this opera has always been special for me, since I’ve been watching it since I’ve been a kid. I went to go see it at the Chicago Lyric Opera house last year, and I nearly melted off my seat when Juan Diego Florez started to sing. I hadn’t heard of him before, but for me he was the star of the opera and not the Cinderella. After that I went on a mission to find all the other operas he’s sung in.

Lonely Mood: I’m not listing any of the sad mood songs, because I don’t usually enjoy being sad and so I try everything possible to get out of them, but when I’m just feeling more or less alone, then Dvorak Romance in F minor, op. 11 does a pretty good job of making me not happy but okay with whatever it is that is going on. I think violins, along with piano concertos, are the most soothing sounds to listen to, and listening to this song does not force a mood on me. Rather, I can just sit and enjoy something when I can’t find anything else to enjoy.

Relaxing mood, especially after running: Angelique Kidjo. And I have far better things to do right now, like putting pictures up.

There we have it. Kris’s is a lot more developed and actually focuses on the music and sounds and stuff like that, but now he can’t say I didn’t do it.

Now, be content knowing that this is the kind of person I am. Don´t say I didn´t warn you.

Hi, my middle name is Incompetent.

Several years ago before I left to go to Hungary, Stacy’s mom bought me a book of collected stories. The title of the book had something to do with growing up, and it was meant to be read on the airplane ride so I wouldn’t start throwing a fit and hurling badly done fish fillet across the aisles.

I don’t really remember any of the stories, aside from the one about a girl who made earrings out of fish hooks, and then one about a girl who was popular at school and had to run away from home later because her mom hated her. The exact details escape me. The younger sister narrated the story, and she described her sister as “mysterious,” and as people liking her sister because she liked being alone. After reading that story several times over, I determined that I would learn to like being alone, too, because I’ve always had an extreme aversion to being needy and clingy. I don’t think people liked me better because I didn’t mind walking to classes alone in high school, but it definitely made me more annoyed with some of my friends who would refuse to do so (because, OH MY GOSH, BEING SEEN ALONE IN HIGH SCHOOL, TOTAL LOSER!).

ANYHOW, so by the end of high school I more or less fell into a rhythm and had perfected my ideal Friday night activity: going grocery shopping, popping in some sort of a movie at night, cooking dinner for myself, and taking the dog on a walk. OR, going to Barnes and Noble, perusing the bargain book section, then going to Trader Joe’s for food, and finally taking the dog on a walk. Note: food was always mandatory and human interaction totally optional. A couple of privileged individuals would be allowed to tag along, so long as they promised to pretend to be invisible and that they would not interrupt my solitary reverie. My life as a spinster was well on its way.

Then I came to college. Which ruined me. I went from being alone most of the time to having somebody around me 24 hours a day. It was first apparent that I was wrecked when I went home for winter break 1st year. And I had no one around to talk to, since my mom was at work and my sister wasn’t at home, and, let’s face it, talking to your mom is not the same as talking to roommates. Since then, I’ve had a steady stream of someone around most of the time. That is, until June when I was in Rome a couple of days alone, and now, while I’m just hanging out in Menorca alone. And it is WEIRD. I’m staying in a hotel room that is miniscule (the room is the size of a large dining room table…) which, I guess, can make me feel cozier, but also manages to scream “YOU’RE IN A SINGLE ROOM FOR 26 EURO A NIGHT!” I have to make programs to keep myself busy, since I know that I’d end up writhing on the ground singing to Jasmine Trias´"All By Myself" or any of Tina Turner's songs if I didn't decide I'd get coffee at 11:03 AM and another cup at 4:21 PM. That is, I WOULD writhe if I HAD enough room to writhe on the ground. Right now all I can do in this room is stand sideways and squeeze in my stomach.

This is what’s going on in Menorca. Please give me suggestions of things to do alone and make other people feel awkward. I had dinner by myself tonight and I've never seen a waiter feel so sorry for me. To make it even more awkward for him, I made sure to take out my cell phone and pretend like I had been stood up on a date. I craned my head around every 2 minutes, told him I'd wait for the menu until my friend came, then asked for the menu later, and then used my cell phone some more.

PS I've accidentally erased my pictures from where they were before. It is but a temporary setback. Soon they'll be floating around bothering you again.