it's been such a long time

It really has been a very long time since I've posted up here, and I regret to say that this is one of the few times that I've been able to sit down for half an hour and be able to type up a whole post. Looking back now, I used to be a very frequent poster(up to 5 times a week in some instances), but the majority of the posts would lack flavor. It would just be me going through what we talked about in class that day or what I did over the weekend. I learned a very valuable lesson through an anonymous reader that for a post to be good you have to include your opinions into things. I think this coupled with the fact that I'm a lot busier than I used to be is the reason that I only post a couple of times per month.

I'm going to go as far back as I can remember with this post, so I guess that I'll start Thursday. I'm not exactly sure what I did during the day, probably something along the lines of stocks, but like I said, I can't be sure. Later on, I stopped at walmart to get pop before going over to christina's for a cookout. When I got there, it was her, mark, herold, phil, dave, ashley, kate, and myself. For the rest of the night, people would pop in and out of there. We attempted to cook food, but the major problem with that was the propane in the tank was incredibly low. It didn't help that we are for the most part amateurs and it took us so long to figure that out. Nonetheless, I couldn't have picked better people to eat raw potatoes and burned kolbassi with. We threw football around until it got dark and then went inside to play the always riveting apples and apples. If you've never played before, it's hard to explain. The crux of the game is that a deck of adjectives circles around and on every turn someone flips up a card with an adjective in it and the other players who hold cards with nouns on them try to pick what noun would fit the adjective the best. What made the game best is the fact that I am the smallest part jewish and every time I would pick an adjective either dave, mark, or herold would put something like anne frank or the Holocaust down. I knew it was all good natured so I didn't care too much. After leaving there around 1145, I met some old high school friends at the giant eagle in brentwood. We went back to a house and bullshitted for awhile until it got late. It was nice to see justov and kazour again because I had seen everyone else at one point or another during the school year or this summer. After listening to tom and ferg do ray romano impressions on the way home, I crashed about 4 AM.

Ring, ring, ring! "Fuck" was my initial thought when I woke up at 8 AM the next morning. I immediately turned to my alarm and reset it for 8:30 hoping that I could catch a little more shut eye before the long drive up to penn state. However, after about five minutes of staring at the alarm clock, I decided I was awake enough to go. I hopped into the shower and zipped over to mark's place. We went and got donuts and milk to try to wake us up, and we picked up christina and mandi around 9:30. The drive up was really smooth after we got far enough along 22 because for awhile you hit a light every two or three minutes. After arriving at around 1, we ate at College Pizza, which was being renovated as we ate. After stopping at a penn state store and at the bookstore to check out prices on books for next year, we went to a place that I hear people rave about, but I had not been: The Creamery. It lived up to its hype. If you're ever in State College, you need to go there because you get a really good ice cream cone for $2.50. By the time we left at 4, I was beat. On the way home, mark and christina slept while mandi and I talked about a lot of different subjects. It was a good talk, and we arrived home around 7:30. I was completely beat, but once I got home I decided that I had enough left in the tank to join rossi and bradburn for a short night out. We went to Half Price books and Barnes and Noble at South Hills Village to look for books. The highlight of the journey was the fact that some kid was tripping out on acid and pompously decided to park his ass on the concrete in front of the mall. I mean, he couldn't have passed out in an alley or something? After that, we all watched a couple episodes of Scrubs and went to Eat n Park to finish out the night.

Saturday morning I had some things to do before I went out with the Nayhouse family to the Pirate game for his birthday. We all had a good time minus the fact that the Pirates blew a 7-1 lead after Gorzelanny tossed six quality innings. Despite the fact that they are only five games under .500. it's hard to root for the Pirates. When you have seen your baseball team do nothing but lose, lose, lose, and lose some more for the last 14 years, your support for the team is going to be called into question. Anyways, I came home and slept because I was still really tired from driving all day Friday. I had a ton of work to do Sunday morning, but I got it done surprisingly fast. After finishing up, I went down to the field to catch the second of my brother's games against a team from West Virginia. After a back and forth struggle, they ended up losing 10-7. It was much better than the first game where they lost 23-4 against the same team. Going to those games is hard for me for a couple of reasons. First, I wish that I could be out there so bad. It doesn't matter what sport I'm watching or what level I'm watching it on, if I have played it before I want to be out there with everyone else. I can get enjoyment out of watching sports, but nothing compares to being out there. Also, I'm pretty sure my brother has lost a lot of passion for baseball. I'll admit that I lost passion when I was 13 and 14, but I regained it for my last three seasons. Some of the best memories from my baseball career came from when I was 12 and when I was 16. Not to be cocky, but when I was 12 I was one of the two most dominating pitches in the league. At the end of the season our team went on to win the championship. When I was 16, I played with nayhouse for the Squirrel Hill team. Nothing could match the passion that I had while I was playing for that team and it helped me to forget a lot of the other things that were going on in my life. However, I'm beginning to ramble again, so I'm going to get back on track. After going home, I realized that I hadn't eaten and that there was nothing at my house. Sarah and I agreed to go to Eat n Park for dinner. Truthfully, it was a really enjoyable dinner because it was so laid back between us. Sometimes when we hang out it feels like the tension is really thick in the air, but after awhile you just kinda get past it and learn how to have a really good time. And that's exactly what we did. She dropped me off and I decided to relax for the rest of the night.

When I woke up today at 11, I had the feeling in my gut that it wasn't going to be a productive day. To make a long story short, I was right. I didn't check any of my stocks today after I saw that DNDN(a stock I recommended at my other blog, www.loosethebulls.blogspot.com) was up 15%. I watched a ton of episodes of Scrubs from the first season, and remembered how well that first season resonated with me. At about 4, I went to play basketball at snyder park with a few others. We played until about 6:30 and decided to get pizza afterwards. It was ben, creighton, tomko, and myself. Ben and I told stories while we munched down two larges at Venice Pizza. Afterwards, I continued my day of doing nothing by watching High Stakes Poker for two hours and finally getting on here to type a post for the first time in a long time.

For the first time in a very long time, I can say that this weekend was really, really good. It is one of the few weekends that I will store in my memory forever as me saying that I had an incredible time. It worked out so well because I was able to balance everything so well, from work to housework to friends. I'm going to end this post with something that I haven't done in a long time: a poem.

Villanelle
By: Marilyn Hacker

Every day our bodies seperate,
explode torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies seperate

us further from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies seperate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to outselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we seperate.



mh