Tonight, Tonight

Tonight was, simply put, AMAZING. Went salsa dancing with this guy Adam from my theatre class and a TON of his friends. It was… I can’t even describe it. First they have two big group classes to teach people, and then it’s just free dance. By the time every else was ready to go, I was just warming up! I’m good. That’s not even bragging or anything, I just am a good dancer, and I looked so cute. I got to dance with all these random guys –some good, some not so good. I helped teach a couple who were just beginning out.

And dancing… isn’t it funny, but while I was out there dancing… I was simply happy. Suddenly I wasn’t fat or curvy or clumsy or pale or awkward… I was beautiful, and graceful, and a dancer. I’ve never felt like that before. I felt free. Suddenly nothing the world or the media or my peers had to say to me mattered, because I felt free and beautiful out on the dance floor. I’ll definitely be going again next Friday. For $12 a night to feel absolutely perfect, I think it’s worth it.

I finally had to leave because the last stragglers of us were ready to go (like I said, I was just getting started!) There are enough creepy guys there, though, that it’s not something you want to leave by yourself. So I got back, but I was so wired that when I saw Laura and Diana in the hall of Piano Row and they mentioned they were going for a walk, I just had to go with them, even though it was after midnight. We walked down Boylston and Newbury, just talking, and eventually found a Walgreens that was still open. We just walked and talked and really truly appreciated each other’s company.

Now it’s 1.01 AM and I’m planning to get up somewhat early in the morning so that I can go spend my day walking the Freedom Trail. Some of the kids I went dancing with tonight are going to see Rocky Horror at midnight tomorrow, but I might have to pass depending on how far I get on my Honors and speech essays. I won’t have any time on Sunday for homework between church, debate meeting, and going to see that play for Languages of the Stage.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a single photograph of tonight. But that’s okay. There will be pictures next weekend, I’m sure. As for tonight… it was just so magical that I’m almost glad there are no pictures to add a realistic element to the magical time I had. If I feel that free, that beautiful, that incredible on the dance floor every Friday night… I don’t know that I’m ever going to want to do anything else. I mean, as strange as it might sound, I think I actually have a talent for this ballroom dancing thing. Enough that I’m thinking about seriously focusing on dance and not letting it be just an idle hobby. I feel… I feel like I’ve finally found a place in this city, in my life, where I truly am beautiful…

Oh man, I can’t wait for next Friday…

And I would just like to point out that while I was busy spending a night on the town, the rest of my suite spent the night chilling in the room and doing laundry. I’m no longer the loser anti-social one! Yay! And I have friends outside of my suite (the kids I went dancing with, and Laura and Diana) that… I’m enjoying myself now!

So, true story

I was headed to see the documentary “Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican” like my Honors professors asked, when I saw Brian, a boy I have all but one class with, standing outside the door smoking. I was just going to walk on by, but he called out a greeting to me, which I returned with, “That will kill you, ya know.” We proceeded to get into a sort of mock-argument about the dangers of smoking. He tried to impress me with the fact that he used to smoke a pack a day and is now down to under a half pack and has the goal of cutting that further still.

A few minutes into our debate, I felt a man stop and stand behind me, but I didn’t think anything of it. Eventually, though, he stepped into the argument. His name was… it slips my mind. But he was a thin, older black man who felt the need to inform Brian that I was right and he would do well to listen to me. He asked my name, I told him, and he kissed my hand, saying it was a pleasure to meet me, lady. He asked the same of Brian, then told us that he’s from Panama. He has three kids –his oldest (“a handsome boy like you” he said to Brian) is a basketball player; his middle daughter is a temp for the T-system; I forget what the third is. He then explained to us that he used to do heroine and crack and smoke and drink so his wife kicked him out of the house. He asked if Brian and I were a “are you two a–” but then didn’t wait for an answer, I guess deciding that we weren’t. He explained, “Well, if you two are going to be a– you know, you’re going to have to stop smoking. And you, see, you’re the queen. She’s your queen, you see? And you gots to put your foot down and make him quit smoking, because you’re the queen and you, boy, are just… she’s the queen.”

He asked me how old I thought he was, but I was afraid of offending him and so teased “Twenty-four.” He shook his head and offered to guess me first, and guessed that I was twenty-two. When I laughed “Eighteen,” he was surprised and said I had the presence of a twenty-two year old. He then jokingly guessed that Brian was seventeen, and we all laughed. He admitted he’s sixty, but I had guessed late forties or early fifties at the latest –he looks a lot younger.

Laura came over about that time to see if she could steal Brian and me away, and I gave her half my attention as the man went on to say more to Brian about how he could pretend to be the rulemaker, but that I was his queen, and he should stop smoking. A little drinking and a little weed was okay, but nothing harder than that, and the smoking had to go.

Eventually we really did have to go inside, and said farewell, thanking the man. He kissed my hand again and gave me a hug and said “I really do hope I see you again, Jessa (he really liked my name), and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I really do.” He gave Brian another handshake, and reminded us that if “are going to be…” and motioned with his hands that we were together, Brian is going to have to listen to me and quit smoking.

We got inside and all three (Laura, Brian, and me) were dying laughing. I explained that random people always tell me their life stories and I love it. Then when Laura asked if the guy just came up, Brian was like, “Well, I wondered if he was going to say anything because he was just standing there staring at your ass.” He said that twice more and even mimicked the guy, and though I suppose I should be offended at that this announcement… I can’t be sure Brian was just exaggerating or making it up to be funny. Nonetheless, it gave me a little thrill that, in some sort of strange way, Brian was looking out for me. He may not be a Southern gentleman, but I’ll admit that he’s turned out to be one of my few friends so far –in the beginning, his arrogance, his exuberance was simply too obnoxious, but once you get accustomed to it, it’s not so bad.

So this is the second time I’ve had a complete stranger try to set me up. Am I just screaming “someone please help me because my love life sucks”? Last time the results weren’t so great… Anyways, it makes for an amusing story.

Picture time:

The moon out on the Charles River (taken during our boat ride first week.

Lauren and me at the community service project.

Larry attempting to make a break for it.

Bbbbbbored.

Today after my last class of the day, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to the dorm yet. So I took a nice, casual stroll through the Public Gardens and around the graveyard in the Boston Common. And I realized that I’m going to die if I have to live on the same block in Boston for the next four years of my life. But I promised I wasn’t going to talk any more about that for a couple weeks. Give Boston and Emerson a second chance.

Here are two pictures:

That’s a random picture taken in the Public Gardens

This is me being a goofball in the elevator on my way to dance. Yes, I wore that green sweater. I love the sweater, but I was way too hot, and running home in it was no bueno.

Now it’s nine o’clock, and I have nothing to do. I should write, but I have no inspiration. I guess I’ll knit for a bit, get to bed early, and go to the gym before classes tomorrow morning… BORING.

Hello, my name is Jessa

and I’m a knitaholic.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my first class of the day ends at 1:30, and my second class of the day begins at 2:00. Despite the fact that 30 minutes at times seems like an eternity, it is not, in fact, time enough for me to actually accomplish anything. So what do I do? I take my time going down eleven flights of stairs from my first class, walk down the street from the Walker Building to the Ansin Building, situate myself in a chair outside of my 2:00 class (where at the moment, upperclassmen are learning BritLit) and I knit. I am about halfway done with my third scarf at the moment.

Today, there was a boy sitting on the furthest to the left of the bench-chairs (its a bench, but there are three “seats” instead of just one long bench), his backpack squashed behind his body. He was staring out into nothing, and so took no notice of me as I set my things down and perched daintily on the seat furthest to the right. After a bit of shuffling, I pulled my project out and began knitting.

After a few minutes, I heard, “Aww, you didn’t have to knit me a scarf.” I glanced up to see the boy smiling at me as he pulled his backpack out and set it on the floor by his feet. Unclear what exactly to respond, I laughed and shrugged. He made some other generic comment about my knitting, a comment unimportant so that it has since slipped my mind.

A couple minutes of awkward laughter ensued as I ransacked my brain to think of something witty, cute, or just sweet in general to say to keep him from feeling like he was having to carry the brunt of this conversation. He stole the keys from me, though, and struck up after a minute, “I actually have a funny story about knitting.” I suppose I must have given him a funny look –this boy dressed in almost complete black with a “punk” hat and a thick black earring in– because he quickly provided a disclaimer, ‘I mean, you don’t know me or anything, but I just thought you might –I mean, I thought the story is appropriate since, you know…” and he motioned to my knitting as though it were some taboo topic.

I laughed and assured him, ‘No, I would love to hear your story.” “See, I met this girl a couple years ago and she was knitting, so I was like, ‘Hey, will you knit me a scarf?’ Cause I didn’t have a scarf, you know, and it’s Boston. So she said okay and she knitted me a scarf. But you know what, she gave me the scarf and then… we never said anything to each other ever again.” I laughed, as was appropriate. About this time, Audrey came up and, standing in front of us, added a slightly awkward interruption to our conversation, but the boy kept talking to me since I kept my attention trained on him, just grateful to be talking to a stranger for once. “I think it’s like, you know, when the mob marks you so that you’re dead to them –like, you know, they just completely ignore you. I think that’s–” “That’s what the scarf was,” I laughed. “A death mark.”

I laughed. He laughed. Then Audrey made her presence known, and suddenly he felt very uncomfortable talking to me since I had a friend there. He soon rose and walked off, but I hope he is there Thursday and we can talk again. So far, knitting is the best ice breaker I have ever seen –I have made THREE acquaintances via knitting.

Me and Larry. Not to be confused with the real Larry. Took this at 2 o’clock this morning, which is why I look gross.

Matt. Didn’t want him feeling left out.

My bed is not usually that messy.

I think I’m going to take some of my own photos and put them at angles in those empty spaces. I thought these pictures would take up a lot more space than they do. That bright orb is actually a circular light on the wall.

I also still have a bit of decorating to do at the foot of my bed and over my desk. I’ll post pictures of those soon. Hopefully the camera cord I ordered will get here soon (I did two-business day shipping, but our mailroom sucks, so hopefully I’ll have it by Friday.) Then I’m going to do a running photograph journal –that is, take a picture EVERY DAY and put it up in an online album. It’s a sort of photojournalism I’ve always wanted to experiment with. We’ll see.

Bandaid

I took a two hour nap (9:30-11:30) while my roommates went out partying.

What happened when I woke up? I was in a miraculously better mood. So I spent WAAAAY too much money downloading musical soundtracks, belting along to them in my empty room. By the time everyone got home, I was in the best mood I’ve been in all week.

What happened? I’m not really sure… but I’m sure glad it happened. I’m still homesick, but at least I can breathe and I’m not crying anymore.

Thanks Mom, Thomas, Tyler, Caitlyn, and Josh to talking to me today.

…

I’m not going to write right now because I’m in too bad of a mood. I’m in a horrible down-mood right now. I’ve gained four pounds from depressed binging this week. I can’t stop crying.

But enough of that. Here’s a picture where I’m happy.

My roommates are all out drinking right now. Sounds like fun, huh? I think I’m going to go to bed soon, if for nothing else, to make this terrible day end.

Skateboards rock my socks off…

Not.

So we finally discovered what all the thumping upstairs was. See, during upperclassmen move-in, there was all this LOUD BANGING on the floor above my head. I thought they were moving furniture around. However, as time wore on, the LOUD BANGING continued, though only at the most unfortunate of times: IE, the middle of the freaking night. It woke Audrey up the other night, so she went to complain, and when Public Safety went up to them, the boys said they were rough-housing and it would stop.

Well it didn’t. So last night RA Theresa came in, heard it, and went up to talk to them. She didn’t return for some time, and we began to worry she had been hit in the head with a bowling pin, since it sounded quite a bit like they were bowling up there. Turns out they were doing ollies on their skateboards in the bedroom! What the heck? AND, on top of that, someone who knows better was in there with them. This all took place at one in the morning. So Theresa came down to tell us what was happening, and even after she had just left and just told them to stop, they kept going. She told us she would be back in ten minutes and that if it hadn’t stopped she would write them a noise violation (I don’t understand why she didn’t do it in the first place, or at least after she told them to stop and they didn’t). About twenty minutes later, they finally stopped, and so never received their just-deserved noise violation.

Is this type of justice bringing a smile to Plato’s face? No. It is not.

Here are two pictures from the picnic my loverly roommates and I had in the park last Sunday afternoon. Aren’t we incredibly photogenic?

Seniorita Satan

That’s how I refer to my kick-boxing instructor. I made myself go to class tonight because I thought it would make me feel a little bit better. It did… but only a little bit.

I got approximatelry two hours of sleep last night befor I simply could not sleep. I’m stresed out about my bellybutton. I think the only option left to me is to let it grow closed and then maybe see if I can get it repierced. Classes were nothing incredible today. Even somewhat boring. And I had a hard time staying awake. Then when I weighed myself this morning, the scale says I’ve gained 3 pounds. That doesn’t make much sense to me except that I just feel completely blah. It’s obviously water weight –it’s got to be– but it’s still extremely depressing. So depressing that I have eaten TONS of candy today, a cookie at dinner, and a piece of Audrey’s cookie a few minutes ago. Comfort food.

Now… now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I would like to write, but I’m also so extremely tired… so maybe I’ll just go to sleep now.

Oh, and woman with the autistic son called me. It might be a long commute, though, which might make it not worth it. We’ll see.

Yeah, I definitely need to go to sleep about now. It’s only eight… but I need sleep.

Work

So I’ve been hired by one family (I go over to their house Thursday night to meet them) as a nanny. I will be Mary Poppins for a 20-month-old girl Emily and her yet-to-be-born baby brother. The mother laughed when I explained over the phone that I’m 21 months older than my baby brother, too. She seems very nice. Her and her husband are both doctors. One parent or the other will be there most of the time I’m there, and my job will be to take care of either Emily or Baby Bean while Mom plays with the other, but occasionally I will be left on my own, and this will be either the best or the worst birth control ever. For payment, I’m going to ask $12-$15, which is about the going rate up here, possibly more since I’ll help with light household chores.

Aside from that job, it’s possible I’ll be helping another family. A woman has contacted me needing help with her 8-year-old autistic son on Saturday and Sunday during the day. She’s only paying $10.84, which isn’t very much, and I’ll spend $3-$5 of it getting to her house every time, but… I don’t know. Something about her e-mails seems so desperate to me that I’m inclined to help her, even with the pay cut. I sent her an e-mail explaining that the other family has hired me and that the hours there might get in the way (I think my weekend sitting for them, though, will be mostly being on call in case they both get called into work, and then the occasional Friday or Saturday night) and that I won’t know for sure until Thursday. She still e-mailed me back, begging for my number to talk to me tomorrow. This is either a giant hoax or a woman desperately in need of some help and a break from what I’m sure is a difficult circumstance. She hasn’t mentioned a father, but her e-mails have been so content- and grammatically-limited that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I’ll talk to her tomorrow and see what’s up. It may be that she just wants me to go help out whenever I possibly can, even working around my other schedule. If she needs me that bad, I don’t have it in my heart to say no, even if I’ll only end up making maybe eight dollars an hour.

Speaking of working, my credit cards AREN’T working, though that might be a sign from God that I need to stop spending so much money. I made the rule that I can’t spend any more money until I start making money –but I already bought a pumpkin frap (my illicit coffee maker is wonderful, but it doesn’t fill the craving for frappuccinos), and then the Knit-Off taking place ACROSS THE STREET FROM ME next Sunday (thanks for sending me the e-mail, Mom; my entire suite flipped out, and we’ve all already ordered Official Knit-Off bags…), and I’m afraid I’ll spend money there, as well. I’m just about finished with my SECOND scarf, a beautiful long black one. I’ll take pictures of both my scarves when I finish, which means my next project is a hat.

Met two college boys at church this morning. They go to Berkeley, and were very cute and nice. The church is small enough that people stand up and say prayer requests, and one of the boys asked for prayers for college students, since college is basically the most difficult place to remain a Christian in the world. I wanted to yell AMEN but didn’t.

Spend $82 at Wet Seal yesterday getting some wonderful warm clothes. Then today went and bought two pairs of ballet flats –a black pair and a taupe pair– for a total of $59.90. I about keeled over. I hate spending money. I can’t wait for my J. Crew card to come in the mail. I can’t wait for all my packages to get here. And I really appreciate that there’s no tax on clothing/accessories in the state of Massachusetts.

This has already been way too long. It’s what happens when no one will return my calls or e-mails (not even Mom! I hope everything’s all right; I’m really worried). I had better get back to reading the stupid Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and then get started on Plato. College is 93% reading.

One more note on Grandpa Roy. I’ve been in a strange funk all weekend. Erin asked if we were close, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. How do you respond to something like that? How do you define if you were close to someone? The only answer I could give was, “Things won’t be the same at Christmas without him,” and then I smiled, remembering him telling me about the girls he met during WWII. He apparently spent a good deal of time living it up with the local girls overseas, and he assured me that it didn’t matter that he didn’t understand a word he was saying. He was so sick at the end… but now he’s up in heaven and I get the distinct feeling that the young man from the 40s is the one chilling with his war buddies up there, as young and as alive as he ever could be.

Lauren and me at a crummy wannabe-Tex-Mex restaurant Friday night with Audrey.

Grandpa Roy

passed away last night. We knew it was coming, and all of us and him were ready for it. He’s been mentally and emotionally and spirituaully ready for months, but everytime we thought it was time, his body would pull him back. Now he’s gone, and though we all know where he is now (faithful Christian until the very end), it doesn’t mean I didn’t cry.

The truth is, Grandpa Roy wasn’t old enough to be that old, and when I see people like my Aunt Mary who was born in 1906 and still lives alone and has two “gentlemen callers,” it confuses me. When I meet people who have lost infants and children, or say prayers for people who have died as teenagers, I couldn’t help but think it isn’t fair. Why do some people never get the chance to live, while otheres are given so long to take every breath for granted? God’s timing mysifies me, and though I’m sure when I ask Him someday, I still won’t understand… it still seems unfair to me.

So everyone who’s willing, please say a prayer for my family. If you’d like, you’re welcome to say a prayer for Grandpa Roy, and it would definitely be appreciated, but it’s not necessary. He’s up in heaven now, partying down with all his World War II buddies that he outlived. The death of a good Christian is so, so much harder on those left behind.

As for me, I’ll always remember Grandpa Roy wrapping his arm around my shoulder and giving me his advice about dating, love, and boys in general: “Don’t you let any of those boys squeeze you too tight.”