Idiosycratic Life

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back (to be sung quietly to oneself to the tune of the "Welcome back, Kotter" theme song)

It has come to my attention that the friends of mine who read this blog without the daily running telephone commentary of the positive things that happen to me, too, are under the impression that my life kind of sucks. It's just that the bad stuff is so much funnier! :) But I feel bad that I have given you that impression, and so I am going to list positive things that happened in the past week when I was in New York for the intern conference.

I got to stay in an incredible five-star hotel in Manhattan, take as many cabs as I wanted, and expense the whole damn thing. I bonded with my fabulously talented, kick-ass photojouralist friend, Brandi Jade, whom I met at Diverse Visions. We gabbed for probably a total of 14 hours about race, class, gender, corporate gossip, historical black colleges, marching band experiences (similar in high school, completely opposite in college) and our recently adopted stray kittens, (Um, yeah, I don't think Fred is going anywhere any time soon, if only because Bella would never forgive me for giving him away) among other things.

I made some amazing new friends, although it was bittersweet as we are spread out all over the country, and it totally reminded me how much I miss being in a Journalism School-ish type environment, where funny interesting people who have a lot in common with me while simultaneously being very different, are all around me.

I got to see Annie and meet the Wonderful Derrick, and it was so great to see that she has found someone who just may truly be worthy of her articulate, intelligent, creative, loving, beautiful, spectacular presence. :)

And I saw Luke, who took pictures of me outside of the Reuters building where my future is probably brighter than at the wire service where I am interning this summer, (I'm getting very positive feedback from editors and colleagues, but the domino effect political hiring game is complex beyond my comprehension, and I have discovered a handful of skeletons in the corporate closet that really, really, really make me think that I don't *want* to work here, frankly), laughed at all my stories, crashed at the hotel with me, debated the cause-effect impact of fashion advertising in underground pro-ana communities and laid in the dark shining a red keychain light (free, courtesy of Human Resources) in our mouths and on the ceiling until around 4 a.m. when I fell into a fitful sleep during which he kept gently waking me up from really bad nightmares. I love Luke. :) (Thank you!)

I have some of the best friends (and sister! :) in the world, who go without sleep and/or wake up at the ass crack of dawn to drive to their jobs two states away just to see me for a few (like, maybe two, maximum) hours.

But just so you aren't lulled by this positive entry into thinking that random, bizarre things have stopped happening to me- I did accidentally shopliftsomething. :)