Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hawt

So I've been trying to write an entry for two days now, but every time I sat down at the computer all I could come up with to say is, "It's REALLY FREAKIN' HOT." Which isn't very interesting because that's what everyone on the east coast was saying all weekend. But seriously, it has been miserable. It's pretty much impossible for me to believe that just two weeks ago I was wondering why I was still wearing sweatshirts at night when it was almost June, and now here I am wondering why I have to legally wear any clothes at all when it's this horribly hot and muggy. I feel like my brain has been completely fried by the heat.
I think the worst part is driving in it. Traffic is infinitely more annoying in summer heat. Luckily I have Nicole as my carpool buddy since she's working the same job, and some days the only reason I'm able to drive the 45 minutes to work without killing anybody is because Nicole is in the car with me making me laugh. Our latest thing has been to anthropomorphize the highway. We drive the majority of the way on this notoriously horrible highway that I'll call the Expressway even though that's not its name. It makes a loop around the city and is always crowded no matter what time of day you get on it. It's the worst at rush hour, but I swear we'll be driving home at 1 in the morning and there will somehow still be traffic jams. Still, this horrible highway is actually the most efficient way to work (I've actually tried two other routes to make sure) so we have to deal with it. So Nicole and I deal with it by saying the highway's name in a creepy voice. Think "red rum" in The Shining. I don't even know how we started it, but now nothing makes us laugh harder than saying "The Expressway" in the bizarre voice as often as possible. Like this:
Me: Nicole, I am not excited about driving on the Expressway.
Nicole: There's surprisingly little traffic on the Expressway.
Me: That guy is speeding on the Expressway.
Nicole: I'll pick you up in five minutes and we'll get on the Expressway.
Me: Let's just take 370 to the Expressway.
We also make it have full conversations in its Expressway voice about how evil it is. We will sometimes do this the ENTIRE drive and it never stops being funny. And the thing is, we realize it's not really funny at all, it's just funny because we're hot and/or tired and/or stir crazy from being trapped in a windowless and cellphone serviceless building for ten hours at a time. And yet we still laugh hysterically about it every time one of us does it. So far I have the best Expressway moment of all because tonight in the hallway at work I noticed that they put up a new painting of a highway viewed through a car windshield and as Nicole walked by I said, "Hey, Nicole! I think this is a picture of the Expressway!" and she was doubled over in laughter for a full thirty seconds because, see, you expect the Expressway jokes in the car but not in the hallway at work!

Yeah, see, I told you my brain is getting fried. It's the heat combined with the fact that I've been reading nothing but magazines ever since school got out. It's like...going from training for a triathalon to doing a leisurely stroll at the park. Relaxing, but I can almost feel my brain cells eroding. But I did finally manage to get through the pile of magazines that had been building up beside my bed since March! Today to switch gears I started reading a book about investing in the stock market. One of my coworkers was like, "Wow, yesterday you were reading Marie Claire and now you're reading that?!" and I just shrugged and said, "I'm a multi-faceted woman, what can I say." Really, that's me in a nutshell. Hegel on Monday, US Weekly on Tuesday, study up on money market funds on Wednesday, read nothing but cookbooks on Thursday. That's how I roll. That's how a lot of people roll, probably.

What else?
I'm excited about tomorrow because I have the morning off and will actually have time to thoroughly clean my apartment for the first time in over two weeks (excited about cleaning, pathetic but true).
Starting on Thursday I have to housesit for one of my professors. I'm really annoyed by this turn of events because the only reason I have to do it in the first place is because Stacy (who was the one that was actually asked to housesit) is afraid that the professor is trying to hit on her so she tried to get out of housesitting by pretending she had to go out of town. In her defense, there is a precedent for this since apparently the professor has used housesitting as a gateway to, um, other events before. So anyway, I got roped into helping out so that Stacy doesn't have to do it by herself but now I'm annoyed by the whole thing because I have to stay at the prof's house this weekend and its a big weekend for me at work since the event we've been planning for weeks finally happens and there's a big fancy party that Penn is going to come down for but then we can't even stay together after the event because I'm not about to let him come sleep with me at my prof's house because...no. And I can't stay at my own apartment with him because housesitting involves actually staying at the prof's house. Grrrr.
On Monday I think I'm going to get to visit my grandparents since they're coming east for my cousin's high school graduation. They're going to visit my grandpa's alma mater on Monday and since it's only about a three hour drive from where I live I think I'm going to drive up for the day and spend the night with my relatives and hang out with them since otherwise I won't see my grandparents again until Christmas.

It's going to be a busy week, again. This summer has been interesting with this job, but I have to admit that it hasn't really been relaxing so far. AT ALL. I'm thinking that the next two weeks should be a bit easier because there will be less work (we're cutting down to only four days a week of work instead of six and the hours will be shorter). Then it's just going to get crazy again for a week once I start my second summer job on the 23rd, but July in general should be easier since the job I'm working now will be over and my second job has a pretty standard 9-5 schedule. It will be nice to have my evenings back again.

Luckily I'm giving myself the last month of summer off. Did I mention that? Well, I am. I'm finished with my second job on July 18th and then I'm not doing any work until they tell me I have to come back to campus in August. I'm going to do a little bit of petsitting to pick up some extra cash, hopefully, but I'm not doing anything that involves being somewhere at a particular time or staying at anyone's house other than my own (or Penn's, I suppose). True, August is turning out to be pretty busy, too, but it will be busy with fun stuff. Penn and I just made a bunch of plans. The first weekend in August we're planning to go to Chicago to visit one of my good friends from high school and her husband. I was originally going to go by myself but when she heard I was dating someone new she told me I definitely needed to bring him with me so that she can check him out. (I'm sure she'll like him. She's so happy that I'm no longer hung up on Phil that I think she'd be thrilled if I told her I was dating a gila monster.) We haven't bought plane tickets yet so its not definite, but Penn wants to go so we'll hopefully make it happen. The second weekend in August we're hoping to get tickets to this music festival. We're going to go on Saturday in the hopes that Radiohead and The Roots aren't performing at the same time since it would be awesome to get to see both of them. Then the third weekend in August is apparently wedding weekend since I know of four different couples that are tying the knot that weekend. Ridiculous. Anyway, Penn wants me to go to a wedding with him in New York on the 14th and then on the 16th one of my good friends from college is getting married in Boston so I figure I'll hang out with Penn in NYC and then we'll head to Boston to hang out with my girlfriends for the weekend. So yeah, fun things are coming up. It's turning out to be a much more eventful summer than I initially thought it would be. The crazy thing is that at this rate going back to school might actually end up being more relaxing than my summer will be!

P.S., did you notice that Penn and I are planning things that won't happen until August? In other words, I'm finally feeling pretty confident about this. It still feels too lucky sometimes, and I know from experience that this phase doesn't last. At some point we're going to start finding things we disagree on and at some point he's not going to call when he says he will and at some point he's going to stop thinking its cute that I insist on making the bed every morning. I realize that there is a limit to the giddiness I'm feeling right now. But in a way this makes it better because I know enough now to realize that I really need to cherish these days when I can think of a dozen things I would like to tell him about and two dozen things I would like to ask him but I can't bring myself to say anything at all because he's smiling at me in a way that makes my chest ache and I don't want to ruin the moment.
I'm completely disarmed by this guy. But you know, I'm okay with that. I don't know where this is going, but the fact that I'm feeling like this at all has been enough, even if this whole thing blows up in my face tomorrow.

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