Courtney

05:23 pm: I been talkin to my angel and she says that it's alright
My dog Beegee died today.


I know that she's in a better place now. A place where it always snows and she has big fields where she can tunnel through the snow with her nose and roll around making dog snow angels. The stars are always shining and there are always christmas lights making the place sparkly. She's got a million mittens that she can chew on and she can play tug o' war with Moe. And her Lymes Disease is gone....she can run like a pup again.



She was a good dog....I'll miss her.

05:17 am: Glad I got jesus down in my heart
Isnt it funny how, when you're at the end, you begin thinking about the beginning. The "end" means a few things for me right now. Its the end of my first year of living in NYC. It's the end of my lease at 424 prospect place apt. 3B. It's the end of living alone. It's the end of the summer. Its the end of an ending that started last year on this very day.

In 3 hours, I will watch as movers pack my belongings into a truck and after the purgatory of transit, the end will be over and I will find myself at the beginning. It will be the beginning of living in Bayridge. It will be the beginning of my lease at shore road. It will be the beginning of year two in NYC. It will be the beginning of my life living in sin with Marie. It will be the beginning of september.


I've been trying to find some kind of hidden message these 365 days of beginnings and endings. Some secret parallel or deeper meaning. And I'm sure I could parlay my year into a lovely cliche to be embroidered on a pillow in nebraska but, instead, I would like to stick with just some simple truth....some things I know.


Money: I've experience financial extremes this year. I've been flush and I've been nearly penniless. What I know is that choosing to chase a dream instead of chasing a paycheck has left me rich in ways i would never have experienced.

Goals: As a kid, I (like most kids) asked "what do you wanna be when you grow up?" My answer? I wanted to be a mad scientist. Of course, I also wanted to be a palentologist, a dolphin trainer, a teacher, a stage hand, a prop master, a stage manager, a writer, a fabric dyer, an actor and a mother. I have accomplished most of these. Except dolphin trainer....but give me time....

Family: Eventually, every girl becomes her mother. It's not so bad.

NYC: That it is liberal and fast paced are two of the biggest lies you will ever be told about NYC. It is neither. Unless by liberal, you mean intolerant of anyone strong in their faith and by fast paced, you mean it takes nearly 1.5 hours to travel 5 miles in a straight line.

Love: I can't say for sure but, real love might be a partner that reads your favorite childrens books to you every night because, you have discovered that it puts you right to sleep.

Life: The most prestigious internships, jobs and connections wont teach you about life the same way that stupidly deciding to dump half a bowl of completley congealed easy mac into your toilet at 4 AM on moving day will teach you. The learning compounds if, you try to flush it and end up at 430 on your knees in front of the commode using two wooden spoons and a hanger to unclog your pipe.



The sun is rising now and in these last few quiet moments I'm saying my goodbyes, savouring the bittersweet pop as they become hello's.

02:31 am: There might be a little dust on the bottle, it's one of those things that gets sweeter with time
Yay! Happy Birthday Wiferoo! Love you!!!

10:47 am: I got starlight, I got sweet dreams....
It was another exciting weekend for me and marie. On Saturday, we took the ferry to staten island and I got to meet her mother, Tom, middle sister and niece. It was such a good time. We took a walk and Marie protected me and her 7 year old niece from bugs. Her mom and I bonded over a "swurkey" (combination swan and turkey). And there was general merriment and laughter. I really like Marie's family. They're good eggs. Yesterday, I dyed some yarn with marie. It both much simpler and much more complex than I imagined. I really liked getting to name the colors though. My favorites are "woodland creature" "cosmic tuesday" and the "loretta" series. I dyed 3 skeins of yarn in sections of 3 colors and with each skein, the colors evolve. So, the series is called "lorettalution." Marie's sisters liked the shirt I made for marie a lot so, in between skeins, I also dyed them a shirt each and also, I dyed two pairs of my own underwear. I cant wait to wear them. Maybe next weekend, marie will show me how to use the torch.

Today, I'm crazy doing all sorts of stuff and then, I'm meeting marie after work and we are going to walk over the brooklyn bridge. yay!

Finally, I'm totally into this sunshine and warmth thing and lastly, marie told me that she talked to her mom and I "passed the test." Yay, they like me!

04:22 pm: Strange fire
So, it was an action packed weekend for me and the womans. Friday night, we headed upstate and marie met parents for the first time. My parents behaved themselves for the most part and didn't scare the poor girl too much. She got to meet lillie and joe and the rest of the menagerie...she loved pigeon best.

Saturday, we headed up to the catskills to hang out with her dad and youngest sister. We made a pit stop in NP so I could show her my school and town. As luck would have it, Nathan was up working on Lear! It was great to see him and Andrea and I'm glad they got to meet Marie...they approve....not that it really matters, but, still...

We got to her dad's place in the catskills. He's got this awesome campsite/retreat renovation project going on up there. Apparently, the entrepeneur gene runs in her family. Her dad is a really sweet chatty kind of guy and her sister is wicked cool. If only my brother didn't live in pensacola...they would be perfect together. The four of us took a tour of the property and then went into town to get a bite to eat.

At around 630, we headed back to NP to catch Ariel's blackbox show. When we walked in the theater, it was kinda dark and that gave mikethelaugh the element of suprise when he charged and tackled me. Oh it was so great to see him!!! Saw some other old friends as well and that was really nice.

As for the show, we were completely blown away. Clearly the result of a united design team, dedicated actors and brilliant direction. There goes Ariel, raising standards for the blackbox! Well done, indeed.

Finally, it was back home for some rest...preceeded by some phenomenal sex, of course. What a perfect day.

On sunday, the non-stop rain made us lazy so my mom made us the worlds best breakfast and then, we lounged around for a few hours. We eventually decided to venture out and go to the mall but, once we got there, we just wanted to go back home, so, we did. Finally, we had to go home to brooklyn and my parents dropped us at the train. The ride back was really special. We talked about some important stuff and I think I fell a little more in love with marie.

When I got to my apt, I was concerned about the strong smell of gas in the hallway. I figured it was the neighbors though. However, when I opened the door, I was knocked over by an overpowering wave of cooking gas and two loopy looking cats trying to scramble out the door. My heart was lodged in my chest. I knew i hadn't left the burner on so, I was totally confused. As I walked toward the kitchen I heard a tell-tale "wshhhh." Seems that one of the cats had somehow jumped onto the stove and managed to twist the knob to where the gas was turned on but the burner wasn't lit. The smell was so thick I could taste it. I ran around opening all the windows and threatening the cats with death and dismemberment and euthanasia if they ever pull this shit again. Seriously, it was the scariest thing I could come home to. i'm so lucky that the cats didnt die or burn the building down. Actually, today is Dougie and Divino's birthday. They are 4 today. My gift to them is that I won't turn them into mittens.

So, yeah. Easily the longest entry in like a year but, like my bronx-born girfriend would say, whatevuh. God, she's so hot!

03:22 pm: Bring my baby, oh, my baby back to me
3.5 hours!!!!!!!

12:48 am: Rope me in and smoke me.
She'll be here in less then 24 hours!!!!!!!!!


In other news:

I love my new tv.

I hung out with Carsta, the dutch woman from my writing class, today. We checked out the Tartan Week thing at grand central. She has a thing for guys in kilts. After that she asked if i wouldn't mind accompanying her while she shopped for...trousers. Yes, she called them trousers. Ha! Of course I wasn't going to miss that so, we went to paragon and that was a blast. Finally, we ended up back at "our" starbucks where we people watched for about 2 hours. People in this city wear the weirdest shoes. I really like Carsta. She's good people. And her accent is wicked hot!

My girl is coming home!

My left eye is bloodshot.

Chris noble has a baby named daisy? Daisy noble?

Did some batiking today.

God, i can't wait to see her. If her flight is late I'm going to explode. And then, I'll explode again.

I've had a busy week.

05:28 pm: I'm not a virgin anymore!
My brand new 32' inch tv is coming tomorrow!!!!! Yay!!!!!

And Marie will be back in 3 days! Yay!!!!!

And we're gonna make sweet sweet love! Yay!!!!

And life is good! Yay!!!!

11:41 am: I don't love you much, do I?
4 more days, 4 more days.....


Yeah I am officially bored with marie's vacation.

However:

I was on the phone with my mom last night and she casually asked if I would like another trip to aruba for my 25th birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes. Yes I would! And this time, there will be some "invoking of the king!!!!" Just a year and 2 months to go!

Well, anyway, Now I've got business to attend to so, I'm off.

4 more days, 4 more days.....

11:58 pm: But just imagine the sensation if I ever did...
First things first:

Marie is sitting in an airplane somewhere up in the atmosphere on her way to Morocco.....where she will be vacationing for 2 fucking weeks. Count them, two. Lucky little tart. Anyway, I totally miss her already. I went to bay ridge to hang out with her last night...it was incredibly sweet and romantic. Le sigh. Oh well, at least she's bringing me back presents.


Second things second. (cuz obviously, they can't be first.)

There's a scene in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade where Indy has to take a "leap of faith" and step out onto an invisible ledge which stretches over a seemingly bottomless abyss. I know exactly how he feels. I am about to do the craziest thing I have ever done in my whole life.

go lemings go.

07:36 am: My my my, it's a beautiful world, I like sleeping with Marie
So, I want to take a minute to talk about someone special.

I haven't been this happy in so long. I feel so inspired and creative...she reminds me of how much I love to make things. I love our meandering conversations that always seem to last a few hours longer than we think they do. I love the way she makes me blush by saying the sweetest things. I love that she knits with the same group pf women every friday night for a few hours. I love that she's taking me out on a real date...a dressing up, making reservations, pick you up at 8 kind of date....I love the crazy butterflies that you only get in the very early stages.


I really really love that we can send hours talking about acid dyes and color combinations. I love that she wants to meet my friends and that she wants me to meet hers (after she teaches me how to knit :P)


This is all very exciting and yeah I've had a perma-grin on for like 3 weeks.

02:59 am: Twistin the night away
Ok so, it's been like 9792334 years. Quick update:


Amber and I are no longer together. She cheated on me and acted like a toddler. Sounds sad but, really, it's not. I'm glad it's over....finally and forever.


She is moving out this week. This is a good thing.


I'm doing very very well at my job. I was offered (and I accepted) a year contract. I get a big raise and health insurance and an IRA. Donna Karan and Willa Kim love me. I have a great time with the people I work with.


I'm taking a writing classes and it's one of the best things to happen to me here. I have met some incredible people...one in particular.


The cats are doing well...


I have met someone new and I really like her. She's about 7 years older than me which is ideal. She dyes yarn for a living and we have lived nearly parallel lives. She loves the phillip pullman books which, by itself, makes her awesome. She's a fantastic kisser and that rocks! We can talk for hours and hours and there is a really fun and unique connection. I'm excited to see what happens and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to proceed nice and slow. No need to rush into anything right now.


In conclusion, I thought that if Amber and I broke up, I would never get over it. In reality, I'm feeling like I'm on top of the world.

04:17 pm: I'm a winner
Stolen from Taryn

12:03 am: I wanna sink to the bottom with you
''I'd start wearing a diaper...just in case."~Jen America (on what she would do if she had a hernia)


Naturally, we had to explain that when you have a hernia, your intestines bulge out your abdominal wall. They don't slide out your asshole.

07:21 pm: I am disappointed every morning that I wake up
I wish I was back in new paltz, skipping my classes and doing props for urinetown. I just want to hang around and talk about indiana jones bunnies with ashley and I wanna walk into the costume shop, see the wife and both of us make a weird noise and charge at each other in some sort of tribal greeting. I wanna have some bitchy gossip and think of ways to annoy michael heil with mikethelaugh. i want Joey P. to ask, with a smirk on his face, if I want to think about graduating this year. I want to have a supply shopping night with the wife and herself. I don't miss alpha psi. That's for sure. But I do miss the prop rooms...odd as that may sound. And my mailbox. I miss #68.


Brooklyn has no soul.

And I want to go home.




I find this whole situation highly and nauseatingly ironic.

09:28 am: So hurry down the chimney tonight!
I found my cat Douglass sleeping on a bag of yams on the counter last night.

08:18 pm: Hey y'all! Watch this!
Sigh.

I'm sitting here amidst piles and piles of boxes that have yet to be unpacked. Moving can eat my shorts.

I will say though, last night did have it's perks. After hours of dragging heavy shit up countless flights of stairs, Amber, Jen America and I broke open 2 bottles of champagne and had a royal time of drinking, country music and unpacking. The pinnacle of this was my drunk ass trying to hang a shelf in the bathroom with wall anchors. Good times indeed.

Tomorrow is the wedding and then it's back to unpacking. Only, this time, all three cats will be here. oy.


I want friends to come over. I'm bored.

12:54 pm: On top of old smokey.....
I can't find any of my socks.



Dang.

11:02 pm: I'm your man
Today was a VERY busy day Aruba style. We rolled out of bed around 10am. Courtney forgot where we were and woke up to a beautiful surprise. We stood out on our balcony and took in the amazing view of the ocean, which was even more dazzling in the daylight.

After a quick breakfast, we jumped into our suits (bathing, not birthday) and ran out the door, eager to soak up some sun and alcohol. We bobbed around in the ocean for a while, Courtney, keeping a vigilant eye out for sharks. I was totally relaxed and enjoying the motion of the ocean (in fact, I kind of still feel like I’m bobbing!), but, after an hour or so, Courtney started twitching so I decided that maybe it was time to head for dry land and go for a walk.


We wandered down the beach, collecting shells and admiring the seascape and finally came upon a little seaside shack painted in tropical colors. This is where Courtney saw her first Aruban spider. That’s when the twitching started again. I did manage to get her to stand still for a photo but, the second after the shutter clicked, she took off running, back to the hotel.

By the time I caught up with her, we both needed some rest and shade so, we made tracks to the palapa (a huge palm leaf umbrella to sit under) and towel hut. The rest of the day included, resting, reading, some more bobbing and another walk on the beach. Like I said, we were VERY busy.


We made it to the pool bar before last call and got some fun frozen drinks. After we polished them off, we swam around in the pool. We must have been looking very windswept and sexy because, we caught the eye of two men from Curacao who invited us out for drinks. Riiiiighht. (remember Natalie ?!?!?) We politely declined. However, our new friends weren’t so easily deterred. They spotted us again, as we were heading back to the ocean club were they struck out for the second time. I blame Courtney for dressing like a hussy ☺ Anyway, off they went to find some other broads and off we went to do the same. Just kidding.

We decided to go back to the room and make use of the Jacuzzi and wash the salt off. By the time we were clean, we were ready for dinner but to tired to do much about it. So we got takeout from Champions and watched some HGTV. We can’t live without house hunters. Now it’s time for bed so that we can get a good palapa tomorrow morning.


Good night from Aruba!

10:22 pm: Asses and Elbows
In the tradition of my lovely parents, Amber and I have decided to keep a blog of our trip to Aruba. So, here goes:

4:52am. This is when Amber woke up to find that her roommate (Hudson's babysitter) was M.I.A. In true Amber style, she feared the worst...ya know, death. After about an hour and a half of her fretting alone I managed to rise from a benadryl induced coma and the two of us spent the first moments of daylight deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to call at 6:00am. Seeing as my parents spent a small fortune on this vacation and we were leaving at 8:00am we decided a phone call was warranted. NO ANSWER (!!!). After 2 more calls we finally received a text message from a probably annoyed Karrie. Luckily she was safe...just spending the night at a friends. A sigh of relief. Amber decided she needed to finish her beauty rest and sent me out for bagels. When I returned, bagels in hand, I found Amber dead to the world in a heap on her bed. I ate my bagel alone in the living room and the next thing I know Amber comes marching out in her underwear to tell me that I better get off my ass and into the shower because we're going to miss our car ( I had gotten sucked into the TV). Amber went back to bed. Yet somehow we made it out the door by our scheduled 8:00am.

Everything went quite smoothly until we reached baggage check (ok so we didn't make it that far before the fun started.) As we approached the counter the attendent was dunking her nose in a small bottle of perfume (?!?!?) perhaps it was the look of concern on our faces but she decided to confide in us that it was the people ahead of us that stunk. (?!?!?) Of what, we're not sure.

As we approached the metal detector and carry on bag scanner Amber ran past as quick as she could to get away from me since I had never yet failed to set off a metal detector in an airport. But I showed her :o) I let them frisk me for fun ;o)

After a calm 2 hours of sitting at our gate we boarded the plane. *DING* Round 2.

We must have gotten the special tickets because we had front row seats to some of the best dramatic theatre we've ever seen. To begin with as the opening act nobody wanted their assigned seats and everyone was trying to switch. This created a massive snowball effect in the middle of the cabin and the climax was 2 rows ahead. The Sanchez family ( Mama, Papa, little fernandina, and their dog jesus) took row 10. Somehow in the massive game of musical chairs, Papa Sanchez slipped stealthily off the plane (?!?!?) In the confusion, nobody noticed until we were about to depart for the runway. It was only then that the Gate Attendant approached Mama Sanchez..."Excuse me ma'am but your husband is refusing to board the plane" (?!?!) Mama stormed off the plane and stormed back on even faster. (Honestly folks we don't make this shit up) The anger quickly faded as Mama burst into tears (The flight attendent promptly brought tissues) and little fernandina asked "Will the plane fall?" At this point Amber began analyzing the situation into my ear, "Do you think he got back on? Do you think he was a psychic and thinks we're going to crash?" I however was well on my way towards a dramamine induced coma and didn't hear a word she said. (I prefer to travel in a coma.) After being yanked back to conciousness by the G-forces of take off, Amber told me they were insisting he was on board just sitting up front so "Mommy and Daddy could have some time to cool off". More than likely "Mommy and Daddy" were taking this time to draw up their divorce papers. The rest of the flight went smoothly minus the small incident with our customs paperwork. Turns out liquid filled pens don't fare well in the pressurized cabin. Amber has blue hands to prove it. (The resourceful flight attendent from Indiana whose first flight was alone at age 5 going from Chicago to Dallas brought wet napkins and a sick bag for us to dump the mess into). Poor John Oliver who had to sit next to us just sat there in scilence and fear.

After circling the beautiful island of Aruba and then landing in the furthest most deserted corner we deplaned the aircraft and Amber raced to find out if the Sanchez family had been reunited at customs. However Mama, little Fernandina, and jesus were still abandoned...papa-less. By this time I was bored of the drama and insisted to Amber that we move along. She pouted.

We easily grabbed a taxi outside the airport and away we went speeding recklessly throught the ghetto (?!?!) Somehow my parents had failed to mention that in order to get to paradise you must first pass through the seventh layer of hell...56 tenaments, 4 mange ridden dogs, a complete disregard on the part of the natives for emission standards, and one jumped median later we arrive at our destination, The Marriott Ocean Club (!!!)

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. (Papa Sanchez was such a fool)

The shell of a city we passed through was quickly forgotten as we checked into our room on the top floor with ocean views (!!!) It's so much better than we could have ever imagined. Easily larger than Amber's New York apartment...with a full size kitchen, and a two seater jacuzzi tub! After unpacking we went to Champions the sports bar in our hotel for dinner where we proceeded to inhale entire hamburgers. Tired as we were, we went for a quick dip in the ocean, 3 pools, and lazy river (guess we weren't that tired)

Now we're tired. Goodnight from Aruba. (thanks mom and dad!!!)

:D

Addendum: Please pray for little Jesus who may be facing a 30 day international pet quarantine (?!?!) This family needs our help.