My Twenty-Something Quasi-Soap

Reasons why I'm irritated today: 1. There's more snow on the ground. Granted that it's only like 1/2 an inch, but it's more snow. I'm sick of snow. 2. I had to try 3 different web browsers last night before finally getting access to the site where I file my taxes. 3. I'm going to have to clean my whole room in order to find one stupid piece of mail that I need in order to do my taxes. 4. I also have to find my bank statement from December. I never even open my stupid bank statements. 5. I have to do one of my tax returns by hand because it's for a state that I don't even live in. 6. I can't telefile my federal return, but I can telefile my state return. 7. I'm just irritated in general because I have to go through a whole bunch of hassle just to get my hard-earned money back. Dammit.

...that aren't even mine. I have this horrible habit of picking up books that I've had for years and reading them over and over again. I'm too lazy to try and find out what else is good to read in between new Harry Potter releases. I've read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton at least 5 times. That is no exaggeration. But I digress. (That should be the title of this site.) I decided to switch things up a bit and revisit a book that I had to read freshman year in college that I remember liking. It's called The Journey of Ibn Fattouma by Naguib Mahfouz. I picked it up and read the first page and it just struck me. I figured I'd share: "Life and death, dreaming and wakefulness: stations for the perplexed soul. It traverses them stage by stage, taking signs and hints from things, groping about in the sea of darkness, clinging stubbornly to a hope that smilingly and mysteriously renews itself. Traveler, what are you searching for? What emotions

...so quoteth Nappy Roots, who probably stole the quote from some really good 70's soul song that no one knows. But I can't really say that I've been sick (*knocking on wood*). I'm definitely tired though. Today's my day off from the city, but I still have so much to do here at home. I attempted to clean my room a little while ago. I got as far as getting a load of clothes in the washing machine. Then I thought about my Beanie Babies who live under my bed in a plastic box. Are they really worth anything anymore? I attempted to find out, then I gave up and now I'm here blogging about my life (or lack thereof). But I had a point to all of this--oh yeah, I'm friggin exhausted. I guess it's because of the commute. I've been getting around 8 hours of sleep a night during the week, but the weekends have killed me. Since I'm used to going to bed at 2am and getting up at 10, getting up at 7:45 on the weekends just kills everything. And this whole

I feel like I live on the train. In order to save money, I'm catching a train that's closer to home and the lot has free parking. The trade-off: 1 1/2 hours on the train before getting to NYC, and 5 minutes on the subway before a 5 block walk that gets me to where I'm going. This year *has* to be the year that I move to NYC. It just has to. The whole stage manager gig is working out really well, though. I'm learning a lot of stuff, and everyone's been really cool with the fact that I'm learning as I go. Last week, I had planned on going to this job fair at school. All boring, corporate, sensible jobs. Or management trainee positions at rental car companies or big box retail stores. I had convinced myself to go, I was about to sit in front of my computer and update my resume. Then I broke down crying and proceeded to sit in my bathroom and cry for the next half hour. I knew that if I went for some sensible, boring, corporate job, I'd have to give

Because when you think about it, being alive is one of my great accomplishments of 2004. Is that sad? Realizing that at the end of the year, when all was said and done, when people asked me how I was doing, all I could say was, "I'm surviving." Well, I did survive, dammit! If there was ever a year that I deserved a t-shirt for surviving, 2004 would be it. Runner-up would be 1998 (the year I moved back to NJ). Second runner-up would be spring semester 2002. But I digress as usual. Recap of the things I survived in '04: -the scheduling disaster that almost kept me from graduating on time -the not-tragic-enough breakup with my boyfriend of 7 months -rotting away in Scenic Art lab and gritting my teeth through Theater History -the insanity of my Shoestring babies -RutgersFest -4 years of college -The Evil Place (aka Cheesecake Factory) -being non-verbally dumped by a guy who was never my boyfriend -The Republican National Convention -my disastrous the