smileyjess

saturday night: pink tipped swords and tennis baseball and green j.crew sweats and christmas trees. popcorn and pickles and finding neverland and smooth leather cushions into which i sank, popped collars and gamecube golf with bad music and good competitions. red jeep and red hair. margaritas with lime and extra salt. patty and tj and me. and tommy and mike.

sunday: church and work and goodbye to mom.

monday: holiday. sleep in, skip breakfast at t's. crave syrup and real whipped cream all day long. blueberry pancakes oozing with butter. belgian chocolate. clinking forks and glasses and scraping chairs. green jellybeans and orange frozen yogurt. vaio notebook and $10 printer. $400 warranty and unexpected guests. corey and lauren and mr o and mrs o and greg's friend and greg's friend's mom. rye, the dean parkway sign was gone! sitting in elementary school parking lot, reflection. remember?

tuesday: work and doctor's and surprise voicemail. cranston's finest celebration for seniors from cranston in the top 5% of their high school. patty and jon and pat and rye and me. smiles, cameras, prom-speak. 6 scoops of pistachio ice cream (jon's- not mine!!) and having to pee (me, not jon!!). harry potter (yeah, so what? wanna fight?) scary basement, scary movie. saw. snuggling next to jon. blood pounding in my ears with fear. anxiety to leave. home at 11, skipped the end. pat's house was nice, thank you, dear! fat cat. jon's room. regarding the godfather of the key - "don't be a jerk." hmmmmm i know who says that...

tomorrow: work and yearbook and nap and shopping for a shirt and bay queen.

remind me to tell you about my experience with the human toaster, aka "tanning."

bay queen was lovely. i have to admit, i was not feeling well at first. no, i was not seasick, i was just... i don't know. uneasy. i've never been good at saying goodbyes, and i know last night marked the beginning of several goodbyes.

it wasn't even so much i was sad about saying goodbye. there are too many people i've failed to say hello to.

so it goes, i guess. yesterday patty and i drove together to pick up our yearbooks. i turned the glossy pages, light reflecting off pretty people with white teeth and smiles, just positively loving the cute baby pictures that everyone's parents tossed in. moments caught on these simple pages that truly are unforgettable: jon and i at homecoming, winter ball, junior prom, the most likely to succeed snapshot, and class insiders such as the wildfire-like spread of the spoon game and of course the definition of an optimist ("isn't that, like, someone who can predict the future??????")

it's ending, bit by bit. i'm definitely ready for the Next Thing, whatever it may be, but more and more i am finding myself uncharacteristically clingy. oh, nostalgia, i'm only 18!

in other news, prom is tomorrow night. i find it amusing that i fail to have a bag and jewelry. for some reason, since i bought my dress 3 months ago, i seem to have mistakenly just thought i was done. mmm wrong. it's amusing because you would think that i would have learnt my lesson from last year, when i was frantically running around nordstrom the day of junior prom and ended up forking over $20 for a ribbon necklace. as in, a single strand of ribbon with a fancy knot. yeah. what can i say! it was the exact shade of hot pink i needed! desperate times call for desperate measures!

i treated myself this week because i worked a ton last week. i bought myself a real copy of houses of the holy (led zep) as well as the new one by the wallflowers, rebel sweetheart.

i spent a large majority of this week lounging on my deck, basking in the glorious rays of a sun that had gone into hiding for, oh, just the past three weeks or so. while i was busy being uber lazy, i worked a bit more towards my personal goal of 30 books this summer. i read kite runner in less than 20 hours (it was just that amazing) and wrapped up girl with the pearl earring just this afternoon after graduation practice (the most boring 2 hours of my entire life on this planet). the very attractive intellectual guy i have previously mentioned who works at borders suggested seeing the film. rarely do i enjoy movies that are 'based on' books, but he attested that it is worth my while. shown a few years back at the cannes film festival, so i'll let you know how it goes.

i'll leave you with one of the best songs ever. makes me want to melt, cry,, disappear. drift away. far, far away. where the only thing i have to do each day is nap in the sun, occasionally read a book, and sip slightly chilled, never watered down diet coke.

Why by Annie Lennox
How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done
But when I start to try to tell you
That's when you have to tell me
Hey, this kind of trouble's only just begun
I tell myself too many times
Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me...
Why
Why
I may be mad
I may be blind
I may be viciously unkind
But I can still read what you're thinking
And I've heard it said too many times
That you'd be better off
Besides...
Why can't you see this boat is sinking
Let's go down to the water's edge
And we can cast away those doubts
Some things are better left unsaid

Prom was filled with good times. I'll write a longer entry later on, detailing my most favoritist parts (featuring's mad's vagisil and father kenney's 'herbal' cigarette habit! check back real soon!) I just wanted to get these pictures uploaded because some people have already been asking for 'em! :)

I had a total blast, and it's all because i was able to share the experience with the best possible date in the entire universe: rye.

Rye and I

Max and Jon

Max and Jon and Me and Rye

Patty and I

Lauren and I

Raybob and Jon

Liz and Tom

Shan and I

Elyse and Jarred

Lauren and I

Dil and Teej

And, as everyone knows, you can’t have Teej without Stephen (aka George Wellington)! (::cue Patty’s Laguna Beach voice… “Stephennnnnn…. There’s a bearrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..”)

Julianne and Ev

Erin and I

Liz and Rye

this was the last song.
i heart eric clapton for life.

Wonderful Tonight
It's late in the evening; she's wondering what clothes to wear.
She puts on her make-up and brushes her long blonde hair.
And then she asks me, "Do I look all right?"
And I say, "Yes, you look wonderful tonight."

We go to a party and everyone turns to see
This beautiful lady that's walking around with me.
And then she asks me, "Do you feel all right?"
And I say, "Yes, I feel wonderful tonight."

I feel wonderful because I see
The love light in your eyes.
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don't realize how much I love you.

It's time to go home now and I've got an aching head,
So I give her the car keys and she helps me to bed.
And then I tell her, as I turn out the light,
I say, "My darling, you were wonderful tonight.
Oh my darling, you were wonderful tonight."

graduation dress + iPod + the sisterhood of the traveling pants + patty + shannon = <3 bliss <3

Yesterday was the last day i ever had to step foot inside La Salle Academy. it felt beyond weird. walking through the crowded halls at 810, making my way towards the auditorium and senior convocation, lockers slammed and lips spoke, but i hardly noticed anythin. it was another out of body experience. it was as though i was watching myself and my classmates from behind a freshly windexed pane of glass. navigating my way between frantic underclassmen scrambling for homework and racing against the clock for homeroom, it felt like someone had lowered the Great Volume Knob in the Sky. it has been all of eleven days since my last day of classes, but already i am used to looking in at the academy from the outside. is it weird if i said it even appeared smaller since visiting the pc campus over the weekend?

for some reason i am inexplicably depressed because the days i have been waiting for for four years are finally here and i dont want them so badly anymore.

my eye* hurts

*warning: gross

and just like that, snap, it's over. for real this time.

no more shrill e-note bells sounded every 55 minutes, no more b-ralph, no more obnoxious homeroom debates over the $3 price tag of a dress down day (i'm looking at you, kuligowski! republican!)

no more student council meetings, no more academic decathlon meetings, no more pegasus presentations (type I, II, or III!)

no more lunches in the caf that made me laugh til i cried, no more carefully navigating the dips in the marble foyer stairs by the chapel entrance, no more morning announcements with the painful (think: fingernails on a chalkboard ) accent of mrs. murphy

no more admiring mr. russel from a distance, no more pep band games, no more parking in the A lot

no more pointless gym classes, no more skipping pointless gym classes, no more arriving late to avoid gym classes

no more pink slips in homeroom, no more buttoning my second button, no more shoe store in my locker

no more arriving late to physics just to piss off kaiser, no more high fives from heroux, no more daily 'sabiduria' ("wisdom") from castro

no more tj molesting shan by patty's locker in the morning, no more "pray for us"-es and "forever"-s, no more pre-renaissance pep talks from lemoi ("and remember... jesus died on the cross... so that we could win the renaissance games")

no more walking into the locker room and hearing a rabid animal jump against the metal doors, no more walking into the band room and seeing will perched on his bass amp with his hair just about covering his eyes, no more walking into english and waiting for stephen to arrive, late as always!

no more madeleine in the morning, no more ex-dracula (aka: josh), no more obi hugs ("i superrrr lovvvvve youuuu!")

dude.
i'm done with high school?

i'm running a few days behind here...

tuesday was the unofficial lsa beach day 2005. after working 5 hours, i hit the beach by noon. traffic on the way down was perfect, no tap and go at those annoying lights along route four, the sun beat down on my face through my open sunroof. wind whipped my hair wildly and i kept my left arm out the driver's side window, slightly burning it every now and then on the hot metal of my lil silver camry. bopping along to tragic kingdom, i sang to no one but myself (and the occasional car i met at a stop sign!) sweat lightly beaded up at the part where my halter met the nape of my neck. in my canvas bag i carried a towel and spf 15 and the ever essential cell phone. met steph, aaron, and mal by chair 3, but ran into just about everyone else on the way there. band kids, jocks, cheerleaders, and i'm pretty sure my group of friends represented the nerds. it was awesome. we swarmed chairs 2, 3, and played volleyball by chair 4. there was a playful breeze in the air and a thin coat of salt on our skin. my hair curled and separated into pieces, "mini dreads" as kieran calls them. corey, nick, rob, will, and i set up a peanut-butter-and-nutella making factory to feed just about everyone! drinks rested on ice in coolers and were passed all around. chips crunched, their salt undecipherable from that on the lips. we dove in waves and body surfed. the water was a bit cold to my liking, but after hours of sitting on our blankets, its touch was more than welcome, we embraced the splashed with open arms.

i totally forgot that i had tossed - at last second - my camera in my tote, and only whipped it out in the last half hour or so. i had to leave around 430 (scholarship dinner - $2000 - new laptop here i come!) but here are pictures of the two hardcore volleyball teams!

shan scorp patty maeve steph me

steph me scorp

shan

scorp

matt, singing

aaron

mal

patty

patty and hart

number of photos of favorite high school memories: 297

cost of photo development at CVS: $89.20

price of class of 2005 photo album: $17.11

countless memorable moments from the past four years: priceless

Bud Light Presents: Real Men of Genius: Today we salute you, Mr. Constant Collar Putter Upper. You, bedecked in popped collar, teach us that we no longer have to live with a cold, back of the neck. Sure, your pink alligator polo may look feminine to some, but not to the 17 other frat guys wearing the same thing at the bar. Where others may see thoughtless fashion conformity, you preach a higher gospel. You preach of a world where its okay for a man to go tanning. You ask "why can't we wear make-up, and use shampoo with lavender essecence?" So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Mr. Abercrombie (or is it Fitch?), because we all know, when we really need a piece of gum, you might have one. . . in your man purse.

i know even the nerds will snicker at this, but i love to read. there is just nothing better than slipping into a nearby dunkin' donuts (thank you once again for that delightful $1000 scholarship... oh, and thank you for the creation of the large coconut iced coffee with skim milk - rather dark - and 3.5 sweetnlows) then jetting over to a wonderfully air conditioned bookstore where i browse the new hardcovers and bestselling fiction and top ten bestsellers, in that exact order.

usually i end up with two or three books in arm before hitting the magazine section where i almost always pick up the latest issues of national geographic traveler and vogue, their perfectly unrolled and unfolded glossy covers remind me to turn the pages slowly, allow me to soak up the vibrant images of faraway places i mark at home with thumbtacks and feverishly red-inked circles on a giant world map. even the ads seem beautiful and inviting.

i plop into a secluded chair by the sat prep section - no one ever really comes over here, anyways - sink into the smooth leather and peer curiously at the books on the floor, encircling my feet, the books of the chair's previous occupants that didn't quite make the cut, didn't quite appeal enough, didn't quite grab her interest.

i sit for one hour, sometimes two. i forget where i am, rarely interrupted save for an underclassman looking for those terrible 500 page math prep books or a super annoying cell phone ring from two aisles over. the ice melts and the coffee in the bottom quarter of the chilled plastic cup loses its flavor - i never can manage to down a large, anyways! - beads of sweat roll down its sides and a barely noticeable ring of water droplets is left on the stiff carpeting. i stand and my back cracks audibly. i carefully place dustjackets in place, absentmindedly marking my page (it's just a habit now).

if i make it to the line, i twirl the display of three inch by three inch books, spotting some interesting ones - mini zen gardens, kama sutra for beginners, zodiac explanations. oh, i can never pass up a card display either. all my life my mother has expressed her utter hatred of hallmark and their creation of some unncessary necessity for a card for every occasion - flag day, arbor day, patriot day, etc. but i love them. the funny ones, the blank ones, the invented holiday ones.

anyways, i wrote this so you'd know i saw a book and thought of you.

my life rocks. end of story.

and yes, i am alive. i´ll be home the 7th. hasta luego