I Suck at Being Emo

My original plan for tonight was not to write a blog but to paint my nails black and be really emo and write emo things after watching a pretty emo movie. This is what the boredom of Ohio has led me to. Well, I watched the movie Thumbsucker. Not as good as I had hoped, but it was alright. I went to paint my nails black but only had dark brown nail polish, so now it looks like I dipped my fingers in chocolate cake batter. Since my nails are still drying, it's hard to write things with paper and pen so I thought I'd type up a new blog entry. Yay for Friday night.

I spent my Fourth of July working at the nut hut, but it was probably one of the most fun 4th of a month I've had in a while. I rode my bike to work two hours early (don't judge too quickly, I'm about to explain why I went to work so early without clocking in). The Stow parade starts off from the parking lot of the plaza where Coconuts is and it starts at 10. The store opened at noon that day, hence my arriving early. Lindsey, my then manager (she has since resigned), and I sat in the air conditioned window of our little CD store and watched the parade go by. It was one of my favorite viewings of the parade, simply because I felt so brave behind my glass window. So brave, in fact, that I blew a kiss to my favorite superhero--Batman--who caught it and seemed very flattered. Move over Robin. Batman wants me. Once we finally opened the store (we decided to unlock the doors around 12:15), we commenced the best day of work ever. I went to Big Lots to pick up some junk food and Lindsey brought the board games TriBond and The 90s Game. That was my day. We somehow managed to sell over plan, but this is no credit of our own. Once I got home, I continued the board game playing frenzie with my parents and Pop Culture Trivial pursuit. Then my family morphed into rednecks and my brother shot illegal fireworks off in the front yard while all the neighbor kids gathered in amazement.

Nothing too notable has happened since then. Just chilling at home and working at the nut. I suppose I do have another nut story. It was 15 minutes to close and my manager was in the back doing end of the day stuff, leaving me the only one in the actual store. So of course, there's a line of 4 people when we haven't had customers all day. I'm trying to ring them up as quickly as possible when the phone rings. I answer it and this guy says, "Hey I'm looking for a Dave Matthews Band CD" and I respond, "Sure I can find that, but I'll be with you in just a moment." I finish up the transaction I was in the middle of when the customer called and pick up the phone again. "I'm sorry about that, are you still there?" I politely ask. "Yeah, but I really didn't think it would take that long" Jerky McJerkerson retorts. "I'm sorry sir but I was in the middle of a transaction. Now what album were you looking for?" I say, trying to remain calm. "You know what? Forget it, it doesn't even matter," says the angry man. I tried convincing the man to stay on the phone and reassuring him that I could help him with whatever he was looking for, but he remained angry and unwilling to be helped. Just as I was about to say goodbye and hang up, the guy on the phone says, "Haha just kidding this is Dan!" Let us pause for a moment. Dan makes a long distance call to a Coconuts store in Ohio simply to trick me into thinking I was getting harassed by a mean customer. Oh, he's good. You can imagine my shock. I pause on the phone for a moment then proceed to call him a jerk and some other choice words then laugh and say "hold on." I put down the phone and go to help the customer I somehow did not notice and he timidly says "I was going to have you look up some CDs, but if you're busy, that's ok, I can just leave." I scared a customer. Yessssssssss. Thank you Dan. By the way, I explained to the customer that I had been tricked by a friend and proceeded to help him with his CDs so don't worry.

Ugh, this is awful. My blogs are turning into lame work stories. I need to get out of the torment that is retail!!! It's only making me hate people and I was already cynical so there's no way I can come out of this alright. Oh well. One month left and in a week I head to Boston! Until next time, my faithful readers.

I Heart NY

Ok so I lied about posting the next day about New York. I'm dreadfully sorry. I hope I haven't betrayed your trust too much. Just to make up for it, this will be the first post complete with pictures. On with the show...

I left from Akron Canton airport and arrived in LaGuardia airport on June 19th. This was the first time I had ever traveled by myself, and I'll admit that I was a little nervous, but I found that if I just wear mascara and smile enough, people will help me with anything. Yay for being a girl. It was odd going between the Akron airport and the NYC one because they are so entirely different. While going through security at Akron, I forgot my ID at the beginning of security and didn't realize until I was already through. I asked the security guard if I could grab it, sure he would say no to me running back through security, but he simply shrugged and said "go ahead." At LaGuardia, there was a woman in security who stood there for the sole purpose of simply yelling constantly to have IDs ready and no sharp objects in carry ons. She was scary.

After my flight landed, stage one of nervousness was gone. Then stage two began: meeting the family. I had already met Dan's father and sister, but I had yet to meet the mother. It wasn't that I was nervous to meet Dan's mother in particular, I'm just nervous about meeting any boy's mother because they tend to be protective. At least that's what I'm assuming about most mothers. Mine isn't too worried about Alex yet. Anyway, stage two of nervousness melted quickly, as I walked in the door of the Canders' household and received an instant hug from Mrs. Canders. The whole Canders family is probably one of the all around nicest families I have met. I mean, in most families, you expect at least one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch, but this was not the case. Ok, I'm done talking about the Canders family, but I will say one more thing: Mrs. Canders kind of went crazy with getting new sheets and a blanket for the guest bed, but that was the most amazingly soft blanket in the world. I do believe it was woven from angel hair.

So here's the rundown of activities (and finally some of those promised pictures). On Monday, we went to Port Jefferson and ate ice cream. On Tuesday, we went into New York City (add me smiling really big and jumping up and down). The city was amazing--we saw a show (Avenue Q), ate dinner at Jekyl and Hydes (scary Disney crammed into a restaurant), went to Central Park, and a bunch of other stuff. Dan insisted on holding my hand the whole time. Now I know what you're thinking "Stop being so cutesy, I want to vomit, ewww hand holding big deal." This wasn't the romantic type of hand holding. It was more like Dan screaming "HOLD MY HAND!" for fear of losing me and having to answer to my mother, who had talked to him before I left, making sure he'd protect me in the city (apparently I'm a paralyzed 5 year old). Just to let you know, he didn't lose me once, but my hand was really sweaty and gross.

This is probably my favorite picture ever, not that you care, but ya know, just thought I'd share.

This may look similar to the last one, but trust me, it is not. This one was taken by a professional, or at least a man who really wanted to be one. We asked a man in the park to take our picture. Without a word, he took the camera and began to line up the shot, a process that took several minutes and several different positions. So here's the result of all that.

Dan insisted I take a picture with one of the guys outside of FAO Schwartz, but I agreed to it only if he would let me take a picture of him doing the same. He agreed to the terms, but went back on his word when he took this picture and ran away.

By the way, some random guy in the city called Dan a pimp daddy. Just thought I'd share.

On Wednesday, we went to Dan's dad's airforce base. I got to check out a helicopter and a plane. They were big and had lots of buttons. This is why I will never have a career involving machines. But the base really was super cool. As we drove up to it, the big electronic sign in front said "Welcome E. Yahner." That's right. Be jealous. That's the inside of a plane.

That's the outside of a helicopter.

After the base, we went to the beach. It was the perfect beach day ever and probably my favorite thing we did. I kept trying to get Dan to throw his cell phone in the ocean every time it rang, kind of like the Coronas commercials, but he refuse and we had no Coronas, so I guess it would be kind of stupid because it's not like we'd have an excuse like "Hey, we were drunk so we threw the cell phone into the ocean!" Yeah, I guess that only works if you actually have a Corona.

That night I met all his friends, who were all very friendly, but seemed to think Ohio was all farm country and much farther away than it actually is. Just to let you all know, I live near no major farms. Ohio is just constructed differently than New York. Ohio has a lot of cities scattered around the state with rural areas in between. New York has one ginormous city, but what is in upstate New York? Seriously, does anyone care about the rest of New York? I thought not. Respect the big OH. Anyway, the best part of the night was that RUPA JOSE came over to Dan's house! As if seeing Dan wasn't enough, I got to see my favorite little soul searcher. It was kind of strange, seeing her outside of the Notre Dame setting, but it was so awesome to get to see her and it just reminded me of how much I miss my Notre Dame.

Thursday was a sad day because it was the day I left. Dan and I went to a little town near his house and just sort of hung out. There was a trail and we found this statue.

Then after a wonderful four days (and I do mean wonderful--allow me to gush a moment and say that I had an amazing time with Dan) I had to leave.

That's me and Dan in front of his house with my bags right before I left.

Getting to the airport was a little hectic because traffic was so bad and I got there at 6:15 when my flight left at 6:55, so it was a rather rushed good bye at the airport, though that ended up being unnecessary since my flight got delayed. However, once I was on the plane, the one thing I had hoped to avoid while flying occured. Babies. I had to sit next to babies. Fifteen month old twins, in fact. One sat in front of me while the other sat to my left. I tried to read a book, but the one on my side kept turning the pages, and every time I looked up, the one in front of me was peering over the seat, threatening to drool on the novel. We got ginger snaps during the flight and as I went to take a bite, the baby snatched it out of my hand for itself. Babies are cute, but when they're not yours and you're in the air with no sign of escape, they are slightly unbearable. Fortunately, these babies were not criers until we started to land, and they were cute, so that made it a little more bearable. Anyway, I landed safely and went home.

So that is my New York story. I visited Dan, even got to see Rupa, and had a wonderful time. Now I'm just left with missing ND far too much, but that's nothing a phone call and looking at some pictures can't remedy. At least for a moment. Until August, I'll be in a Notre Dame state of mind.