"When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn’t know.
’Oh sure you know,’ the photographer said.
’She wants,’ said Jay Cee wittily, ‘to be everything.’"
--sp

if you take the worst day you've ever had at your job and multiply it by 100, then add 1 for good measure, you'll have a basic understanding of my shift tonight. from the instant i got through the door, everything was falling to pieces.
so besides wanting to kill co-workers and beat myself senseless, what did i do? worked my ass off and finally (thankfully) got through the day. a really bad day was bound to happen sooner or later.
i bought myself a new journal yesterday while in burlington--a simple spiral-bound notebook. i love my old journal (royal blue velvet cover with embroidered design and beaded tassel), but i needed something that i could go anywhere with and look nondescript. "the book" wasn't exactly a subtle space for writing.
there's nothing like opening up a new notebook and uncapping a new pen. the writing juices are flowing again.
i also made a borders run with baz and finally took malcolm's advice by purchasing the electric kool-aid acid test. he had told me about it last summer during playhouse as we discussed morrison and janis, and i've been meaning to pick it up ever since. i finally stumbled across it and figured i should trust his judgement.
the frustrating part now is having to wait to begin reading it until i finish reading sylvia. normally, i'd read both at the same time, but i believe each deserves my complete attention. or at least i know sylvia does, it's that damn good.

another one has come over to the dark side... congrats. ;)

he will be missed.

tomorrow:
- breakfast with brother (bonding time--aw, how sweet)
- pool/gossip time with baz
- dinner w/ baz and bec?
- possible waterfront walk/photography time for me
- visit to the joshua's apartment

it will be a very good day.
which will make up for tonight's shift.
i think i'm going to buy myself a new journal as well.
now i sleep.

i'm going to be making the trip up to burlington tomorrow to spend my day off relaxing and visiting. anyone up for a walk by the waterfront (danelle?????)
the mystery roll of film will never reveal its secrets. none of the pictures came out. not a single one. i need to find my d.c. roll.

what the hell is up with my guestbook? "anyone who's down with mary j sign here"???? note to self: find out what the deal is with that and FIX IT.

absence makes the heart grow fonder, yadda yadda yadda.
my parents and i made the trek up to burlington tonight to see "little shop". i was excited to see what they'd done with the production and to scream and holler for chris and rachel, who are both in the cast.
collin had also made the drive to catch the show.
baz was there.
phyllis was there.
ben parker and amanda lacey were there.
becca swung by at the end to see collin.

my father made the comment that i should try to find a way to get back on campus because it's obvious that i "belong there," from the manner in which i was running around and hugging people and chatting.
obviously i love being there, but this showed me just how much i need to be away this summer.
i finally had the chance to appreciate my being there. it's gotten to the point that i'm used to being there all the time, and therefore i don't realize how lucky i am when i'm there. i love being home, i'm so glad that i came home, and i get the added bonus of having a blast when i stop by burlington to visit.
best of both worlds.

in other news, my parents and i did get into a spat about the 3rd--at this moment in time, they're saying they don't want me making the trip down. more on that to follow.
overall, though, a great evening that made me very very happy. i'll write more when i have more time tomorrow. :)

if your nickname is princess joey and today is your 21st birthday, i want you to go here. :)
happy birthday sweetie!!!!!

i had the strangest, most frightening, wonderful dream last night, and i don't know quite what i think of it now that i'm back awake.
a group of friends from school and i went to a murder mystery theatre event. although unlike any murder mystery i'd ever heard about. the event took place in a huge mansion with numerous rooms and passageways we were free to explore. first however, the audience was led into a large dining room, where we all sat. i remember being terrified--the room was massive and medieval in design, lit only by torches. of course, a thunderstorm was raging outside, so lightning was seen through the windows.
we then watched the first scene of the murder mystery--with moving scenery that would (seemingly) automatically flip and spin around to depict different locations. we saw the principal actors and how they had arrived at the mansion--and in fact, most of them had suffered horrible deaths and needed to find the killers--whom they thought was in the auidence. it was very graphic and very realistic, leaving me shaking.
once that was done, we were free to explore, and new scenes would be performed along the way. in many respects, it was also similar to a haunted house (ripe with the jump-out-of-your-seat element). so michelle and i decided that we weren't going anywhere without the other, because we terrified, so we timidly walked down a hallway with other audience members into what looked like a dungeon setting. i sat down, she sat down next to me, and we watched the scene. only the two people who sat on either side of us were actors in it and scared the shit out of us in the dark.
somewhere along the way, we were close to figuring ou the purpose of the event. the actors were pushing michelle and myself to discover the meaning of life (looking back on this now, i'm laughing). we were running through twisted passageways with the goblin-like characters running after us, our shadows bouncing in the torchlight, and we came across a large key. michelle grabbed it and ran for the entranceway, as i followed behind. just as she was reaching her hand out for the door, one of the goblins hit a switch, and she fell through a trapdoor that slammed back into place behind her.
so i was left by myself with all of these people (one of whom broke character and assured me michelle would be fine), and i was trying to figure out the meaning of life. so i ran the other way and searched the corridors, finally coming up to another locked door that had the word slow on it. and i stopped suddenly and realized what it was, informing the other characters of it. relax, take your time, and enjoy life.
i also met a guy there--and although i remember absolutely nothing about him, the nervousness i originally felt that grew into confidence and happiness leaves me convinced that there is someone special out there for me and i will find him. i know it sounds cheesy, but i can't put into words how secure and happy i felt when i was around this mystery person--it was just nice. it made me feel happy to wake up and start the day.
also at one point, i wound up at a building i knew to be jenkelly's house, it had whte columns and was a brick building and was really pretty--but it was also on the smc campus. i was writing in a spiral notebook with a green cover which i referred to as my journal, and i remember writing that i was surprised i'd never been to jen's house before--after all, it is right between mccarthy and the library. how did i never see it before?
i don't know, it's odd. it was a really bizarre dream, and i don't know where it came from. at different points, i was terrified, scared for my life, and amazingly happy. i just felt a need to write it all down. so i did.
now i must clean the house and go to work. oy vay...
michelle's birthday is TOMORROW!!!!!!!

i remember way back in the day when i got my box for photographs. i thought i'd never fill it.
now i'm sifting through the pictures, trying to figure out which ones i should post somewhere...
ah, a challenge.

[later]
so it's a pain in the arse to do. but in order to bring joy to the lives of others (hehehe), i give you this...
enjoy...:)

i posted a few of the paradise pictures here...more (read: john) pictures will be posted shortly.

i am too exhausted today to even begin a long, rambling, descriptive entry. so what follows is a short series of statements about my saturday.
my legs ache--but good, i'm-accomplishing-things ache. i hope, anyway. ;) being back is definitely good for me. although i found it far too amusing that in the middle of lunch hour, lloyd (my boss) called to ask me computer questions. USER SUPPORT NEVER ENDS!!!!!!!
i realized i have two rolls of photographs somewhere that i must develop--including roll 2 of d.c. pics. unfortunately, i have no idea of where said rolls are.
i'm trying to figure out which howie show to go to. very excited about the prospect of going to howie show(s).
i requested off the 3rd of july. need to figure out details (read: talk to joey)
if all went according to plan, jesse got married today. in odd coincidences, i heard eve 6's "here's to the night" (the song i associate with him) on the radio today more frequently than ever before. i'm excited for him, but it feels so odd to think he's actually married.
i'm very much wishing i was 21, as i hope everyone up at school is having a fun time downtown...i wanted to go up to celebrate baz's birthday (belated) with them, but i got stuck working and i wouldn't have been able to do anything because of my lack of alcohol priviledges...damn the man.
it feels like more happened today, i think my mind is just too tired to process it. i plan on getting to bed (relatively) early tonight and watching almost famous.

but it would be so nice to be 21 already, dammit.

i am exhausted. utterly exhausted.
but in a good way, finally.
i worked my ass off tonight--there are so many slackers there now, but i got to boss their sorry asses around until they accomplished things.
alright, now that i got that out of my system--it actually feels rather good to be back. warped as that might sound. i enjoyed closing tonight, although i can obviously see that some people need to learn all of the closing games. i take for granted how long i've been playing said games...
alright, sleep is necessary. mikey wants me working at 10 tomorrow. as in about 8 hours from now.
hahaha--feels good to be home.

look at the sexy bitches--and i suppose the singer too...
pictures came back and look wonderful.

OY VAY!!!!!!
(anticipating michelle's "amen to your oy")

what do i need to do to get fox to realize i'm the answer to all of their problems?

HIRE ME TO BE A CRITIC!!!!!

in other news, it is so frustrating to be tempted to write someone to say hello, but be uncertain of if i should. i mean, if someone is online, the worst that can happen is that i get ignored, but still, risking trying to talk to that person is too much right now, and i have no idea of why.

i will go to sleep with the hopes that i make sense in the morning.

i've started writing my version of the great american novel. the scary thing is that i'm not joking.

i'm trying to give "room for squares" a fair shot. for about the past hour, i've been walking around with it in my discman. some of the songs are alright, i suppose. but why, WHY did he feel the need to cheese up "love song for no one"??? it sounds like a whiny ditty that should be sung by justin timberlake and the rest of the nsync boys. not john. aurgh...
what i would give to be able to hop on a plane and fly to chicago for friday. at house of blues chicago, they're one-upping the wonderful lineup. howie day opening for john mayer, but also matt nathanson opening for howie opening for john. matt is the best guy--he spent his 28th birthday with us at smc--i got him to come play the coffeehouse. unfortunately, they scheduled it for the same night as sister helen. how bad did i feel...but he was wonderful. i would love to see him with the other two fellows...
on the way home from school this evening, i commented on that fact, and my father told me he wouldn't be shocked if i saved up money and did something "crazy" like that--hop on a plane to check out a show...funny how things change in a few years. he never would have considered it before, and now it sounds like i've got a standing green light for it...odd.
been cleaning and decorating my room--first time since freshman year. i think it was time to take down the poster of ben affleck from his "armageddon" days--replaced with james dean and some m.c. escher...i need masking tape for everything else though. i swear i should buy shares of stock in masking tape. every time i move somewhere i have to buy a whole damn roll...
photos come back tomorrow, and i got the word back from jeff, i'm in on the paradise b&p. cds being sent out tomorrow...
happy happy.

how is your 'concert series across the usa' going?
hehehehehehe. so here's my dilemma. howie plays at the ironhorse on the 14th. HOB on the 15th. i know there's no photography at HOB. i don't know about ironhorse. but depending, perhaps michelle could come (if she wanted to) if we went to HOB. therefore making HOB look more viable.
what to do what to do...
for the record, let it be known that john did look at michelle during the show, but being the selfish bitch i am, i focused primarily on my own connections in previous posts. in fact, at numerous times, i was going to get her attention during the show to comment on the fact, but if i looked over at her, she was staring up at john with those big ol' googly eyes, so i figured i'd let her swoon and would tell her later.

happiest of birthday wishes to bethy. :):):)

so i finally got to see howie and john perform again last night.
michelle and i wound up getting to paradise ungodly early again. again, the weather was not suitable for standing outside for two hours (in december it was bitterly cold, this time, broiling hot). again, we were the second group in line.
after spending a lot of time standing, sitting, stretching, howie showed up for soundcheck. sweet vehicle. walked in without saying hi to any of the people waiting in line. i found myself feeling as if i'd get over my interest in him after that. at least you could say hi to the people who were waiting to see you perform...
john showed up late (i have a feeling the boy overslept again), and it was so nice to see him bringing in his own equipment with everyone else.
i figured by the time i walked into the place, the ultimate, final comparison had taken place. and john had won.
so after 6:00, when we thought the doors opened, after 6:30, when the tickets said doors opened, and just before 7:00, we got in. michelle and i were walking down the long corridor when we heard footsteps running down the corridor. i'd never experienced that at a howie or john show before...
walking, michelle and i got spots at the very front of the stage. i'm talking about my standing directly in front of the microphone.
after another hour (during which i was convinced i would faint numerous times, as i'd been in the sun and heat all day), howie came on. i'm not sure exactly what i think of where i was...overall, i'd say it was very cool. i felt rather odd, because so many people around me were screaming and yelling and hooting and hollering, and then there was me--smiling a bit and singing along a little. i was very content just listening and singing along. i didn't feel that i needed to scream "YEAH HOWIE!!!!" or anything like that. being where i was, it was fun to think that it was my own little private show.
and when it comes to wondering if he was looking at his mic or at me at different points during "she says", i'll just think what i want to think. :)
after awhile, john came on, and he rocked the place. here, i screamed along. he laughed at michelle and i during "my stupid mouth", because we always look at each other and laugh at the "played a quick game of chess with the salt and pepper shakers" line. he caught us and snickered. we were amused. when he started the set with "no such thing", i was very excited, because when he got to the "i am invincible" part, he sang "i am invincible", looked down at me, sang "you are invincible", then sang "we are invincible...because we are alive..." made me happy.
so after the show (during which i took pictures--i'll put some up soon), we managed to snag one of the john setlists for michelle (long live o'toole of the toole clan), and we talked to john outside. we took a picture of him, me, michelle, alicia, and amy, so hopefully that'll come out.
i'm ignoring the fact that i wasted $15 on his new cd--i love john, but the cd refuses to grow on me.
i was determined to walk up to howie and get a picture with him, but i couldn't find him post-show. perhaps if i can make it down to the ironhorse show. yes, definitely if i make it to the show, dammit.
driving back to beverly today, the windows were down, the sun was shining, and "the lillywhite sessions" was blasting through the speakers. it, as well as the rest of the weekend, made me happy to be 20, relatively carefree, and content.

it has been a day full of images that are lingering in my mind.
this morning, my brother graduated from high school. various family members from all around (including the wonderful aunt ellen and uncle jim, whom i hadn't seen since i'd graduated high school) came up for the event, and i was psyched. afterall, only once does my little brother graduate high school.
sitting there in my spot in the front row, chloe sitting on my lap, i alternated between squirming, a result of the hot, humid air, and staring with amazement at the 35-odd graduates assembled before me. i vividly remember my graduation day, how old i felt. i'd conqured the proctor school system, and at the ripe age of 17, was ready to conquer the world.
now, three years older (at times, perhaps, a little wiser), i'm left baffled. the kids in front of me in their maroon caps and gowns were not adults. they're just little kids--so young and yet preparing to enter the real world, as if they really think they can conquer the world. it's so bizarre to see it from the other side of the spectrum...
so then i hopped on a bus and worked my way down here to massachusetts. at one point, i decided to curl up and nap, but the armrest was digging into my back. pulling random articles of clothing out of my bag to act as cushions, i tried to settle in. closing my eyes, i reopened them to see a little old woman holding out her cushion to me. her back bothered her on the trip up to ludlow, but it wasn't bothering her now, so perhaps it would help me be comfortable, she explained.
i happily accepted the offer, and it worked wonders. before i drifted off to light sleep, she showed me her newest purchase--a little koala hand puppet. essentially, it was a more life-like-looking version of popples from my childhood. she showed me how it curled up into a little ball and then released it from its cocoon, tenderly stroking the artificial fur.
she was so sweet, and brought a smile to my face, but at the same time, it was incredibly sad. here was this lovely older woman, and i had to wonder why she was by herself. she should have a grandkid around, or an older husband--someone. instead, she was making idle conversation with a complete stranger on a bus.
i found out that she was a librarian for twenty years before she retired, and she maintains that "people who read books are nice people." my copy of sylvia plath's unabridged journals apparently meant i was a nice person. i didn't mind.
she left in keene, giving me a smile and a wave goodbye as she exited. her seat was replaced by a twenty-something year old man with short blonde hair. he was an artist, constantly doodling or sketching. i caught glimpses of the television in front of his seat, a random face...he also took out a picture of devo (complete with the lollipop holder hats) and began sketching it. his work fascinated me--made me wish i could do what he seemed to do so easily.
arriving in netwon, i met up with michelle, jess, and nan and headed to foxboro for the show. we got there around 6:45 and lounged in the parking lot. i found that doritos and apple pucker are not a good combination in previously mentioned hot and humid weather. ;-) however, i was all set by the time we headed in.
after finding our seats, dave matthews band took the stage. it was approximately a minute from when we sat to when they began.
the show was amazing. it was a perfect night for a show--the air cooled just enough to make it comfortable, wrapping an individual in a thick blanket of warmth, but not overpowering. a breeze blew hair back and kept the individual cool.
the performance was fantastic--incredible lights flashing amber, indigo, and red, with scenery that oddly resembled the spouts from alliot at school. but, unlike in alliot, here they worked. the band lived up to its reputation, with jams that blew my mind and an obvious mastery of the music and the art of performing.
what got me most, however, was the atmosphere. the audience was such a part of the show--happy, friendly, thrilled to be there. i felt completely comfortable moving along with the music however i felt like. people were friendly and talkative, and everyone was just set to have a great time. so we all did. i was thrilled that michelle and i ran into joe o'leary, one of my favorite fun guys up at school. it was fun to see a familiar face in the sea of strangers.
i hope nan feels better--initially i thought she was succumbing to the apple pucker/doritos demons, but she had a much harder time than i did, having to go out to the car early into the show. she seems like a wonderful girl, i hope things aren't too serious and that she's recovering by tomorrow...
even the trip out of foxboro, which i expected to take forever, was brief--highlighted by michelle screaming, putting the car into park, getting out, and running over to hug mcsherry and tim, whom she finally managed to find after half-searching all day.
i, however, was not quite as fortunate. no run-by lickings were in the cards for me today. c'est la vie.

let the insane weekend begin...
:-)

"there are times when a feeling of expectancy comes to me, as if something is there, beneath the surface of my understanding, waiting for me to grasp it. it is the same tantalizing sensation when you almost remember a name, but don't quite reach it. i can feel it when i think of human beings, of the hints of evolution suggested by the removal of wisdom teeth, the narrowing of the jaw no long needed to chew such roughage as it was accustomed to; the gradual disappearance of hair from the human body; the adjustment of the human eye to the fine print, the swift colored motion of the twentieth century. the feeling comes, vague and nebulous, when i consider the prolongued adolescence of our species; the rites of birth, marriage and death; all the primitive, barbaric ceremonies streamlined to modern times. almost, i think, the unreasoning, bestial purity was best. oh, something is there, waiting for me. perhaps someday the relevation will burst in upon me and i will see the other side of the monumental grotesque joke. and then i'll laugh. and then i'll know what life is."
--sylvia plath

in other news, this just keeps getting better and better. i'm a critic-in-training, just save yourself a hassle and hire me.

you know things are strange when you open up sylvia plath's unabridged journals and see photocopies of the actual journals, and you notice that she even has a similar handwriting as you do.

"some girl a hundred years ago once lived as i do. and she is dead. i am the present, but i know i, too, will pass. the high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. and i don't want to die."

imagine my surprise today.
example 1: i recieve an ecard. always a happy reaction to getting a card, but imagine my utter glee when it's from no other than the jesse boy! it made me very happy to hear from him, although i'm still in shock that he's getting married in a matter of days. i'll get to see him when he gets to massachusetts. happy happy day...
example 2: i walk into my last library shift. mike had gotten a golden cake with fudge frosting...with "bon voyage vickie" on it. how sweet is that?!?! so we all got a nice sugar buzz going, which should last through the day.
so nice!
now i sit, very happy to be in an air-conditioned space, and settle down with some sylvia. ah...contentment.

downtown/the waterfront is quickly becoming one of my favorite places. danelle and i went for a walk around, and it was perfect weather--finally cooled down enough to be comfortable, as opposed to the upper 90s, sticky, humid, nasty day.
currently rocking out to john mayer's webcast--seeing him and howie is only making me more excited about monday. john is just such a sick guitarist--makes me WANT A GUITAR RIGHT NOW...

i have found my own voice coming through the years, resting in front of my eyes in the pages of a book with a hard burgandy cover.
collin gave me a going-away present today, although he didn't realize what he was doing. he told me that since he knew i wanted to be a writer and i was a college-aged woman (obviously), perhaps i'd enjoy reading the bell jar.
i'd heard of sylvia plath before, but i didn't have any pressing reason to read her work. i didn't know any of her stuff, so whatever. but since i went to the library to work this afternoont, i figured i'd pick up a copy and start reading.
i am so thankful to collin. i'm halfway through the book and completely amazed by what i'm reading.
alright, the suicide bit isn't me, and i'm not as troubled as esther is. but the general thoughts coming through the lines are the same thoughts i've had, and different snippets of words fly at me with a sense of near deja vu. that is how i want to write.
so i decided to research plath. and even her life, very loosely obviously, resembled mine. she viewed the summer before her senior year as one that would be very busy--in her case, a writing class at harvard, in my case, the lovely o'neill. both of us thought our plans were set, only to have them dashed against the rocks (it was a comfort to read her take on it-- truth was, i'd counted on getting into frank o'connor's writing course at harvard, but it seemed that several thousand other rather brilliant writers did, too and so i didn't...) it's almost unnerving, how much of a connection i feel with plath. it's rather odd, the connection i feel, but at the same time, it's a comfort. she was brilliant. i don't feel quite so odd anymore.

hello. my name is victoria, and i am an idiot.
why on earth does a show start at 6 p.m.? the entire time, i was thinking that it started at 8. nonono, fraid not. i am fucked. NOT A HAPPY VICTORIA!

disappointed! for some reason, i was thinking we had harrassed scotty, but it was actually steve who was the kick-ass tour manager when michelle and i interviewed. so disappointed. well, i heard through the grapevine that scotty's cool too (which i can also tell from the frequently-commented-on-by-myself road journal). but i was so hoping to harrass steve again!!!!

my last day in the office here at user support for the summer. tomorrow is my screwy 4-8 pm shift in the library. so i just have 8 hours here. almost just 7 now. i can make it through them...

alright. after a random day, i'm left pondering the stupidity of mankind (at least mankind in the smc theatre sphere).
so rick walks into work this afternoon and asks me if i would have any idea of where the small audio console would be kept. phil named it mini-stonehenge last summer, so it took me a second. "mini-stonehenge is missing???" i asked. rick stared at me, then realized what i was referring to. "whatever you call it. do you know where it would be?"
obviously i know where it should be--the booth has been my home for approximately a year now. i ask if the door to the booth has been kept locked. rick gives me a "oh, should it" kind of look and i run over to mccarthy.
ok, here's common sense. if you have a room full of fun gadgets that are really pricey and some of which can fit in a person's pocket or bag, you keep that room locked if people aren't around. that was one of louns' two absolute rules. booth stays locked, and no food or drink past the stairs. now, booth does not stay locked, and expensive equipment winds up missing.
i felt like a mother scolding a child as i explained to chuck that if there isn't a body in the booth, the door stays locked. at all times, no ifs, ands, or buts. just think about the wireless mics, why don't you...they fit into pockets...i feel as if i'm the keeper of louns' intentions here.
so then, as if that wasn't hilarious enough, chuck had already called me and left a voicemail. asking if i was around this summer. saying that cathy had remembered that i dressed the actors with mics for working, so perhaps they could "tap into" my "expertise" for little shop. basically meaning i'd show them how to dress the mics. that's funny, they should already know this, considering the show opens on tuesday...part of me would love to just sit back and watch things go to hell, because i don't like how things were handled. but i don't want to let down the people i like there, especially rick, who's genuinely excited about his opportunity. so i'm going to show him tomorrow.
but i can't believe they lost the equipment. stupid, stupid!
janet and dave came up today, and we went to dinner, which was nice. then jen kelly and liz hung out in my room, and we broke out into random improv games. i've missed improv. it made me happy. the humorous portion was playing "scripts" (a game in which you each have a book and all the dialogue comes from lines in the book), and the texts we used were the great gatsby, light my fire, and american psycho. it made for amusing times. ;-)

how the hell did they lose mini-stonehendge??????
i am currently speechless.

this is the garden: colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden: pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms, and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured, as among
The slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

-e e cummings

i am supposed to be working for two more hours.
i don't think i'll make it through two more hours with my sanity.

rumor has it (well, it's not rumor, but it's not absolutely certain) that someone else is also going to be at the show on saturday to see the all-mighty dave.
along with thousands of other people, that is...

why is it that as i read this, i have flashes of selected memories:
the night sophomore year over at collin & larry's
the evenings this year at our house.

there really isn't anything like being out on the roof, feeling carefree and happy with friends.

there's nothing quite like waking up on a beautiful sunny day, walking to work, settling down in front of the computer, and before even a half hour has passed, feeling completely incompetent. i do not particularly want people here talking to me today. then i'll be ok. as long as i remember i only have one more day of actually working here.

i'm surprised by the number of hits i'm receiving. pleasantly so. make yourselves known, if you wish, sign the guestbook and let me know what you think.
i jinxed myself by commenting on the dmb saturday. more details to follow--i refuse to think about it until i must. which means i refuse to think about it until tomorrow.
overall, a nice evening. during our walk around campus, danelle messed with my mind by offering this challenge to me: think of a movie that doesn't have either a love scene or some form of sexual tension.
i thought and thought and thought, and all i could come up with was the client. and that took me awhile. i talked to michelle on the phone, and immediately after offering her the challenge, she responded with two: the usual suspects and the negotiator. i can't believe i didn't think of the former...i'm a wretched kevin spacey fan now hanging my head in disgust.
i was also productive today, i came up with a new desktop wallpaper. yes, i'm infatuated right now, but he was just so damn brilliant, how can i not be?
reading scotty's random insights has become one of the highlights of my days. such a crackhead. for the record, apparently the computer is still broken for mr. day. i'll let it slide, but if it gets into july and there are no updates...well...ok, so there's nothing i can really do about it besides bitch here, but hey, the power of the written word. maybe, in some warped parallel universe, it would get back to the singer-of-the-big-spikey-hair. who knows (or particularly cares)...
now, however, i realize that i have to be at work in seven and a half hours, so i must away to my bed. but if you're up late and are bored, find this. read this. steinbeck rocks my world. trust me.

it just dawned on me that i am seeing dave matthews band on SATURDAY!!!!!!

having realized that, i am currently at the tech specs for the band. first of all, i am very impressed that they post all of this. second, i am in shock that i understand it. thanks louns buddy. :)

i have finally read the little prince. i loved it, and i recommend it to anyone who didn't have to read the french version in some high school french class. anyone who did should read it again. :)

with some time to kill at work (time to kill at work? what is this concept???), i went into an old email account and actually started reading some of the emails i'd kept there. stuff from my freshman year on--so weird to read. all of the different struggles i went through were right there for me to read about, and it's funny to see what things still seem important and what ones were just so ridiculously dumb.

kathy didn't ask me to shelf read.
mike did.
I KNEW IT!!!!

my building is being completely changed around, and i see the beginning of the inevitable struggle between smc student publications.
bergeron's getting completely revamped. the lab for the online publication and 105 have become one room, and all of the pcs are in the defender lab. there's been talk of the defender and online publication sharing the same lab space so the other lab room can become an electronic classroom or whatnot, but it appears to be happening.
this is a bad idea.
there is already enough tension between the publications, and sharing lab space will make things really, really bad. there is going to be bickering over computers, the fear of not being able to speak freely in the room...it's ludicrous to expect two publications to share one space and feel comfortable enough to be as vocal as if one had a room for each publication. it's going to be a huge mess.
yet another example of how things are getting messed up just as i get ready to take the helm of the defender...i swear the journalism department is doing everything in its power to make things difficult for me! i'm tempted to speak up and at least make sure the department knows i'm going nuts here...first the stipend being taken away, then the internship saga, and now this...
i want to be the exec ed. i've wanted to be exec ed of the defender since my freshman year. i wanted to be exec ed of my college publication since i was in junior high. but they are making it increasingly difficult for me to want to be exec ed now that i'm in place to be exec ed.

as i head to the library, i make this prediction:
*vickie settles into chair*
kathy: vickie, since you're only here for an hour, how about we have you do some shelf reading?

why do i make this prediction? because i've doen shelf reading for every tuesday i've been there. let me tell you that shelf reading is one thing that i will most certainly NOT miss when i'm gone.

i'm well aware that president vanderheyden is a busy man. he and i have wildly differing views on a number of college issues, but i put that aside. i have met the man numerous times during my years here, but every single time i have an encounter with him, the same thing occurs:
marc: "hello. and you are..."
me: "hello, i'm v."
marc: "hello v. my name is marc."
me: *biting lip to keep from saying "thank you captain obvious..."*

i had to stop by his office to give him a new mouse for his laptop. all i needed to do was unplug the old mouse and plug it back in. was i really necessary for that? did he find the "mouse trainer" comment humorous? ponder those questions while i roam the campus working on inventory.

a new main site is in the works. guppies will be completely put to rest, and a new site will be up before i return to all that which is southern vermont.

although you'll cry it won't save you this time i gotta change my life today and you'll say it's not too late now it's not too late this time last night i'd never think this but after all the games you've played you can't deny i'm sure you'll insist you could change your act today you'll say it's not too late now it's not too late sometimes words can't make everything alright you go you calmly walk away from me and as you go i hope your thinking but not for me or you for whoever is next and as the leaves change the world fades
-harris, foliage

i feel special attachment towards harris, as i survived the proctor school system with andrew sutherland...a good lad. :) know when you're young (i'm talking elementary school young here), and there's just someone you know who just has It--you know great things are destined for him or her, and you never think otherwise? that's andrew.
well, i thought that after getting through the years of mutual torment. my reading teacher back in sixth grade told me that andrew and i were going to get married some day, and i thought it was a fate worse than death. then again, at the time, i was trying to live down "the vickie song"--think the tune to which the slinky song goes and insert, "it's vickie it's vickie she falls down stairs and nobody cares..." but then i wound up with a thank you in his senior memories with a (sorry bout the stair thing). so funny to think about now...i remember thinking freshman year how odd it was to not have him around because i had him in classes every single year since i really began school...
yeah, he's good people. contrary to popular belief, i did play a harris song on "my favorite show" once (it would have been more, but i could never find the cd with the mp3 on it, oops!).

now that everything's set and i'm going home, i get the call from wwpv about having a radio show.
good timing, i tell you.
hahaha

i now have a guestbook. how fun. sign it and i will rejoice. or, since i'm bored, please say hello, i'm on my stuck at work screenname.
the word on the street is that the rain is to last all week. surprise surprise surprise.
wishing i was somewhere sunny and warm...
don't you love how my posts nearly quadruple while i'm at work?

how interesting. some musicians who maintain a road journal actually update theirs, while others (for whatever excuse, computer's broken my arse) choose not to update theirs. how fascinating to see...
granted, john doesn't actually write his journal. scotty does. scotty the kick-ass tour manager that i, for whatever reason, had no problem acting like a total smartass around. scotty who, after i begged and pleaded, signed the back of my poster for the show with "you're a punk. scotty." hehehehe. scotty rules, by the way, and i plan to resume picking on him on the 18th.
i was thinking about the show, and, while i know i've said it before, i am extremely excited. i haven't seen howie perform since the vc/hd/pmb show in december. so figure almost six months. and i haven't seen john perform since february. both of them on one night will be almost too much.
but howie still needs to update, cause john's kicking his ass. :)

the last two days were gorgeous--warm, sunny, days perfect for spreading out on a blanket under the sun. i was excited for what looked like the end of the cold spell we've had. summer was finally officially beginning.
today is the quintessential monday. gray. dreary. chilly.
bah. i suppose in one sense it makes it somewhat easier to be inside...
who am i kidding? not so much.

the last few days have, as i think i've made it clear, been great, but they were also days in which i was forced to confront the fact that i'm growing up. jen and i had a long discussion about our futures as we sat in the grass, thinking about the years to come--getting married, having kids.
and facing the realization that we are preparing for our last year of college.
i remember looking ahead to college and having forever to be here. four years was an eternity, and i was at the very beginning of it. and now here i am, three years under my belt, preparing for, as the pass the cup social cups so accurately say, "one more round". to think that in less than six months--hell, less than five months--i'm going to be 21 years old. in less than a year, i will graduate from college. i have no idea of where i'm going to wind up, and, in many respects, what i'm going to do. the future isn't necessarily a frightening thing, but the fact remains that when it rushes up to you and gets in your face, it's pretty scary.

so they actually did it. i was surprised, for some reason i kept thinking that there would be some last-minute pardon or something. it didn't exactly meake sense to think that, but i did nonetheless.
the obvious question is whether i thought it was justifiable. should mcveigh have been executed? i wish i had a concrete answer. on one hand, i reacted very strongly to dead man walking and thought that i might have come up with a stance on the death penalty issue. meeting and listening to sister helen prejean solidified that. but once the initial shock went away, i was left without any answers. i don't know how i feel about the issue as a whole. do i think mcveigh deserved it? yes. do i think the punishment led him to feel any remorse? doesn't appear to be the case.
it was surreal, though. there i was, sitting in my room in front of the tv and waiting to hear that a man was dead. millions of people were doing the same thing--waiting to hear that one person had been killed. i know what he did was horrible, and i know that people wanted to know that he had been punished, but to step back and think about how much attention was being paid to him when he died--he wanted attention, and he got it. it makes it interesting to be a future member of the press when things like this happen. to think about being one of a crowd of journalists desperately scurrying around for a sound byte...but it's what i want to do with my life, odd as it may sound.

i met with joanne this morning. my last day at user support will be friday. she was great, didn't make me feel like a heinous bitch for leaving, which i was worried about.
so i'll be out of here around 8 p.m. friday.

who would have thought i'd have two great days in a row?
spent the day relaxing. listened to buckley, watched a.f., spent time enjoying the sunshine with the jen kelly (one word one space) girl, then we got pizza and visited kevin for dinner. afterwards, danelle and i wandered about downtown. borders had a dvd set of james dean--the tv shows, no less--and thankfully did not have it in vhs. that would have been bad. also had cagney...i was impressed.
then a double dose of christopher guest movies--they said it would never happen, but i finally saw waiting for guffman. fucking hilarious! amanda, joe, and k.c. were so right--if you have ever had any connection to theatre (even if you haven't), you must see it. kevin, danelle, and i were laughing the entire time. it was followed by best in show. another hilarious movie. i'll be quoting both for a long time to come.
excellent day, makes it hard to think of work tomorrow. aurgh...i just won't think about it until i wake up tomorrow.

my away message last night: "asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over."--buckley, dream brother
"i'm closer to sleeping in the sand than thou."
shut up, california boy. ;)
so odd to think about where people are ending up. the real california boy, jesse, is going to be in massachusetts, while the etherphyte boys are in california...makes me wonder where i'm going to end up...
jesse's getting married in thirteen days. wow. my "big brother" getting married seems so strange. i need to work on my present for him...i already miss him a lot.

talking to michelle on IM and listening to grace, i am so glad i bought this albulm. everyone was right. john mayer said in an interview one time that it was a masterpiece. it is. and i'm only on track four. exxxxcellent...

tonight was exactly what i needed.
danelle asked if i wanted to head downtown to do a little shopping or just meander or whatnot, and since it has been an absolutely gorgeous day, i thought that would be cool. tim f-something (fitzpatrick?), colin, danelle and i wound up wandering church street. since jazzfest has been downtown all weekend, tons of people were milling about. at least three or four stages were set up on church street, so the drums made it impossible to not walk in time to the beat. at numerous points, i felt that if i closed my eyes, i could see myself in a smokey club. it was great. the atmosphere was so relaxed--more so than even a typical church street day--that i had a huge grin on my face the entire time. a stop at disc-go-round found buckley's dream brother, but no grace. i deliberated buying it, but i chose to convince colin to commit an "immoral" act and buy the nick drake box set instead (it didn't take much convincing). the next stop, pure pop, was much more successful. i was able to purchase grace for twelve dollars and had to discourage myself from buying david gray's lost songs. another day, another day.
we then walked down to church street to watch the sunset. the mountains over the lake were indigo, while the sky blended from glowing orange over the horizon, into pinks and magentas, then into navy blue. meanwhile, the lake seemed to glow sky blue. so cool. at first we sat on the large rocks that were still warm from baking in the sun all day, but once one became unoccupied, moved to one of the large swings. we sat there, the wood creaking, while someone played a pan flute in the darkness. i had a momentary flashback to the weekend josh came up to visit me freshman year, when we walked down to the waterfront and i gazed at the sky while a pan flute played because in both instances, i thought about how this was what being a college-aged person is like--gazing at water and sky with that sweet, relatively uncommon sound. completely relaxing and peaceful. colin was smoking his cloves, so i was able to hear the happy crackling of the clove and smell it...which i have always loved.
colin and tim were hilarious--i was laughing the entire time. we discovered that i am clairvoyant, and tim and i are going to start our own business. "call me at vickie's..."
we left the waterfront around 10:30 and headed back to church street, where things were still in full swing. people had hung elipsoidals in the trees, so little kids were dancing in the light on the street, trying to figure out where it came from. in front of one tent, an older couple was dancing to the music, oblivious to everyone else. it was great.
so then a blockbuster run was in order, because danelle and i decided to watch a movie. we tried to find waiting for guffman, but both stores were out, so we settled on little nicky. but i found almost famous on sale, so i bought it for $9. i was exceptionally excited.
little nicky wasn't much, but it was funny enough. it was just a great, great evening.

you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
-ray bradbury

ah...an empty space to write my thoughts. i've always had a problem with finishing journals--i get about halfway through a notebook, and while i have another half of empty pages to fill, i buy myself a new one so i can look at the blank first page and figure out how to begin. i suppose in many respects, a new journal equates itself in my mind with a new beginning.
but nonetheless, a new space for my thoughts. the old blog was annoying me, i lost about six months of posts, i'm pretty sure, because the archive isn't working. i modified the code in the template too severely, i assume, and when i tried to set the site back to a default, the archive list was gone and the archive page would not work.
c'est la vie--farewell madder rain, hello revelry. optimism.
i'm sitting in the library on a beautiful saturday afternoon. it is reunion weekend, so as i look out the glass doors, i can see a massive white tent with purple and gold balloons dancing in the wind. the library has been hopping today, with alumni entering to find the bathrooms or asking if they can look around. i keep thinking i should tell them that they are not allowed to, they have paid their thousands of dollars for their degrees, not for the priviledge of examining the library. but that would be mean. ;)
so i'm here, wishing i could go lie in the sun, but content to have a computer with internet access and a few hours to read whatever my heart desires. i tried to find rosencrantz & guilderstern are dead, but it's hiding from me in the stacks somewhere away from the rest of stoppard's plays. so i've settled down with the play goes on--neil simon's memoirs, and the collected plays of neil simon volume iv. they'll at least keep me occupied until five.

i'm excited about next weekend...how could i not be? my brother graduates high school on the 16th, so i'll certainly see fellow '98 grads there (which will be interesting, but i'll just hang out with cortni and let whatever else happens happen), then i scurry off to michelle's before she, bethy, and i see dave matthews band at foxboro, followed by relaxing at casa boncek, then our return to paradise for an evening with john mayer and howie day. i couldn't help but grin when michelle showed me our tickets yesterday. it'll be a good weekend, much needed, that's for sure.

happy birthday wishes to elizabeth over at burntsienna, the site that first introduced me to all of that which is blogging.

*****anyone interested in old posts can view either guppies or madder rain. while i might make occasional references to specific posts from time to time, if you're interested in keeping track of them, bookmark them now.*****