Today's rambling: Weekend, Part II
Written on Monday, Mar. 10, 2003 at 1:43 a.m.
while feeling a bit

This is Part II of my weekend experience. You don't have to read either this part OR the first one if you don't want, as it's just an excessively long 'daylog', but if you ARE interested you might want to start with the other entry. ;)

Despite my complaints of being tired, I didn't get to sleep until 5 on Saturday morning. About half an hour was spent sitting in front of the fake fireplace being warmed by the gas-powered flames and crying my eyes out because I still felt so terrible (Note to everyone: if I'm ever mean to you, keep in mind that I'm probably beating myself up over it). I had apologized to Tim, but it felt so inadequate. All I said was "sorry for being a selfish bitch" tonight, and that SO did not cover the extent of my meanness. I feel certain that I ruined their night, and Friday should have been the BEST night EVER. I mean, we'd gotten this hotel just so that we could party and not have to drive all the way back home...and I just completely squashed it.

But enough of that. The alarm clock woke me up at 8, but then I shut it off and slept 'til 10. After rushing about to shower and get ready in an hour, we were off...to New York.

Please keep in mind that I'd only packed one small satchel, with one set of clothes, because I thought we'd be returning home on Saturday. No one told me that we were going up to New York until Friday, so it was a complete surprise to me. At any rate, we drove around a bit, I finally got to see these famed NY taxi drivers (they are completely nuts and I would never ride in a car with them unless you gave me a very large sum of money), and then we parked and went down to "Ground Zero". Let it be known that I'd never had any true desire to see this place; it just seems wrong somehow to gawk like a tourist. However, I'll tell you what is truly sick: tourists (mostly foreign) lining up in front of the fence, smiling as though they were standing in front of Cinderella's Castle, and getting their pictures taken.

That place is NOT Disney World, or any other sort of amusement park, for that matter. Hell, it's not even a monument like the Eiffel Tower or the Lincoln Memorial or whatever else. It's a place where thousands of people DIED. And yet these tourists can stand there and smile like it's a happy occasion to be in front of such a thing? That would be like me going into the Holocaust museum--or even better yet, going to one of the sites of the old concentration camps--and beaming a bright smile for the camera. I'm sorry, but it's just sick. And then, of course, there were tons of people right around there hawking T-shirts and hats and other little items that dealt with 9/11. I turned to Geoff and said, "Step on up and get your disaster T-shirt, right here!" and we both remarked on how these folks were capitalizing on a disaster. Didn't seem quite as sick to me as the tourists taking photos of their beaming mugs, however.

So anyway, after walking around a few other streets, we went back to the car and drove down to Battery Park. Our plan had been to catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty (you can smile in front of that monument too, if you'd like), but once we got there (after having to pay $13 dollars just to park our car in a garage) we discovered that it was closed. Indefinitely, I suppose, but I don't know for sure. So all I got to do was stand out on the dock and look out at old Lady Liberty. But hey, I got to see a war protest. :P It was a bunch of people who had linked hands in a circle and were doing this weird sort of...it wasn't moaning exactly, but they'd all be making one note (only their voices were different so it was this eerie pitch) and then they'd climb up to the next note and hold that one before coming back down again. Weird as anything, and I don't really get how that was supposed to make a statement, but whatever turns their crank.

We accidentally took a tunnel into Brooklyn, where I couldn't resist belting out a line from the "Welcome Back Kotter" theme song, and then we came back into Manhattan and searched around for Times Square. That place is quite an experience unto itself. All the lights, and the PEOPLE! Humans have been compared to ants before, but I have to say that being in Times Square just kind of hit that point home. I'm not saying that negatively, it's just that there were so many people, all packed together on the sidewalks and spilling into the crosswalks like organized soldiers...or maybe not quite "organized", but you get the idea. By the end of the night, I was getting used to crossing while the "Don't Walk" sign was flashing. :P

There is a Sanrio store on this street, and I really wish I'd been there with a few girls so that I could have bought a few things. Amusingly enough, Geoff and Tim all but dragged me into the store, whereas I was content to just pass it by because I didn't want to subject them to the overwhelming cutesyness of it all. They tried to get me to buy something, and I was seriously tempted to snatch up a few more of the French Hello Kitty items, but I went out empty-handed. One reason was because I felt silly browsing kiddy stuff with two grown men around, and the other reason was that I knew one--or both--of them would try paying for my stuff. And given the prices on Sanrio items, I wasn't about to let them do that (and I only had $20 on me so I couldn't really afford much).

I didn't take any pictures of Times Square because it's one of those sensory experiences that you can't really catch on a regular camera. You actually have to BE there to realize how completely wacky it all is. Tim thought I was nuts, but I wasn't about to argue. ;)

We ate dinner at this little Italian restaurant, then got Haagan Daaz ice cream for dessert. Ooo, that was good...Geoff told me to taste his, which was flavored like Bailey's Irish Cream, and I almost regretted my decision to get a "Mint Chip Dazzler", hehe...The little shop was situated right across from the Toys R Us store, so while we ate our ice cream outside I watched as Geoffrey the Giraffe peered at us from this huge screen. He was so cute; he'd peer in on one side of the screen, then duck out, then peek in again from somewhere else. I couldn't help teasing Geoff a little bit, even though he's heard the same taunts ever since he was a kid.

The music union, or whatever they call themselves, went on strike while we were there and so all the Broadway theatres were closed. I won't go into what I think about all THAT. But it was interesting to be there while news was happening.

It was hard to keep together while in this place. I got momentarily separated from them when we were walking past one group of protesting musicians, and then later Tim and I went across the street while the Don't Walk sign was blinking...and turned around to find Geoff still on the other side. He made this really pitiful face, but then started laughing when he saw my mouth form an "Aww!" "Uh oh, we left the giraffe behind!" Tim quipped. It was amusing.

And that was it, really. We got out of there around 9:30-ish, somehow made it back to Philadelphia by 10:30, and then we stopped at the guys' apartment. Geoff had asked me if I wanted to stay at their place or go home, but there was no way I was about to ask them to drive all that extra distance just so I could have my own bed again. We all flopped onto the couch and watched TV, but Tim went to bed before long. I curled up in my usual position, with my head practically on his lap, and as we watched more old music videos I shut my eyes and dozed off. Geoff's voice startled me awake a few times, but then he started to fall asleep too and so he pushed himself off the couch. Handed me another blanket from the closet (I'd already had a worn black comforter there from Friday), asked if there was any particular time I wanted to be up, and then he went to bed. As I'd done on Friday night, I had to stop him from disappearing so that I could give him a hug. *chuckles* It's just one of those things I do, whether it be my mother or someone else. ;)

And so finally we're here on Sunday. I woke up to see that it was 3 minutes away from being one o'clock in the afternoon...and neither of the guys were up. So I groomed myself, laid back down and tried to read a few more pages of "The Killer Angels", and it was 2 o'clock before anyone upstairs began stirring around. Tim had to rush off because he was due in at work at 2:30, and Geoff came down with freshly-showered hair (looking very appealing, might I add). Amusingly, he sat in the chair behind the couch, I suspect because I was still in my pajamas (the top of which was a spaghetti-strapped thing I'd bought at Disney World)...he and Tim can be terribly proper at times. It gets frustrating, hehe! You get to a point where you almost WANT this guy to just take you (*laughs*), but no matter how much you flirt, he remains polite. Which is obviously a good thing. Even if he'd had no interest in me, I think a lesser man would have ravished me by this point. ;) So I should be grateful. But anyway...

His brother called him and said that their mother was making dinner, so Geoff drove me home and that was about it. He actually parked instead of just dropping me off by the door, and we sat and talked for a few minutes. He asked if I needed help taking anything inside (even though all I had was a small satchel and my coat), but I told him to get out of the car so I could hug him, since I won't be able to see him again for a few months. Kissed him on the cheek, we talked for a few more minutes, and then I walked away.

Upon getting into the empty apartment, already feeling that familiar sense of coming down (I could have stayed with him for ANOTHER two days), I checked on my gerbils...and discovered that Chloe--my only remaining original gerbil--was dying. Her fur was fluffed up, she was breathing very heavily, and her eyes were shut. She still shuffled around a little bit, and I took her out and held her for over an hour, but finally I had to put her back in. She died tonight, which was certainly not the way I wanted my weekend to finish, but I surprisingly didn't cry as I had with Henry. Still, she was my FAVORITE gerbil, because she was so gorgeous, so I'm definitely going to miss her. She was old, though. It happens to all of us at some point.

Right now, Geoff's probably glad to be away from me, hehe...Besides that incident on Friday night, I kept refusing food and then not eating much of what was put in front of me. Unfortunately, it's that same old nervousness of eating in front of people. I'm comfortable eating with Lauren, Kevin, and Amanda now; you'd think I'd be okay with Geoff too. But I'm not. I don't know WHY, exactly, but it's not like I'm just refusing food...I'm actually not hungry all that often when I'm around him. As for not finishing most of my meal, that part's normal (though neither guy understood it). So now Geoff teases me about not eating, even though I'm sure it irritates him. Oh well, it's not worth thinking about.

This has turned into another stupidly long entry, and I'm very tired so I think I'm going to go to bed. It's a good thing I did turn this into a two-part entry, otherwise can you imagine how long you'd be scrolling? Yeesh. Not that any of you have read this far, ha ha! ;)