Well, it's that time of year again. Thanksgiving. A time to stuff ourselves with an elaborate breakfast, watch people lipsink in the Macy's parade for four hours, then spend the rest of the day watching old movies while snacking on veggies and dip, before capping the day off with an outrageous amount of freshly cooked turkey and mashed-potatoes. It's the day when we remember what we're thankful for, set aside our worries and the maybes, the might-have beens, should-have-beens, and could-be's. A day where we look around ourselves and realize that life isn't so bad after all, in fact things could be a whole lot worse. Thanksgiving is a day for profound realizations and warm fuzzies, which are only to be lost in the hysteria that is Holiday Shopping. However, before I begin once again to complain ceaselessly about my lot in life, my enormous homework load, and how I don't know what to buy most of my friends for Christmas, I want to list all the things I'm thankful for. Putting a little perspective on life never hurt anyone. *Clears throat* I am thankful for...

• My loving and supportive parents. Despite the fact that they can annoy me with their coddling, or telling me I need to get to bed when I have four hours of homework left to do that's do the next day, they put up with my bitching and encourage me to follow my dreams. *Sniffles* I love you Moos and Poos!
• My (sometimes too) loving sister. Although she can drive to the brink of insanity faster than anyone else I've ever met, I still love her. If I ever need someone to make an incredibly stupid joke or bellydance rather badly around the family room just to make me smile, she does it willingly and with gusto. Miss Brinkman!
• Zamboni, the Wonder Puppy. My lovable, huggable, tolerant, ball of fluff. He's always there to comfort me when I feel shitty, and play with me when I'm in a good mood. He keeps my leg warm during dinner by panting incessantly on it, and provides entertainment (whether he wants to be woken up or not) when I'm bored. I still love you, even though the vet declared you obese.
• Lady Evelyn or Evie for short. The newest member of the family, I am thankful that she climbed up into our engine compartment at Nunzi's and even more thankful that she made it safely home without becoming roast kitty. A new source of amusement and frustration, I refuse to let mom give you away.
• Uncle Stubby, the coolest, bestest uncle in the whole world, despite the fact that he told me to stop smokin' the shrooms and get confirmed.
• My Dimmy. Though we don't see each other often anymore, you're still my irreplaceable best friend. Wanna do something soon?
• Jessica, Gabriella, Debbie, Annie, Amanda, and all my other homedawgs. Without my wonderful bunch of friends, I shudder to think how dismal school life, and life in general would be. You provide entertainment, companionship, people to whine with, people to bitch to, shoulders to lean on, hugs galore and infinite laughter and good times. I love you each differently, because in many ways we're all the same. (Got that?) I know that as long as I have you, something interesting isn't far behind.
• The Theater Kids because they supply all the drama in my life tenfold. Whether I'm an innocent bystander, or totally wrapped up in it all, the behind the scenes action is often more entertaining than that in front of the curtain. My life would be so mundane without you all.
• My GOOD teachers. You make school bearable, Mr. Martone, Mrs. Richardson, Dr. Borowicz, Mr. Curtin, and all the other favorites from passed years...you make having to go to school more tolerable. (Wanna give me Elizabeth in the Crucible Mrs. Richardson? *Winks and crosses fingers*
• My Talents. Though they are not as strong as I would like them to be, I'm happy to have them all. I could sing like well....we won't go there.
• Mrs. G who taught me how to sing the right way. Bet you didn't know there was a wrong way, huh?
• The Theatre. Without it, my life would be incredibly lacking in color and sparkle. It's a lifestyle, not merely an artful.
• My material possessions. I have so much more than many, and I am grateful to be blessed.
• Those who care about other people,especially those who have nothing. One man can't change the world, but maybe if we all work together...
• The success of the last shows I've been in. (Thank God, the tapping's ended!)
• A great year, full of laughter, life, friends, family and new experiences.
• Everything else I'm thankful for, but didn't write down. So, basically everything else...yeah, that about covers it.

Currently Listening Les Miserables (1987 Original Broadway Cast) By Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg, Frances Rufelle, Colm Wilkinson I Dreamed a Dream see related

Having friends can be a funny thing sometimes.

A friend is supposed to be a confidant, a person to make you laugh, a person you support and supports you in return, like the ramshakled old house out on Route five, whose only support is a large old oak tree. Friends are supposed to make your life easier, and you do the same thing for them in return. It is quite perplexing sometimes, why having friends does nothing but make life even more difficult than it already is.

Sometimes, a friend is a welcome extention of yourself. Friends are the people you sit with in the bone-chilling driving rain on a Friday night, in order to watch the homecoming game. Regardless of the fact that you don't know anything really about football, its rules or it's regulations. You sit huddled in the stands, sharing umbrellas and body warmth, making idle chatter as your teeth chatter soley to provide moral support and cheer on someone close to your heart.

Friends are people who go to Tim Hortons after finally escaping the downpour, eat hot soup together and have fake seances in the middle of the restaurant, ignoring the blatant stares of the lesbian couple who just came in to have a hot drink together. Friends, sit with eachother for an hour and a half, playing a ridiculous game and swearing to keep secret all of the embarassing admissions which were outed in the coure of said game, taking a vow of fealty to the Sacred Table.

Friends force you to attend a dance you really don't want to go to, sticking by you the entire time soley to ensure that you have as much fun as possible. Friends, do your hair for no charge, caring more about how good you look than how they themselves look. Friends go trick-or-treating in defiance of their peers beliefs because they hold the belief that you're never too old to have fun.

Friends are warm hugs on cold days, money moochers, and forced rides. Good friends are like a well-loved security blanket. You love it, it keeps you warm and provides emotional support. Most of the time.

For friends can also be a cause of great confusion. Especially when one friend is also friends with another friend, and their relationship is experiencing difficulties and you end up getting dragged into the conflict. The more you come to believe you know someone, the more you come to realize how little you truly know at all. Friends have the ability to leave you spinning, leaving you disoriented and daze, with no clue who to believe or what to think. Friends can be betrayers, liers, and con-artists. They can become like bad habits. Despite the fact that you long to leave them behind, the comfort the habit provides, keeps you coming back.

Friends are a perplexing, ever-changing enigma. One can only wonder if this is what I see from my angle, what must my friend see me as?

Currently Listening Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! By Hellogoodbye see related

It's official, summer is officially over. Tomorrow, I will be diving into three terms worth of IB work, dance classes, social drama and the ever present stress that accompanies day to day life during the year. How many days until Christmas vacation? Despite my sadness at the end of my freedom, and the loss of three hours sleep each night, I am resigned to the fact that I am required by law (and more frightening) my parents to stick it out for two more years until I have a choice. Oh, well. *Heaves a big sigh*

However, there is one new thing that I hope will relieve my burden just a little, and free up my schedule some. It's a little piece of plastic called my driver's license. Don't get all excited just yet, I have not taken my test or passed as of this moment. I still have to practice parallel parking and go over the road rules one more time before I have to go face the tester (hopefully not the mean, scary black lady) I hear so much about. I am more than determined to gain said piece of plastic however, due to the fact that we just got...A BRAND NEW CAR! *Does the happy dance*

Our brand new, Honda Civic in atomic blue paint, comes standard with a four speaker sound system so powerful, it can make the car vibrate, side curtain airbags, automatic shift in stick format, and a spacey-style dashboard with digital display, and the wheel positioned at the perfect angle for maximum elbow comfort. And while not officially the C-Car, it's a beauty worthy of my beauty behind the wheel. Sad though I am, that this marks the rapid decline of the Thunderbolt Greaseslapper, the loyal minivan that saw me through a large part of my childhood, it's hard to be too sad once you get behind the wheel of the Civic (more creative name to come, though I've taken to calling it the batmobile in the meantime because of it's high-tech dash). I can now fully and completely understand the male species fascination with automobiles. I know, I know, you're saying Chrissy, it's only a civic...but you fail to understand that the only thing I've driven/rode in for my entire life has been minivans. Well, there was the Taurus but that died when I was ten so it doesn't count. Alright, alright I move on from the car....

In other news: I attended the school kickoff dance which more than made up for it's slow start by the incredible amount of fun I had. I love the kickoff dance because people don't make it about "dates." Everyone comes, dances, switches partners (of both genders), and has a fabulously sweaty time doing it. If only all dances were like that. *Heaves a sigh*

Also, I got cast in the Wallenburg Mysteries, in a main role. Despite the fact that it was mainly through luck, I'm still estatic and can't wait to get into production. Jess (who's playing yet another Jew) and I will make beautiful Hungarian Jewish refugees, don't you think.

And finally, my mother has gone off her rocker and ordered us (as in the family) this brand new work out entitled Yoga Booty Ballet (I'm not kidding). The program uses Yoga, crazy dance moves and altered ballet exercises to "tone, strengthen, burn fat, build stamina, and grace!" I can't wait to try this sucker when it gets here. Well, now that I've written a blog entry, the length of a novel chapter, which no one's going to really read I'll try to contain my enthusiasm and just stop...okay...WE GOT A NEW CAR! I really am done...really.

There is a weight that is bearing down on me at the moment, I knew its feeling last year. We grew accustomed to each other; me supporting it's burden, it allowing itself to rest on my shoulders for a few months. Lonliness is incredibly heavy for something that one cannot even see. I feel that I don't truly fit in, maybe I never did, but I'm begining to think I never will. Scared by what I have seen, I fear that I am no longer able to tell the false friends from the real ones, I have become hesitant to strike up a conversation as I used to. All the information one gives out, can be used behind their back at a later date, I have learned that well, have watched it happen. The past month, I have discovered that I am writing more and; more, keeping myself company with my own thoughts maybe, or perhaps it is a desire to try to learn to communicate better, or because I know that the words you write down on a blank piece of notebook paper cannot reject you, will not spurn you, simply because it was you who gave them life, you who formed their shapes and made them legible; who gave them meaning.

As I said goodbye to G today, it seemed almost as if I was saying goodbye to all of the dreams and possibilities I thought I had at the start of Freshman year. The thought that I could walk out with the best training, and from that maybe rise to be the best. Now, there is no one to draw emotion and spin talent, no one but myself. And how difficult that is when one does not feel comfortable with ones friends, maybe not even with themselves. Maybe this is for the best however. It seems that dreams, like genuine friendship and unselfishness have lost their place in today's world. Or maybe, just my own.

Currently Listening Black Horse & the Cherry Tree By Kt Tunstall see related

So, here I am. Yes, I am bored out of my mind, which is the reason I'm updating this. There was nothing else to do after I got extremely ticked at my PlayStation and felt like pulling a Dudley Dursley and throwing out the window in a fit of rage.

Isn't summer fantastic? I finally have time to get pissed at my PlayStation again, I forgot how much fun it was. Summer would be even better if there would actually be some warm, sunny days and if I didn't have summer reading and Dona Rebecca's horrendously boring assignment besmirching my carefree happy days!

Since school let out, I've basically hung around, working out every morning  and trying to lose this summer's ten pounds and so far haven't lost a single pound. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong either. I've cut back on everything like I normally do and am exercising the same amount as I did last summer. It's extremely frustrating I must admit.

I also went on my big roundtrip to Hershey for three days with my Dimmy. The hotel was beautiful, it looked like something out of Pride and Prejudice, complete with lush gardens and hot bellboys. Our room was pretty big and most importantly, we had cable access to the Turner Classic Movie Channel, and the bathroom had this neat little knob you could turn in order to hear the TV in the bathroom through the speaker in the ceiling. Upon our arrival at Hershey, we were escorted to our room by Ryan the bellboy who was so hot he almost melted my complementary chocolate bar. After the Dimmies unpacked and I just layed around and watched them, Dimmy and I headed down to the indoor pool for a little relaxation and a nice working of the limbs after sitting in the car for six hours. That night, we watched Sunset Boulevard in the hotel room, an extremely fucked up classic filmoir style movie, which left us in shock from the ending, and stiches from imitating the female star.

That night, feeling very grown up and sophisticated, Dimmy and I ate dinner in the Fountain Cafe Restaurant. We split the delicious fried chicken pizza, made on a pita crust with barbecue sauce instead of marinara sauce, three different types of cheese and pieces of fried chicken and yummy vegetables on top. For dessert, we indulged in the Chocolate Dome Cheesecake, which came on a plate drizzled in strawberry sauce, sitting on top of a Hershey bar base, a cheesecake that actually tasted more like mouse, in the shape of a Hershey kiss. It was one of THE most delicious things I've ever tasted in my life. After dinner, we returned to the room to stow our left over pizza in our mini fridge, before heading off for a walk in the gardens and some exploring, which included sneaking onto a private off-limits terrace, and several ballrooms we shouldn't have been in.

The next morning, we awoke early for a Yoga class with Raymond down in the fitness center. I bent in ways, I know people were not designed to bend. We then grabbed some fruit and coffee from the Cocoa Beanery in the downstairs lobby and went up to our rooms to shower and get ready for our spa appointments. At the spa, which we lied to get into, saying we were high school graduates heading off to Harvard and Radcliffe in the fall (I'm going to Radcliffe everybody!) and aided by Dimmy's Harvard T-shirt, we wrapped ourselves in warm terry-cloth robes and went to sit out on the terrace while we awaited our cocoa bean polishes, a procedure where they exfoliate all of your skin and I mean ALL of it, and then moisturize it, leaving you smelling like a Hershey bar all day long. The best part of the spa was the fact that you could stay as long as you wanted after your procedure was done, eating free muffins and pastries and sipping the best hot cocoa you will ever taste anywhere.

That night, we went to Mrs. Dimmy's graduation dinner for the Anne B. Anstein Republican Women's Leadership program. While I was very happy for Mrs. Dimmy, I was thorough bored and was forced to behave for three hours while all of the windbags went on and on, but dinner was delicious, which helped me bide my time until the next round of exploring which was completed in high fashion, namely party dresses and tennis shoes. We broke into a couple of ballrooms, stole onto a forbidden section of roof, into a storage closet where we each took a souvenir (Dimmy a tablecloth and me a humble napkin that no one would miss) which I promptly stuffed down the front of my dress, and navigated through a maze of ever- appearing staff members to get back to our room, but not before we stole the room service order off of the door of  the presidential suite. I'd love to see the look on their faces when they didn't get breakfast in the morning. Yes, I know our antics were very juvenile, but I couldn't help it, life is so boring and it needed a little adventure. Which I punctuated by freaking out the whole time, but I calmly navigated the staff I'll have you know!

Our final day, we went to Chocolate World, the Hershey Museum and Hershey Gardens. I feel I must inform you that the Jolly Rancher soda in Chocolate World does in fact taste like liquid Jolly Rancher and WILL rot your teeth, as well as the fact that all of the chocolate is ridiculously fresh from the factory and every Hershey's brand known to man and even experimental brands can be found in the chocolate grocery store. Finally, the Apostolic clock allegedly the eighth wonder of the world is the biggest tourist let down ever. Made out to be some kind of grand spectacle, the humongous grandfather clock carries a two minute show of a minute Jesus and the twelve apostles who all bow to him except Peter who turns his back and out pops the very funny devil who Jesus then turns to and the devil goes back inside the clock. NOT THAT INTERESTING.

We sadly made our way home, but the trip was well worth it, and this fact was well-cemented with our forced detour through Pleasant Gap a town that made me regret saying that I lived out in the middle of nowhere, and our stop at the general store in the middle of town where we met Penny. A middle aged, barrel built woman wearing a tie-dye shirt and was holding her shoulder length gray hair back with a confederate flag bandana. Her voice, was undoubtedly the best characteristic, three octaves lower than any man's I've ever met and about ten below any woman I've ever known. Meeting Penny made me realize where the stock character for DYKE comes from.

And that was my trip to Hershey, with my Dimmy, never to be forgotten. And I hope to make some new memories as we embark on vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina next weekend for an entire week of lounging on our fat asses and hanging out with the infamous Uncle Stubby by the sea shore. Not to mention all the crab legs I can eat! Which is a considerable amount, seeing as this is the only time I can get them and as they are, one of my favorite foods, I have no problem wolfing down a good two pounds at every dinner.

In the mean time, I am eagerly awaiting the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, and can't wait to see Superman Returns, hopefully this weekend. However, I must disappoint all Potter fans when I tell them that the rumor going around that Harry Potter Seven will be released on 7/7/07 is probably false and here's why:

1. JK Rowling said in an interview earlier this week that she's still writing the book, there isn't time to finish the book taking time to ensure it's good, edit it, re-edit it, and then mass-produce millions of books by that date.

2. The fifth movie is scheduled to come out six days after that date, in which case, releasing the book then would be stupid because the general population will be home pouring over ever nuance of the book, reading, and re-reading the seventh installment. No one will want to go see the movie.

3. If it were indeed coming out on that day, there would be announcements on the publisher's websites, and sites taking advance order of the seventh book. Not happening.

So, there you have it. However, it would be a great marketing campaign, but I just don't see how it can be done. I may be forced to eat my words however, in which case, I would do so gladly.