I went to Abby's house for a little bit in the early afternoon. She told me a lot about the two tours she did with Jersey Surf. She said that she was miserable almost all the time, and so was almost everyone else, including the vets, who said this season was way worse than the past. They woke up at 6:45 every morning and at 7:00 they would start a four-mile run and they wouldn't eat breakfast until after running. Just for example. And when they weren't in structured practice, their instructors still yelled at them if they weren't practicing something. There was a couple that was a good source of gossip. She also had some nice necklaces and bracelets that were homemade so I inspected them for technique ideas.

When I left I went to Chloe's house to drop off the camera my family got for her but she wasn't home. I was actually in her house when I recognized that - sorry Chlo, I saw your car and just assumed you were in your room with your headphones on or in the bathroom or something. I thought about leaving it on her bed, but I wanted to be there when I gave it to her, so I called her to ask where she was and when she'd be back. I also called CostCo to see if you need a membership to buy from their food court, and the answer was yes, which sucked, and I would have felt weird going to the Molen's house again to ask for their membership card. Sigh.

I went home and stole some music from the internet (just kidding, no I didn't!) and then went to Chloe's house. She was back and I gave her the camera and the first thing she did was BREAK IT! Just kidding, she sort of did but then she fixed it, it was nothing. Then we played around with the HD video and some of the dumb modes that there are on it and tried to make it silence but realized that it makes a focus beep no matter what you do (dumb!). After a while, Matt texted and said it was time to come over. We painted the loft he's going to put in his room. It's so beautiful, you won't be able to believe that two dudes with nothing but a roll of tape and a dozen cans of spray paint completed it in less than an hour. Seriously, we showed it to his sister and she almost cried. From the beauty.

I came home and I think I just hung until it was time to go to my mom's birthday dinner, which was very postponed from Sunday and held at Bertucci's. I asked for Todd but his section was full. Jennica R was the hostess. I had no idea she was going to UPenn. Huh? Well that's cool. The dinner was good but I concluded that Bertucci's has seriously seriously way too big portions for any normal human. My mom said her plate could feed her for four meals. We came back home and she opened her presents - an iPad from dad, a photo album of my SAS pictures from me, and slippers from my brother. She went through the photo album while we were all still at the table and getting ready for cake, and it made me miss a lot of things, especially the pictures of Xiao and Catie.

I went to NTB because my tire was all messed up. There was an enormous screw in it. Slow leak. It only cost $21 to fix and took like a half hour. In that time my mom took me to the mall because she wants to buy me things so I got jeans since I guess I'll need them sooner or later anyway. Emily was working at Pac Sun and gave me a hug and told me all the questionable things she's been doing with her Boyfriend Who Loves Her. My mom asked who she was and what she told me and I didn't want to tell her. But the fact that she knew me got me two pairs of jeans for less than the price of one, which was pretty cool. The guy at NTB put my tires down to 30PSI which he said gives an "optimal ride" and I wanted to shout "BUT IT'S LESS FUEL EFFICIENT" but didn't, I'll just fix that on my own.

I spent a lot of the night packing. Which basically meant going through and removing all the things that I don't want to take anymore, which is a lot of them. A lot of the times this is easy to do, but sometimes it's extremely hard. The blanket that Gina had crocheted for me was on top of one of the boxes. I never really use it for practical purposes. I decided I probably shouldn't bring it, and so I went to put it away, and realized that it would mean I was putting it folded up into the bottom of a cardboard box that could go anywhere, into a basement, to the bottom of a pile of boxes just like it, and I won't even know where it is anymore. She worked hard on that. And I cared about her work, and I cared about her. And I still do care about both. I just wondered if putting it away like that was really a reflection of who I am. It felt like it would be hurtful to her, if she knew. Maybe she reads this, I dunno, my blogs are public and linked. But yeah. Letting go of things can be harder than I thought, I guess.

Peace out.

posted by Singing Farewell 11:50 PM on Wednesday, August 18, 2010