Day Sixty Eight

It's been snowing a lot. And it's really cold. In the two minutes it took to get to the gym (when I took the second picture), it had already dropped down to 9. Roads still have not been plowed. 

The eagles lost today. And I'm sure the steelers will win because it's just been that kinda day. 

Day Sixty Seven

I wasn't able to update yesterday. I was trapped in Johnstown. We had rehearsal last night. Since western Pennsylvania has a strict "own the snow plows but don't ever use them" policy (sort of like people who never take the plastic off their couches... why spend extra for fancy upholstery if you only ever feel the plastic covering it?), the roads were absolutely not drivable. It was freaking awful. Piffle told me when I got to rehearsal that it was only going to get worse, but I refused to give up hope. Until rehearsal ended and I saw the mess outside. I took this picture around 8am when I got back to IUP (I left Johnstown a little before 7). This is the standard of what every road looks like until the snow melts. Notice how you can see NO pavement? Just matted down snow?

Remember when snow was exciting? I think the difference is the conditions of the roads and having to drive on them. A band dad over heard me lamenting about missing south eastern PA, especially when it starts snowing. He said something about how, "none of them know how to drive in this stuff out there."

Correct. Because we USE OUR SNOW PLOWS! AND SALT! I seriously don't get it. I've got a friend back home right now who's bummed because he hasn't had an opportunity to use HIS snow plow. People buy them and put them on the front of their trucks back home, then plow their town for fun. I'd love to know how much the municipal workers out here make, and how little work they do. 

I mean, I understand refusing to upgrade to certain technologies. Don't want a cell phone or an ipod? Yeah, I get that. I mean, I'm addicted to both my cell phone and my ipod, but that's beside the point. Not plowing the roads? And taking pride in your ability to drive through Antarctica? Right that's like saying "Headlights? Why would I use my headlights? I don't need lights when I'm out walking around at night, why would I use them in my car?"

These roads aren't safe. I'd love some knuckle dragging neanderthal to explain to me why they don't clear the roads, and why it makes sense not to when the tools are available. It hasn't ever mattered to me before because I rarely drive more than a half mile at a time, and when it's bad, I walk. However now that I have to drive to Johnstown three times a week... yeah this blows. I pout and fume for the entire two hours it takes for me to drive the 40 some miles it takes to get to johnstown in the snow.

Anyway. Last night I stayed at Piffle's. In his house that he owns. These friends and their grown up lives... It was fun though. A welcomed change of pace. Also, anytime I get to watch a pittsburgh sports team eat it is a good night (sorry friends). 

Day Sixty Six

This is our new toilet seat. After a party here last year, one of you dicks broke the toilet seat completely off the toilet taking a power dump, or something. Anyway, it's fixed now. And looking at this picture, I'm realizing I definitely need to clean our bathroom. It's looking awfully frat housey. 

Day Sixty Five

Ok. So I started my trip to Brooklyn. My Mom was excited to meet Chris. However I wasn't sure she'd get to see him. If traffic was really bad, I was just going to stay at Wengert's for the night. Then Friday night we'd be in Manahawkin with Andrew, then Saturday we were both headed home. Thankfully, it only took two hours to get to Chris's apartment (traffic wasn't bad at all). I actually beat him there because he was in Queens. We unloaded Tiff's drumset into his apartment (he's borrowing it for a few months while tiff is student teaching and he's looking for gigs), then since it was still pretty early, we got back in the car and headed back to my Mom's house.

I stopped on the way and got Chris his first cheese steak. It was this little pizza place near my mom's house. They're generally pretty good but they'd been sitting under the heat lamp for a while. Boo. We got to my Mom's a little after 9. It was weird having Chris in my Mom's house. Not in a bad way, it's just, I'm generally so lonely when I'm there. And there he was. Sitting at the dining room table eating a cheese steak and being pestered by Oscar. 

Andrew forgot that he had to head to Punxy to visit the inlaws so we decided in place of going to see the Wrights, we'd head down to Dover so Chris could meet my Dad. I told my Mom about that while we were eating... then explain he's a giants fan. She was like "Oh..." haha. I told her he packed his Burress jersey and she asked, "Is there a bullet hole in it? Oh wait, no, that's the sweat pants." She wished me luck introducing my new york sports fan to my Dad, then Chris and I jumped in the hot tub for a while. It was such a clear night, so pretty. But freaking COLD getting in and out of there. Man.

Alright. So because of this massive storm that was going through western PA, Andrew and Alyssa's trip to Punxy had to be bagged. Sucks for Alyssa because I'm sure she gets homesick, but great for me and Chris because it meant we got to keep out original plan and go down there to hang out. Andrew called and told us when we were on South Street getting cheese steaks from Jims. I've got a picture of wengert not posing on my actual camera but I can't find the cord at the moment. I'll dig that out later. So once Andrew called, we headed out. Unfortunately this was around 3pm. Going from Philadelphia to anywhere around that time is like chinese water torture. Slow, cruel, and mind numbing. We had to go around Philly then west on 422. We were planning on having dinner with my Mom at home that night but if we'd stayed any longer, we wouldn't have gotten to Andrews until around 9 (two hour drive). I felt so bad but I knew she'd understand. We only had a little bit of time and we were spread pretty thin. At least we got to hang out the night before. 

Oh lord. This trip to Jersey. I love my GPS, and I love that it knows the shortest distance from buttville, PA to Mahanawanawakawoo, NJ. What my wonderful piece of technology doesn't know, however, is philadelphia traffic. I tried to get around it only to wind up right back where we started 15 minutes later. Andrew called and suggested we take a different route about 45 seconds after we missed the shorter route exit. At the time, the plan was still to hang out with my Dad Saturday afternoon then head home that night. Driving 3 hours to see Andrew for maybe 5 hours of hanging out was stressing me out. I already felt like I'd spent all day in the car, most of which was 4 mph traffic doubling back over a route I'd already taken. We couldn't just go straight from Philly to Andrew's because all our stuff was still at my Mom's house.

Around 7:30 Chris started talking some reason, saying we should just try to see my Dad another time. I knew he was right but I was so upset. I was looking forward to seeing him and having him meet Chris, but I knew we had to bag it. We were just didn't have enough time. The combination of having to cancel on my Dad, being stuck in traffic forEVER, and ps my computer was dead and had to be taken to the apple store (back in KOP)... man, at one point it was all I could do not to cry all over myself. I mean, none of it was seriously a big deal at all, but I was so damn stressed. 

Let me go off on a side note about my computer stress. I have a mac. I had no clue what was wrong with it. I downloaded an update then it went into panic mode. My warranty has expired so I called my computer expert brother in law for help. I felt bad because I know everyone always calls him for that, and I can't imagine its any fun being on his side of things, but I was desperate. He had me test each of the ram cards, which is a pain in the butt. You need those little mini screw drivers and the process is time consuming. Turns out, I didn't push hard enough putting the ram cards back in, so then my computer wouldn't even turn on. My only option was to take it to the store and have them look at it. The closest apple store to IUP is in Pittsburgh about two hours away. There's one in King of Prussia, which I'd pass driving back to IUP, but I had to take Wengert home to Brooklyn, which would not put me near king of prussia. I just couldn't think of anything that would NOT be a huge pain in the ass, and every possible solution had me going pretty far out of my way and being computerless for days. This lurking in the back of my mind did not make me feel any better.

Wengert knew I was getting upset but also knew I was mere moments from losing it so he just asked if I was going to be ok then let me chill out. We were about an hour from Andrew's and he took over driving for me. Thank god. He'd offered before we started driving but some of the roads around philly are confusing if you haven't driven there before so I didn't want to make him do that. But once I didn't have to drive anymore, knowing cold beer was waiting for me, and knowing that once we'd arrived at Andrews, our world tour would be done for a while, I finally relaxed.

SO. That's the first picture. The old team. Playing Madden again. Watching people play video games is about as fun as it sounds, but at least with these two it's entertaining. It didn't help that we were less than two days away from the Eagles Giants game.

I tried to get a picture of Andrew's massive tv but nothing did it justice. This thing is 67 inches. I am 65 inches. Freaking massive. Their house is adorable. It's weird and scary and comforting all at the same time to see such a close friend living such a grown up life. 

Wengert decided to take the bus home early Sunday morning. I was able to get an appointment at the KOP apple store late Saturday night so I had to leave around dinner time. Total bummer. I wanted to stay and hang out... not drive home in the snow, then wait an hour for the apple employee (I refuse to call them geniuses) to tell me they were closing and couldn't help me. Grr. But Chris was sweet when I left which made it harder to leave but gave me something nice to hang on to while I was not making left turns the whole way home. 

I was pretty bummed when I got back to my Mom's house. Having Chris there made me miss him in a new way. Now I missed him at my house, too. It was odd and sweet when he said almost the same thing to me about walking into Andrew's guest room without me there.

Sunday morning I spent most of the am waiting for the apple store to call, which they said they would when my computer was ready. I called them after two hours and they said they didn't find anything wrong, it was working fine, and I could go get it right then. So I stopped at wawa one last time then hit the road. I found this insanity while I was in there. Egg nog pie? Seriously, tastykake? wtf.

This is my GPS right after I got on the turnpike. Yes, it says "turn in 165 miles." Boo. After 165 miles, I continued another 20ish miles, then got off the turnpike. By the time I got home, I'd driven 1115 miles (since Wednesday night). I was planning on taking a picture of my speedometer as soon as I pulled in, but some a-hole was blocking my driveway. It took a great deal of restraint not to get out of my car and punch out their windshield. I pulled around the block and parked, the promptly called to have them towed. Egon told me when I got in that they'd been there for about three hours. Ugh. The worst part is I'm pretty sure they got out of there right before the tow truck showed up. I know its bad karma to wish towing on other people, but damn it don't block our driveway! That's so inconsiderate. They got theirs though, because later that night I saw they had gotten parallel trapped between two parked cars. They had to go ask our neighbors to back up and let them out.

So now I'm about up to date. Today was the first day of classes. My Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be pretty rough. But Tuesdays and Thursdays all I have is english and perc ensemble then I'm done for the day. So that's good. I'm trying to go to the gym in the mornings. It just makes more sense and fits my schedule better. But I've never been a morning person so we'll see how well this waking up at 6:45 thing goes. Speaking of, I should have gone to bed a half hour ago...

Day Sixty Four

OK. ok. I'm pretty far behind. Here's another massive post to update where I've been for the past few days.

Not gonna lie, I forget when I took this. Maybe Monday? I was definitely heading to Johnstown. Ok. We'll start from Wednesday night. Rehearsal at Johnstown got canceled. The weather called for freezing rain until 6pm (when our rehearsal started), then a snow/freezing rain mix until 9pm (when rehearsal ended), then snow for the rest of the night. 

Now, I didn't mind going to rehearsal. But here's some things that made me not want to go. First, the geniuses who run this town don't salt or plow until after the roads become a complete mess. The entire trip out to johnstown is windy roads on cliffs. I did not want to die. Second, I definitely didn't want to die if half the kids were just going to ditch at the last minute, causing us to cancel rehearsal anyway, causing me to go an hour there and an hour back out of my way in winter torture weather. Piffle had some parents call and complain about rehearsal that night (they'd had a two hour delay that morning) so after putting all that together, plus the fact that I had to drive across the state once rehearsal was over, we bagged rehearsal. Or, technically he did but whatever.

So instead of leaving from Johnstown at 9pm, I left from Indiana around 5pm. The beginning of the trip was pretty rough because the weather out here was bad. The more east I went, the better it got, thankfully. 

The reason I had to leave Wednesday night is because I had two doctors appointments back home on Thursday, the first of which was at 9:45am. I saw my family doctor about finding something new for my allergies. She told me that because I've tried pretty much everything and all those prescriptions have stopped working, I should go see an allergist and see what they have to say. She doesn't know anyone in this area (duh), so she suggested I call the hospital for a recommendation. More on that adventure as it develops.

From there I headed down to Chester to see my gyno. I started taking birth control just out of high school because of some problems with cysts. Pretty much everyone who knows me knows this story but for people who didn't know me five years ago, I had to have an ovary removed when I was 18 because of a massive cyst. Since then talking about the gyno/my ovaries/whatever just became normal conversation because everyone was worried and would ask me about it.

Anyway, I love my doctor. Since I was 18 I've gone through a lot of doctors. Finding a doctor who was also a surgeon was pretty tough but my doctor is freaking amazing. She's so funny and nice, but also so smart and can answer whatever random stupid questions I have. She always returns phone calls and finds free samples for you... she's just a really nice person. With purple contacts. 

I told her I wasn't feeling the birth control I was on. I told her what I was taking and what I didn't like about it. She ran off a list of other symptoms too. One of which was an over active bladder. Ok, that sounds awful, but seriously, I was peeing CONSTANTLY! Man. I was thinking, "Well, ok, I guess 24 is when your bladder craps out. Bummer." Nope. This tricky birth control just makes you pee more. It's a gimmick. They also put a diarrhetic in it to counteract weight gain. Fun stuff, no? I was pretty relieved to hear her list these side effects. I was legit worried that I was skipping right over getting old and hurdling head first towards grandma jess. 

She asked about Wengert. haha. She always asks if there's a boyfriend (for obvious reasons), then asks something like, "He a good guy? He takes care of ya?" She asked how we met and where he was from (its an awkward situation, that exam, so the random mindless small talk is always welcomed). I told her where he was from and she said "Oh yeah! Up there they have, what do they call it? Oh yeah, a shit load of snow."

She gave me a free sample of one of the 3 month deals. Unfortunately, as you can see, the box is about the size of a tissue box. Like I said, I'm not really embarrassed about that kind of stuff, but carrying around a gigantic box of contraceptive pills will make you walk a little quicker. It reminded me of the weeks before and after my surgery, getting dirty looks from old women and married couples as I sat there by myself in the waiting room for an ultra sound. Judgmental jerks. I wanted to buy a t-shirt that said "I'm not knocked up, now finish reading that 4 month old newsweek. Fuck you and your gall bladder."

After that I hopped in the car and headed up to Brooklyn, drumset in tow. This one's getting a little long so I'll pick up the next entry from here...

Day Sixty Three

Dear King -

Wtf is this? And can I play it for intensity?

Professionally,

JDA

Day Sixty Two

Ok ok, I've fallen pretty far behind. I'm doing my best to make it up. The day before new years eve, I went up to Brooklyn to spend new years with Wengert. I was stubborn and over confident with my GPS and my almost knowledge of new york so I drove instead of taking the train up. Also, I didn't feel safe leaving my car at a train station. 

I got a few texts the night before I left for Brooklyn. 

Wengert: What kind of car do you drive?

Me: You know what kind of car I drive. PT Cruiser.

Wengert: Right. I just forgot the name. You have an alarm, right?

Me: Christ Wengert is my car going to get stolen??

Wengert: Nah its ok, my roommate has a gun.

His roommate is a cop. He thought I was freaking out because of his gun toting roommate. He didn't understand that actually, I was freaking out because the answer to "will my car be stolen?" was "No, we're armed."

The drive wasn't so bad. I didn't have to take the GWB or the Lincoln tunnel. I took the Holland tunnel and the Manhattan bridge. Apparently his apartment is closer to that than the Brooklyn bridge. I'm not too proud that I can't admit I don't really know my way around up there. When I would visit Amy, she'd always be waiting somewhere just outside of the Lincoln tunnel, then I'd pull over and we'd do a quick switch and she'd drive us to Queens. From there we'd take the subway all weekend with the occasional cab.

I'm convinced someone will break into my car and take my shit. Always. Because of this, I've never mounted my GPS. This was stupid of me. Had I had it mounted I probably wouldn't have missed route 1-9 an I wouldn't have gotten lost and stuck in new years traffic. Boo. My GPS saved the day, though. I love technology. 

I got to Wengert's street safe and sound. I had no idea which house was his though. I got him on the phone and made him come find me and park my car. He stuck out like a sore thumb. A goofy white kid with his hollister hat, shorts, and flip flops in Brooklyn in December. Still, pretty good to see him :)

So he parked my car and we went up to his place. His block reminds me of Manayunk. His apartment looks like it was build probably in the 50s. I was expecting this old dilapidated brownstone with high ceilings and hardwood floors. It was a lot nicer and more modern than I expected. New carpets, lots of space (except in the kitchen). Not your standard nasty bachelor pad.

We slept in new years eve day then went to the city for lunch. It was a comfort to see wengert getting around ok on the subway. I mean, I know he's capable of taking care of himself, but I still worry about him. We had lunch at this small place in little italy. I had delicious eggplant parm that I now realize I've forgotten in his fridge. As we were sitting there he asked if I ever thought we'd wind up having lunch together in lower manhattan. Ha, we have come a long way.

We didn't want to stay in the city too late for obvious reasons. So after lunch we headed back to Brooklyn. He decided to make jambalaya for dinner so we stopped at this tiny market right by the train. I had fun making dinner with him even though it made me realize how kitchen incompetent I am. It went from "can you chop the onions?" to "can you peel the onions?" to "can you open the cans of broth?" haha. I refuse to feel too bad about myself because I can bake, and I rock making breakfast. 

From then out we just chilled. We played some guitar hero which I'm sure he loved because he's better at it than me. Then we watched random live new years coverage and drank champagne out of coffee cups. It was nice just being there with him. Not talking on the phone with him. We stayed up late hanging out and watching movies then fell asleep listing to some psycho scream at her... boyfriend? Neighbor? Someone who needed to fuck off, apparently. 

I left early the next morning. The street cleaners were coming at 9. I think. No one knew if they would be sweeping the streets on new years day but given my luck with parking violations, I wasn't chancing it. I was out of there by 8:30. It was freezing but at least getting out of Brooklyn was easier than getting in. I mounted my GPS and got home in about two hours and change. Abby and I promptly took a nap. 

I'm back at IUP now. I left Friday morning to make Johnstown rehearsal that night. I'm heading back east one more time before school starts. Being here is bumming me out a lot. I just feel so alone out here. I miss my friends a lot. It seems like this town is haunted with happier memories. I'm just ready to be done here. I know I'll miss playing and ensembles and walking to the bar....... the standard college music major perks. I'm just ready to move on.

Anyway. Here's some pictures. 

One last cheesesteak before I hit the road.

The chicken for the jambalaya was heart shaped. Love, via chicken heart.

I think Wengert needs some sweaters. You can't tell because of the light but there's two more stacks to the left. I've never seen him wear any of these.