I basically did nothing at work today

Basically nobody was there, so in total I did about two hours of work. A partner showed up at almost 4 p.m. I helped her solve a furniture location problem in her office. I did a ton of research on thread-counts of sheets (synopsis: more is better). Wrote out menus for meals. Made a grocery list based on those. At one point, when literally nobody else was there, I did about a half hour of yoga.

It's not exactly clear why I was told it was necessary to come in today. Basically everybody else managed to take this week off. I wonder if people lied about being away this week to get out of work.

My sister is having an identity crisis. I am low on sympathy. I am a bitter bitch. This is sort of an extreme example, but you never hear of someone starving in Ethiopia having an eating disorder. My sister has this luxury of freaking out because she's been spoiled. So minimal sympathy. This is why having three siblings is good - because the other one listens to her whine when I won't.

Josh gave me a Christmas present that ... I don't quite understand. He was very excited about it - something about getting through the airports, security and background checks? I have conquered the bedding thing and these days I begin the search two months ahead of time, and once Josh agrees he likes what I picked, he tells his mother that's what we want (I think). Still don't understand why it needs to be replaced each year but I've given up and just accepted this is how they do life.

Crossing over

I've become one of those people. As of tonight, I have my own iPad. Josh knows me well - he knew I'd never let him give me one of those new, top of the line ones. So he got a new one, and offered up a hand-me-down iPad that used to be his. 

As of right now, I've spent three hours playing on it. Danielle asked if she could play on the iPad, and I wouldn't let her. Maybe tomorrow. Or next week. In May. I love it, and want to take it behind the gym bleachers and have its babies.

Josh takes his everywhere, all the time. School, gym, vacation, friends' houses, everywhere. If he takes his messenger bag there, his iPad goes too. I of course, am way too paranoid to think of taking it anywhere, and in fact looked for good places to hide it in my bedroom. Dani pointed out that it's because Josh wouldn't hesitate to buy himself a new one in an instant if he lost it. Whereas I may have yelled at Dani not to breathe on it too harshly.

The good times definitely rolled

The first thing to know is that we didn't stay in the French Quarter. I thought we should and would, but Josh had other ideas, and we stayed at this weirdly named place. International House Hotel. In what way is it international? How can it be a house and a hotel? But it was fancy and pretty and fun to stay at. They have a spa. They double-booked the appointment Josh made me so they gave me a new one and a free pedicure.

We went to Zea Rotisserie twice - it was that good. It was in the warehouse district, and we wandered around a lot, looking at the houses.  I wanted to go to Cafe du Monde and Josh didn't - he'd heard it was just okay. But there was a day where he wanted to go on some haunted house tour thing and I didn't, so we split up and I went alone. Josh had good information; it was just okay. I was embarrassed to admit it. We also ate at Lilette and all I can say is, there is a lot of experimenting to be done at home in the kitchen now.  Josh heard something about bread pudding being really good, so we tried to find the best place. Brennan's and Court of Two Sisters won.

Although food was a big focus, we didn't wander around just stuffing our faces.  We pretended we like real music and went to Preservation Hall. Music you think you won't like always sounds better when you hear it live. We hung out in Jackson Square at night, looking at all the photos. I dragged Josh back during the day too. There was a dinner cruise thing, on a steamboat which was really fun. There was a streetcar along St. Charles that we rode on. We went into almost all the shops on Magazine Street - that's where I got my sisters presents.

It was so much fun. The more time we spent, the more things I found out about. Now I want to go back to do all the things we ran out of time for. The whole dynamic of Josh discovering things at the same time as me was so cool. He wasn't leading me around telling me about everything; we were figuring out stuff together.

Sweet relief

I made a peach cobbler this morning, in celebration of Josh and his parents coming home. Then we cleaned their house top to bottom and put fresh eggs, cream cheese, lox, milk and fruit in the fridge, bagels on the counter, flowers on the entry table, and took a cab home.

Every time we stay at Josh's parents' house I am always nervous. What if I forgot to clean out the toaster? What if one of my sisters broke something and didn't tell me? The thought that they'll come home, find something, and hate me, call up screaming, terrifies me.

Josh got home at dinner time, and it was the middle of the night for him. When I asked what he wanted, he thought about it for a minute. "Shower, you, food, sleep, in that order." So I made Breakfast-for-Dinner while Josh showered. Found a grill pan (probably something Josh stole from his parents) and grilled peaches (I am a little obsessed) to serve with french toast and blueberries.

We ate in bed, all four of us, while Josh told us about his trip. I sent my sisters out with the dishes to clean up and now that I am about to go to sleep, Josh will probably get up in a couple of hours because he's on Israel time. I am so happy.

Not much accounting

So I don't really get to do any accounting. It kind of bums me out, but on the other hand I kind of get it. I mean, some of these companies pay like tens of thousands of dollars for the accounting work, and they'd probably be pissed off to find out someone without a college degree, let alone someone who hasn't passed the CPA exam, is working on their stuff. I work with a bunch of auditors. When I told Alex she said, "I don't know what that means but it sounds even more boring than accountants!"

I spend a lot of time filing shit, putting papers in date order, giving stuff to people, asking questions for people, gathering lunch orders, placing lunch orders, picking up lunches, distributing lunches. It's a good thing I don't have an eating disorder!

Some people are cool with explaining the papers they're giving me to put in order. Some either don't have time for it or don't think of it I guess. I like when they explain what I'm doing though - it makes it easier the next time there's work for that person. If I ever have any sort of assistant, I'm totally going to take the 30-45 seconds to explain a tiny bit of what's going on.

It seems like there are like, stereotypes? For what interns do. I think some people have watched The Devil Wears Prada a few too many times. Nobody has tossed their coat at me (well, it IS summer) or told me like, "There's a good Chinese restaurant I enjoyed; make me a reservation." One guy did ask me to go to Papyrus to get him "a mushy birthday card" for his girlfriend. That was a little weird. So I picked out one I'd want to get. He gave me a $10 bill. Those cards are really expensive! When the cashier gave me back the change I counted it and she was 14 cents off in the store's favor. It was so nice to finally use some accounting skills for work!

Happy chanukah, now leave

Josh and his parents (and some of their friends) are leaving tomorrow for their vacation. So we had the parents over for a going-away brunch of bagels and lox. I don't know if a going-away brunch is a real thing, but we proposed it and they came. Early this morning I spent some time cutting melon and pineapple into dreidels and stars of david. Considered trying to do a menorah but knew it wouldn't come out well and I'd just wind up angry about throwing out food, so didn't bother. For dessert we got jelly donuts.

We'd agreed to exchange presents today and it felt weird, like cheating almost, to open Christmas presents before Christmas. I held back two little gifts for my sisters so they'll have something to open on Sunday. It was really touching that Laurie got Christmas wrapping paper - I know she got it specifically for our presents.

At the last party at her house Laurie discovered a red wine stain from a bottle and quietly told me that always happens and it drives her nuts. So I bought Laurie these fancy wine coaster thingies. I got two - one for white, one for red. She seemed to like them - so did Josh's dad - but Laurie's also super polite and it's hard to be sure.

It seemed like they had somewhere else to be. Josh's dad kept looking at the time. He did it so much that it made me anxious and after a while I just wanted them to go already and stop worrying about being late to whatever their next obligation was.

We got our new bedding. I was prepared this time, and smiled and said thank you. There's a sheet that's blue and altogether, it looks pretty good. I made Josh ask his parents if our old bedding could be donated. So now it's sitting in a box and tomorrow me and my sister will bring it to a firehouse for them to give someone who needs it. So it's okay now.

Happy at home, disappointed in being surprised

Josh got up early this morning and did all our laundry before we left so we came home with clean clothes. It was the first time he did laundry all by himself without even asking me any questions. We packed up our presents and got to the airport without having to rush through. It was hard to remember how cold it is here, and when we saw other people lugging heavy coats onto the plane I was glad we had the luxury of not taking them with us.

I had figured Josh would have arranged a car to pick us up at the airport since that's how we got there. I hadn't figured he'd have arranged for my sisters to be in it. He hadn't figured it would make me cry. While we were in Florida I pushed so hard to not miss them and not feel bad they weren't also there, and when I saw them with their shit-eating grins at the airport it all slammed back into me.

We went home and I gave my sisters their presents. Danielle loved that she got something nobody else could have since hers was personalized by an astronaut. Josh was surprised the house wasn't trashed and we didn't see evidence of anything having gone wrong. I was disappointed that he was surprised. He tried to tell me it wasn't personal to Danielle and Al, that it's standard for any high schooler to throw a party when they're home alone, but it still stung. I was impressed they had money left over but Alex told me they ate breakfast for dinner a couple of nights, plus Laurie had them over a couple of times. I guess those, coupled with leftovers from fire family dinners meant they didn't need to buy as much.

It was so good to be home even though I had a lot of fun. It was so good to be able to walk out of our home and walk places. It was so good to touch my sisters, to see more people I know than just Josh, to know how to get places again.

Kind of sad to be back to the grind of school and work, back to the freezing cold, back to wearing boots instead of flip flops, but so happy to be back with my sisters. They put chocolates on our pillows, to ease us back into the harshness of non-vacation life.

It's MY home

That cashmere pillow for Alex was a huge hit. It was so much fun giving it to her. I think Danielle was kind of jealous.

It didn't occur to me until this weekend but when we lived with Aunt Elaine it didn't feel like our home. I felt like an unwelcome guest in someone else's home. Hosting guests is a huge part of what makes it feel like your own home. We've been out a year and a half and sometimes it still feels like we're getting over having lived with her. I can't even imagine how hard it is and how long it takes to get over having been really homeless. It's like post-dramatic stress or something.

I was upset about not getting to do Thanksgiving, and during finals I asked Laurie and John if they'd come over for a Christmas dinner. Figured they wouldn't be planning to do their own. They agreed to come over for Christmas, even though they are flying out of the country tomorrow. Josh asked if we had to eat ham for Christmas and said that would be too weird, so I told him to figure out something else and I'd make that, and figure out stuff to go with it.

Josh decided he wanted some kind of seafood and steak theme. I knew right away this was the best excuse to make lobster bisque en croute. At that point it seemed like I should just go full-steam ahead and do beef wellington also. Danielle wanted to make popovers, and we made Josh get the fancy butter that has salt in it to go with them. Cesar salad with baby shrimps tossed in to stick with the seafood theme.

I started making a roux before figuring out what to do with it and began to panic. Then I realized it could be for creamed spinach and felt much better. The idea of having wasted food really threw me off for a while and I needed to take a break. So I went out to wander around trying to find a good dessert. Decided on pear cobbler and baked apples.

It was really fucking good, even though one of the wellingtons was a little overdone (it was the last one taken out). It was also pretty funny when Laurie called to ask what she could bring and Josh told her to bring the wine. You know, because we're not old enough.

It's beginning to look ...

I spent a lot of money this week, on cabs and flowers and eating out and drugstore stuff and presents. Since November I have been trying to save extra money for Florida - I need to get my sisters presents and want to do something nice for Josh while we're there if I can figure out what there is to do, maybe take him out to a nice lunch or something.

Tomorrow we are going ice-skating in the frigid cold and then after that I am not spending any extra money at all until Florida.

My aunt doesn't celebrate Christmas, except for eating some of the Christmas foods and watching Miracle on 34th. So on the first Christmas Eve living with her, my sisters and I went for a walk to look at all the lights, and for the first Christmas morning when we lived with her, I made Mickey Mouse pancakes and plopped the plate on the table, merry Christmasing my sisters. We laughed at seeing them plop from the drop and that was pretty much it. We got Lisa Frank stationery and hand-me-down clothes from fire families, and just dealt. And it was okay. I mean, it sucked - don't get me wrong. It totally sucked. But not because of the stuff, because we missed our people.

Maybe it was just because my mom and nana weren't too into doing tons of stuff for Christmas. We had lights to put around the front door, and the front windows, a wreath for the front door. We didn't do a Christmas tree because my mother felt like a real one was cruel and we didn't have the space to store a fake one. They cooked a lot, and my nana played old-lady Christmas music, and there were always a lot of random people around at Christmas for dinner slipping me candy or quarters or sips of their wine when nobody was looking. We did one present for each of us, from each of us.

On one hand I am sad for people who are too poor to celebrate Christmas with trees, decorations, presents, fancy hams and everything else they want. On the other hand though, it bothers me a lot to think of people who actually go into debt for Christmas and get so wound up in giving presents and candy and all that.  People go places like the Container Store to buy tons of ... well, containers to store all their decorations that are only used for a month or two each year. That people go nuts trying to create their Christmas dream instead of just telling their family, "You know, we're going to skip it this year."

Of course each of my sisters are getting Christmas presents from me, but I refuse to go nuts. Even if I were a billionaire I don't think there'd be a tree that reached to the ceiling with expensive ornaments and hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of gifts. Though I might be tempted to do some fancy food stuff.

We have a white tabletop tree from Borders, and a string of blue lights. We tied silver string around those chocolate coins for Hanukkah and tied them like ornaments to the tree. So not really, but it's the most Jewish-friendly Christmas tree it could possibly be. I like that the tree fits in a corner of the top shelf of a closet (next to the electric menorah) that would otherwise be empty, and we can eat the chocolates each year.

I made snow(wo*)men, winter, snowflake and Hanukkah and Christmas sugar cookies and eggnog ice cream today. Josh looked over my shoulder when I was putting the cookies on the tray to go into the oven, and he separated the Hanukkah ones from the Christmas ones, saying it felt sacrilegious. I did the cookies by hand with a knife though, so they don't look that great. After separating out the winter ones that came out best, I put those aside to give Laurie and John.

*Alex was offended by the idea of snowmen, so we gave ours bows on their heads and called them snowwomen.

It's beginning to look a lot like Chanukah

Conveniently, Josh recently complained that he really wants long-sleeved t-shirts but can't stand shopping. It was so exciting to know exactly what to get him. After school today I met up with Alex and we got three shirts from Aeropostale and a hat for Josh. While we were there I got a bag and a bunch of socks for Danielle. Then on Friday I am going to get two more at Hollister.

Last night when I got home from my fire family dinner, Josh asked if I would make him Chanukah desserts. Sure, except ... no idea what that means. I was envisioning plain sugar cookies in Chanukah shapes with blue and white icing on them. Josh couldn't tell me exactly what he wanted. Guess I'll ask Laurie if she knows what he means, and if she doesn't, then I'll just make a few different things to try them out. Alex suggested blintzes, but I'm not sure that counts as a dessert.

Space

Some of our best conversations are in the bathroom. While I'm in jeans and a bra doing my hair and Josh is sitting on the bathtub ledge. While he's shaving and I'm sitting on the hamper he insisted we needed. Tonight I asked why Josh never wants to come to fire family dinners. Once he joined us when it was my favorite family, and another time it was when we said they had the best food, and a basketball hoop in the driveway. Turns out he likes the quiet when we're all gone. Turns out we all have big, intense personalities and Josh needs a break. I asked if we should be quieter. No, he likes us how we are. Josh just welcomes the quiet change once a week.

That's what he says. I did not ask why he often has friends over in that case, when we come home. For the record though, I do want to point out that he does. Loud friends too, who make a mess in the kitchen and living room and lay around the couch and floor smelling like smelly boys while they scream at the tv. 

Danielle announced that she wants to move out for college. She's angry that she can't. To protest, her response to everything is either "this place sucks" or starts with "when I move out..."  I have a feeling somebody may get slapped across the face pretty soon. Dani also said she wants to go somewhere that she won't be in the minority like she is now. We are having a lot of arguments about college lately. They are always the same, so I wrote them out, numbered each of my responses and gave the list to Dani. Now when she starts in, I just yell out "Two!" and it saves me a solid 20 minutes.

There is a girl whose dad is a fireman, and she is 13 like Alex. She's in 8th grade though, and much bigger. Sometimes we get clothes from her. Yesterday they dropped off a bag and there was a JCrew cashmere sweater buried in the middle of the pile. It has a big cigarette burn in the arm and I have a feeling the girl's parents don't know about the burn or that she tucked the sweater in the giveaway bag for Alex. Of course the sweater was immediately tried on, but the hole is SO glaringly obvious and plus it doesn't fit Alex the right way. Her body isn't wide enough for it. That doesn't matter though. It is cashmere and from JCrew, so Alex slept with it last night and loves it, and has promised to dig it out of the trash if I throw it away.

So now I am thinking I should try to get back to sewing, and hack up the sweater and make it into a pillow. Then Alex really CAN sleep with it, and it'll look awesomely creative. If I can do it, it'll make a good Christmas present. I could hack off the cigarette arm to be thrown out, and hack off the good arm to fashion into a pocket, and all I need to find is the right sized pillow. Going to have to research some stuff - this would be easier with a regular fabric. Oh and figure out how to get the sweater away from Alex since she's trying to keep it from me.

Because 13 is special

The problem with being angry with someone for an extended period of time is that eventually something comes up where you have to stop being angry at them for some reason. Then you have to decide if you should skip whatever came up, which possibly ruins the friendship or if you're ready to let the anger go or at least put it on hold. These are hard decisions.

Alex turned 13 a little while ago, and a few days before her birthday I found out she asked Josh if she was "going to get to turn 13." Maybe it was an accident, but it totally attacked my guilt and kept me up late at night. For ages Alex has wanted to go to a Broadway show. Actually she wants to go to them on a regular basis. She has this big fantasy that when she's an adult one weekend a month she will go to the opera, another weekend will be for the ballet, another for a Broadway show, and the fourth for museums.

When Laurie called to say she and her husband wanted to do something special for Alex's birthday I told her about the Broadway dream. It is very, very weird to hear a grownup woman squeal with excitement, and it made me laugh. Laurie wound up getting Alex three tickets to a matinee showing of Wicked. Danielle's friend from geek school has a totally cute little Maltese dog named Blossom that she was willing to lend us for the weekend.

Saturday morning Danielle picked up Blossom and her food and stuff and when she was outside the door, I jumped on Alex's bed and yelled that it was just for her birthday weekend. Right when she was trying to figure out what I was talking about, Dani came in and put Blossom on Alex's bed. It was not at ALL weird to hear Alex squealing. Blossom was the best birthday present EVER. We had so much fun with her. I wish we celebrated Alex's 13th birthday every weekend.

While we were sitting on the floor having the dog run back and forth between us, I told Alex about Josh's mom giving her tickets for Wicked and said she could take two friends. Alex asked if she could take us instead of friends and Dani beamed at me. In that moment I was tempted to tell Alex that I couldn't go because I didn't have the Gap dress I wanted to wear, but I bit it back. I know that some people wear gowns and furs and others wear jeans to Broadway shows, but I felt like since you're in front of real people who can see you, the right thing to do is dress up.

Josh babysat the dog while we went to the show. Wicked was awesome. Alex had a shit-eating grin on her face through the whole show. We were in the front center section, in the middle - basically, perfect seats. After the show we went over to the stage door and when a few performers came out Alex went up and said it was her birthday present and thanked them. They made a big deal of it and gave her big hugs and autographs and she talked about her school with them. Two actors asked her to wait and they gave out autographs and took pictures with tourists, and then when nobody was left asked if she wanted to see backstage.

So we all three got to go backstage and Dani and I stood around waiting while they showed her around and then took her out onto the stage. Honestly, I think Alex could have been struck by lightening right then and she would have died happy. We were there for almost 20 minutes and these two actors were so nice to Alex, talking about what experience they have and where they went to school for it and everything. This is exactly the kind of reason why New York is the best place to live.

Not that girls are better or anything

Josh has a lot of friends. So many that it has made me realize how few I have, and how not-close I am with them. This bothers me a lot. I'm mostly a nice girl - why don't I have any friends? Yes, I use my sisters as substitute friends, and the gap they leave I force Josh to fill. But that's not enough. I need to really work on this. Sometimes I have dreams where my sisters are away (like at college or something) and Josh proposes and I turn to tell someone who will jump up and down and scream with me, but there's nobody standing there, and I wake up really upset. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, Josh has a lot of friends, and another one is visiting Manhattan and he asked if she can stay here for the weekend.

She arrived last night from Vermont with real maple syrup, and a huge tin of cherries that she "picked up at a roadside market on the way to the airport!" We took her out to the Meatball Shop for dinner, then I went home with my sisters while she and Josh went out. It was a little funny telling her to have fun with my boyfriend.

This morning when I got up she'd made three different kinds of blintzes that were really good. We are meeting up for lunch after I finish work. Danielle was right - she is totally the anti-Andre.

Welcome home

When I got home from work Josh was in the kitchen and he kind of gave me like a shy smile before he took my bag and leaned in for a hug. It was almost like as soon as we touched it made me miss him so much. There was like a little emotional roller coaster of "Holy shit I missed you so much" immediately followed by "Holy shit I'm so glad you're back."

Josh brought Alex pretzels from the airplane and some real stuff for us too. He is all tan and relaxed. When Danielle was going to bed she told Josh, "It was really good to have a break from you but I'm happy you're home now." I'm glad he's home now too.

Off day

I'm totally feeling like Ice Cube right now, that's how good a day it was. Didn't wake up until 10:23 this morning. Then? Did I rush to shower and get dressed and grab breakfast to get out of the house in 25 minutes? No. I. Did. Not.

I went to lay on the couch and watch an hour of MTV. Have you seen Jersey Shore? Those are the types of people I go to school with. Then I made a bunch of blueberry pancakes and another bunch of banana pancakes. The banana ones were better, so I left the blueberry ones for somebody else to eat. I may have made a banana milkshake to have with my banana pancakes too.

Josh and I went to work out together. I never went to the gym with a boy before. It was kind of fun even though we didn't use the same machines a lot of the time. There was bubble bathing today. It was the second bath I've taken since moving in here. Right after I'd gotten in the water Josh poked his head in, told me I forgot something, and came back with a towel to put behind my neck. Soooooo good.

After the bath (which I really need to do more often) Josh and I played Wii for a while until my sisters got home. He asked if we wanted to go ice skating so I changed into real clothes and we went to Rockefeller Center. Then we had appointments at Bliss Spa - I was able to get pedicures for me and my sisters with the gift card Arnie gave me. Josh got one too, which Alex thought was hysterically funny, which all the spa people thought was hysterically funny.

When it was over I was about to put my socks back on when I realized they were all gross and sweaty from ice skating, and I felt bad, like I was about to ruin all that pedicuring that just happened. Josh pulled out four pairs of socks for us and I was like "Thank god for having a fancy boyfriend who knows how to do fancy people things properly!"

Then we went out for chinese food at the most fancy chinese place I've ever been to, so thank goodness Josh told us to dress nicely when we were leaving for ice skating (and said he was paying). Then we came home and made a slew of eggnog and ginger based cookies and brownies.

I ate a ton today. It will be a miracle if someone can roll me out of bed tomorrow, but it was sooooooooo worth it!

Work gives PRESENTS!

The diner never did this! Today was the holiday party at work. I wore my dress from when I graduated high school with a long sleeve black shirt underneath. Josh told me most people get a new outfit for something like this and I should at least have some summer dresses and some winter ones but he told me this last night when I was getting ready for bed so it wasn't like I could go try to find something. Plus that just seems silly to have dresses for different seasons. Josh told me I'm wrong, to ask his mother.

The holiday party wasn't just the office I work in but all the companies on the floor. I had to meet with one of my teachers and got to the party like a half hour after it started because I also had to change my clothes in a bathroom first. The woman who coordinated came up when I walked in and let me know she told the bartender I am 21. I went to the bar but then didn't know what to ask for so I asked him what other people were drinking. He kind of looked me up and down and then told me, "You want white wine. You don't want to spill red wine on the dress." After I had my drink I noticed a lot of other people were also drinking white wine so it was nice he didn't lie to me.

It was more fun than I thought it would be. I don't know why I was so nervous but it was great. There was a pumpkin soup that was really good and I want to learn how to make, and amazing cheesecake for dessert. It turns out that the rule is at work parties you never talk about work. You talk about everything aside from work. When I was about to leave Arnie came over to walk me out. He gave me an envelope and told me to take off tomorrow and Saturday as part of my end-of-year bonus. "I get an end of year bonus?!" Arnie smiled and told me to get home safely.

In the envelope was a card that he wrote on saying I am doing a great job and he's so glad I agreed to work with him and to have a relaxing weekend. Inside the card was also a check for $300 and a giftcard thingie to a fancy spa. I'm going to double check in the morning but I think it's enough to take my sisters and all three of us can do something.

I wondered to Josh if I'm supposed to give Arnie a holiday present now since he gave me one, but Josh was very firm in saying nothing but a heartfelt thank you note. That you never give the boss a holiday present. You only give people who work under you. Josh has never had a real job in his life, but he seemed so certain.

P.S. For the last few weeks I have really pushed to get to bed by midnight every night. Sometimes I don't quite make it, but except for the last week (finals) I have at least started getting ready for bed by midnight. I don't feel any more well-rested or anything in the mornings. But I noticed that if I don't get into bed by 12:30 then if I try to get up early I'm like super sluggish and crash in the afternoon.

Tomorrow I am sleeping really late and already left a note for my sisters saying I don't have to work tomorrow and they shouldn't wake me up.

Presents are always fun?

Except when you have to figure out what to get for people who already have everything. Josh asked me a few days ago if I would go with him to pick out presents for my sisters. When I said yes, he said I wouldn't be happy with where he wanted to go and made me to promise not to give him a hard time. I couldn't figure out where he could possibly want to go. A sex toy store? What could he want to give my sisters that would be upsetting?

Oh of course. I'm sure the salespeople at Tiffany have never seen any girl so disinterested in being in their store before in their lives. Josh got each of them a necklace and a keychain. I am not going to gross you out with how much he spent, but I will just say that it was more than I pay in a month's rent. And that's not even all he got them - Josh got Danielle a messenger bag and matching Juice Couture scarf, hat and gloves. He's giving Alex a pair of Uggs that are slightly less ugly than their regular Uggs and pajamas (that I also think are ugly but know Alex will love). Josh feels that we all have to have eight presents since we are celebrating Hanukah.

So he said his parents are getting each of us at least two presents (each), which means I'm supposed to give my sisters two presents so they'll have eight for Hanukah, and then also give them Christmas presents? Plus I am supposed to give Josh eight presents, and each of his parents eight presents? Oh holy night! I think my voice got a little shrieky and hysterical when we were talking about it, but Josh said no, I can get his parents one present for the two of them - kids don't have to give grownups eight presents, and that his parents will give him eight so I can just give him one.

It is hard learning a whole other religion plus all their rules for it. I have a better appreciation for what Josh has gone through trying to live with me and my sisters. Josh's parents are throwing a Hanukah party tomorrow night that we are going to, and I am bringing his mom an aloe plant because when I called today to ask what to bring she happened to mention burning her hands from frying food.

Josh begged me to make potato latkes so I'm going to make homemade apple sauce to go with them. Plus I'm giving Josh these pretzels his mom said he likes. I have no idea what to give his dad. When I asked Josh he was no help telling me, "He's a regular dad - he likes dad things." Um hello? Product of a single mother? Alex suggested ties and aftershave but Josh shook his head. "We're not a commercial!" This is outrageously hard. I told Josh to figure out something under $20 and just tell me what to buy. I am totally spending a ton more than I ever have. I don't think I can afford to celebrate both holidays gift-wise. It makes me too nervous to spend so much.

The Jewish Christmas

Today I went to Target with Josh's mom and we got a white Christmas tree and some other jewish-friendly decorations.

It's on the smaller side which is good, because there's space on a shelf in the closet where we can keep it the other 11 months of the year. A few nights ago my sisters and I stayed up late to make a list of all the Christmasy things we want to do for Christmas now that we can do pretty much whatever we want.

The Christmas tree is in the corner in the dining room with blue and white lights and a jewish star of david on top. Josh was kind of amused by the whole thing and said he'll be expected potato latkes on the first night of Channukah. I am pretty good at cooking, but am not exactly qualified to cook jewish foods.

One bag just for presents

Josh got back very late Monday night. That was good. I was working both jobs Tuesday. That was bad. Josh walked me to work and then came to meet me for lunch. That was good. At the diner an older woman got in a fight with another woman and I had to call the cops. That was bad. In all the busyness and excitement I forgot to eat. That was hungry. Josh came by at the end of my shift even though it was the middle of the night his time, to take me to a fancy hotel for dessert. That was excellent. Laurie is so happy Josh is back and can distract the grandparents from focusing on her. That is funny. The apartment thing is still not resolved. That is very bad. Josh is going today and tomorrow morning to look, said he will narrow it down to two and then bring me to say which one I like better and he refuses to tell me how much the total rent is. That is different. I am so fucking ecstatic Josh is finally back; it feels like it's been longer than one month. That is totally happy.

Still Five Months Left

People are already discussing their graduation presents. So far I haven't heard anyone say they're getting boob implants. Mostly the kids who don't have an iPhone are aiming for that. The ones who already have one are aiming for a big trip somewhere.

People are getting excited and already buying stuff for their dorms even though only early decision acceptances have gone out. One girl told me her parents rented extra storage space for all her college stuff.

I don't belong here. Not with these people. I feel numb when people get all excited about college. Some friends aren't going of course. They are excited anyway. To rent a house on the Jersey Shore for the summer. Or to move to Miami. Nobody's goal is to move to Brooklyn with their dumb little sisters. To spread their mother's stuff out all over the house.

No joke, I heard two girls talking about how they already told their mothers they will only call home once a week after they've moved to college. I can't even ... I want to talk to her fifty times each day.