Christmastime is here....dum dum dum and cheer...

Today was my Christmas shopping day; yes, I do realize that Christmas is about 5 days away, yes, it is a little late.But, come on, I work three jobs. Give me a break, eh? I've been busy making the money for Christmas.Today was my day to not work ANYWHERE and go out and at least finish my family's presents. And I have, and I spent at least fifty dollars on everyone. At Least. And you know? I'm so happy about it.I think that buying presents with money that I worked hard for for people that I love is so cool. It's never been so real to me, as this Christmas; and I think everyone is going to love their presents.(Especially my sister, or at least, she better, I spent 30 bucks on a stupid shirt! that she really wanted... :))

Anyway. That was my night. It took me three hours (technically, like 4 and a half, but the hour and a half I spent wondering about the antique mall eventually only buying $34.98 worth of records, three, for myself.) which means I'm a pretty speedy shopper. But, everyone's gift is great, and I think even my brother will really like his.

And I wrapped everything really pretty. I like Christmas, I like Christmas a lot. Though, my mom doesn't, so sometimes I feel like my love for the holiday is kind of being cheesy and a fake; buying into something that is kind of dumb, and you shouldn't because it really isn't that big of a deal. But, I can't help it. I like it.I also, like most people, like my birthday celebrated. But all my life my mom feels more need to remind me that it was my dad's birthday first so not to get selfish because it's not just my day (which sometimes feels stupid, you know? I understand, but your birthday IS supposed to be just your day) and thinks that it's completely acceptable to give me a candy bar and some other cheapy stuff she found at CVS (like hair barrets or something you'd pick up at the grocery, one of those cheap DVDs with random cartoons on it that you see next to the tabloids at the check out) stick a candle in a swiss roll (that we can only have one each of, come on they're John Michael's lunch!) and call it a night. Welcome to being a grown up when it doesn't really matter anymore, she says.

Except, in my case, it's been a grown up world since I was about 10. I mean, there were a few brithdays when (through coaxing of my friends or myself) she made a bigger deal, had a party or something, but that's only been twice. It's not like I'm bitter, but sometimes I wish that things like Christmas or Birthdays were full of fond memories. Which, I'm not saying they aren't, but we don't have tradtitions or christmassy memories. Because it's just like every other day; just nothing's open, you give each other presents, we have to put up a stupid tree (like a week before) and we'll spend the whole day at my grandma's (who lives 5 minutes away, so that's weird for us) cleaning her house so our 2nd and 3rd cousins can come and eat this big dinner we all made. That's my mom's theory on the whole thing, we do it because we have to. And she'll be the first to tell me that.I never believed in Santa partially based on this theory.

I guess what I'm saying is: my mom is nice, but she doesn't care about Christmas too much, and I want to.

I want to make a big deal, and big dinner and decorate when I grow up. I want to have traditions with my family, I want to buy the family dog a present for a laugh not because it's so stupid but Hope'll be mad if we don't.One day, when I'm grown up, my mom'll like Christmas, because she'll be older and it won't be so much work. I'll make sure of that. I'll make sure that she learns to appreciate Christmas, even if it's a drag and so commercial.But until then, I'll just have to make the most of it, but putting more thought into everyone's gifts then I'm sure they've put in mine, and listening to Christmas music in my car, make the most of my mom kind of hating Christmassy things and the lack of Christmas-ness in our half decorated house.
My mom is always happy on Christmas though, so she has to admit, it ain't too bad.

-----Anyhow.I'm pretty excited that I got records today. One of which is my ABSOLUTE favorite Elvis Costello Album: This Year's Model; the man made some good stuff in the seventies. I also got: "A Beach Boy Party"!
Which is always a good time.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

All the things I should say, on a regular basis, and don't. Ie: my feelings.

Since the very first day of my high school career (well, possibly the second or third, my first day innocence probably gave me a brighter outlook on high school, but it didn't last long) I decided I was going to hate it, it was going to be the worst years of my young life, and it was going to be terrible. I have this tendency to think that if I ACT like I assume the worst, things won't be bad and I'll be "pleasantly surprised" and everything would be okay.

I won't say that high school was "terrible" completely. I didn't like it, I don't think it was a highlight of my life as of yet, but I wasn't unhappy all the time. I liked band sometimes, and I liked some of my classes a lot. I have a very few good friends that I made there, I had some laughs; Crazy days - good times you know what I mean. But none of the things that would be make it "okay" really existed. I didn't have a group of friends to sit with at lunch, I didn't go to junior or senior prom (I did go to prom one time though, but it didn't really count, becuase I just assumed I'd get to go again.) I didn't have a boyfriend. All these things I just assumed would happen, even if I was very firmly against something (ie-a boyfriend) I assumed things would fall into place. And then they didn't and I can't take it (not just the example above, lots of things, don't get me wrong) I don't understand it at all, I don't get why things didn't fall into place for me. And I guess, I shouldn't be worried about it. Because maybe it's just not the time yet. But I am worried, and I'm nervous, and I'm sad about it.

Let me clerify things a little though; I didn't let myself like anyone (and probably in turn, like me) in high school. I don't think I'm very attractive in the eyes of anyone, let alone the very very picky opposite sex (that was a generalization I don't necessarily agree with, but for the sake of what I'm saying, yeah) so I wouldn't want anyone ever to know that there was a possiblity of me having a crush on them. I had this idea in my head that there would be nothing but conversations behind my back like "Hannah? Really? I'm sorry, she's so pathetic." or "I could do so much better than her."

(In fact to briefly interrupt myself, I hate that a lot when people make a statement as such: "Did you see who Johnny Mark was dating? Yeah, Susie Cunningham. She's not even that pretty, he could do soooo much better." What if Johnny really liked Susie?! What if Johnny thought she was pretty, what if Johnny's aesthetic was slightly different that yours, or even the "norm"? And what is better, WHO is better, what does that mean? It just ripped at my heart. I feel that this was most likely because whoever I heard say this was talking about someone who I thought was profoundly more attractive than me, so if they weren't good enough for someone who's left for me? It feels kind of hopeless. You know? But, like always, I digress.)

I didn't want those things to happen, I thought it was a sure thing that they would. So if I totally eliminated the cause they couldn't happen, right? Wrong, and who knew they'd happen. You know what happens when you assume?* It was a stupid idea. Now I'm older and smarter, and a little more willing to try. But that doesn't mean that I'm succeeding because I'm not. When I was in high school I just blamed my lack of things on the fact that I'm a control freak and can't let things get too crazy. All in all, it caused me to kind of hate myself. I don't think like that anymore, I know the negative results of my actions, and still things aren't working out. And that's what's bugging me.

to be continued.

Shalom in the mall.

Last year Brenna left her wallet in the mall after they had closed and we had to go get it.I remember the night very well, we were getting sbarros and bringing it back to Andee's house to stay up late eating junk food and watching Anastasia. I think we all remember that night well, mostly because of things that happened later, not the missing wallet fiasco; but I remember the missing wallet fiasco.Brenna got out to her car and looked in her purse for her keys, she found her keys but she also found that her wallet was missing. She kind of freaked out a little about it, so I walked back in the mall with her and tried to calm her tears and torn nerves by helping her calmly retrace her steps, I remember distinctly saying something to Brenna that calmed her down, and it was about a little foreign man in a cute sweater.
I said:"Now, if you hadn't have left your wallet over on the other side of the mall then we wouldn't had a reason to walk through the middle, and if we hadn't have walked through the middle we wouldn't have gotten to see the beautiful boy at the kiosk!"
It was true, we wouldn't have.
But, like all good things, the little Italian disappeared and only the awkwardly hairy israeli men who accost you with head massagers remained. I didn't really pay attention to the kiosks after that.Avoided them like the plague, maybe, but give them other attention no.


The kiosks now are run mainly by Israelis; the same ones that used to be there, the loud ones, very foreign looking, with thick accents, chest hair and cologne. They come to the beanery and drop four quarters and a nickel on the counter wink and expect me to know what kind of coffee they like. I'm learning, but it was kind of annoying at first.There's one though, Boris, and he doesn't look like the rest (because, he's part russian); he's only about as tall as me, slender and has a lot of sandy blonde curls that he wears pulled back with a headband. I first came in contact with Boris last week when he took a fancy to me and asked to explain things like Bananas and Caramel to him. I'd get half way through an explanation and he'd say "I know that one! I know that one! Okay okay okay." in this thick slavic accent, and walk away. Only to come back 15 minutes later to stare at me until I had this attention then ask me what a frappalatte was.
This went on all night, and I was kind of weirded out by it. He was kind of hard to understand and I didn't really like all the attention, I felt like I was making him feel stupid or something, because he knew what everything was just not the words, I didn't know if I was giving him the answers he wanted. And Why didn't he ask anyone else?

The next time I worked he came and got coffee a few times, smiled at me but didn't accost me anymore. He would walk by every so often and say hello to any of us working; I could tell his job was boring, especially then, I mean, we were dead and we were a coffee shop, more people buy coffee than people buy remote controlled helicopters. FInally when it was just Dave (my manager) and I standing there I was introduced to him, He was Boris and he was from Israel, and he thought his job was very very "Boooring."
He asked me my name, "Hannah," I say.
"Hannah?! AHHH!! YOU ARE JEWISH!!"
He was very excited, he raised his hands above his head and everything."
Oh, no no," I say "I am Christian. And my family is mostly German."
"No Jewish? A name like Hannah!"
"Well, actually my mom's maiden name was Wolff, that's kind of Jewish, I think there is some jewish there."
"You Muh-zay-err?"
"Yes."
"YOU ARE JEWISH!!" He got excited again.

The rest of the night he would walk by and talk to me, about this and that, his boring job, how he was confused by america and english, about my glasses.
He also told all the other Israeli boys that I am the jewish girl at the coffee shop.
We're friends now. Boris gets excited to see me and asks me how work is. Today I decided I enjoy this a lot; Mostly Boris is adorable, but even more so, Boris is very attractive.Boris gets all smiley and asks for more coffee and says "ahh, Hannah, the Jewish one." And I smile and ask him how the skate shoes are selling. It's fun.
So now, whenever I think of the kiosks I think of my friend Boris, and how he likes me so much.



You know, because I'm jewish.

Mister Dude--part 1

When I was a freshman in high school, I fell "in love".
No, I didn't have any cheesy relationship with a immature 15 year old boy or anything, no. I didn't have a 'real' relationship at all. No, I had "Mister Dude".

The more I write that, the more I hate myself for coming up with something so ridiculously stupid, but oh well, that's what all the journals say.


A little background before the meat of the story:I changed schools halfway to mid terms the first semester of freshman year; I orginally started in a teeny private school, Heritage, where I had attended middle school. In a mess of catty girls and lack of confidantes I made the switch to real school, big bad public school. My entering freshman class shot from 14 to 500, it was more or less terrifying. Because of this massive life event, I was pretty much pissed at the world. I hated school, I hated my so-called friends, I hated life, I hated myself, my looks, the whole shabang. I would hate you, if I would've met you in this crucial time, hypothetically.I didn't like anything, I wouldn't like anything; I've later decided my problems with change stem from this little bit of my grandmother I have in me that makes me a little bit of a control freak. By control freak I mean, I control myself, it's the least I can do; I dont' want to control others or be IN control, but I want at least to have my own self under lock and key. I don't drink because of this, I have no desire, the idea of not being able to remember the night before is absolutely mortifying to me. This hatred spanned on most areas of my life. Except for one thing that I didn't hate about school : a senior boy I'd never talk to EVER, who I affectionately referred to as Mr. Dude.

I don't remember the actual day, I didn't write in my journal until after it had begun, I wish I had a thought process written down of when I first saw him, it would make this beginning much more epic, but alas, I don't. I can probably imagine it wasn't too epic. It never has been, he's never done anything great really, except for exist and be pretty, which has totally been enough for me; nothing fancy just attractive. I've looked at the journal entry where I first mentioned him many many times, it's nothing like entries mentioning him would later become, all I said was "Have I said anything about 'That Dude' [early incarnation of "Mr. Dude"] yet? Oh well, he's this guys I see in the tunnel [hallway that connected the two main halls, upstairs and downstairs, in my high school] and he's very very cute." Yeah, I wrote pretty boring back then, but it was a really big deal. Looking back on it at least, the first time I mentioned the boy/man I'd have a severe 'celebrity-esque' crush on for years, I'm not even kidding, years. I think it qualifies as a pretty pretty big deal entry, in the grand scheme of journal entries I've had.


That whole year I enjoyed the part of day (and by part I mean, like, two seconds --literally) that I'd get to walk past him. He was so smooth, and cool, everything about him. He had the best hair, the hair was the killer thing about him. This nice thick mop top that had these great flippy bangs that hung just over his eyes (and later I'd realize, huge dark eyebrows), it was a nice (dare I admit boring) light brown color and had the perfect shape and flip to it all the time. I'll freely admit, I more fell in love with the hair more than anything.


I didn't want to date him, I didn't even really want to talk to him, to tell you the truth. I mean, if that had ever (for some strange reason) happened, I probably wouldn't've complained, but that's not what I wanted. He was unattainable and I knew it, I wasn't heartbroken by it, I just accepted it and went along. I was out of his league, I was no where near his league actually, I mean in all honesty I wasn't even IN a league and he was in an elite one (that probably could feature semi-hipster twenty-somethings who were intellects and nature buffs, it was that kind of elite.) I was totally cool with that. I didn't want to meet him, I just wanted to look at him. It made me smile, sometimes on the outside, but mostly on the inside. If I was hating people too much (like, say, this kid named Andrew in my math class--freshman year, he was also in my computer class, two english classes, health, and pop culture classes over the course of my high school career, I never grew out of hating him though) or I had failed a science quiz, and was feeling just lame I would walk past him and my day would get miraculously okay for a few minutes. I don't think he could even imagine how much I enjoyed his presence; not because I was "in love with him" in some cheesy fourteen year old girl way, but in a comforting way, that even in the mess of things I despised for a few minutes I could look at something I didn't for a little while.


Now, no one but me and my notebook knew about this for a long time, I just didn't tell anyone, ever. I was embarassed, I guess, and I don't like people to know that I have shame(ful?)less crushes on people that I don't know. Because that's just weird, whether or not lots of people have crushes like that, it's weird and kind of creepy if you think about it. I didn't want to be one of those people (even if it's normal.) I just would write weird, semi-creepy entries about it. About how cute he was on whatever day, or how I sat across from him at a pep rally and could see him pretty well. It kept my mind off life, off my depression, off my awkwardness. And he was everything that wasn't bad in school, he was the cutest boy ever. Well, pretty much.It got to a point though, where I had to tell someone. The only problem was, I didn't have any someones at school, none. In fact I only had really two friends at the time. Jane and Brenna, who always HAD and always WILL be my someones, they're good and steady and strong friends like that. So the time came, and I told them. They knew about Mr. Dude, they'd never seen him, seeing they went to another high school and all, but they at least knew. I liked that, now I felt stupid, but people knew and they understood. It was a happy little secret, that I wanted to stay a secret, but I liked that I could talk about it. I dont' know, a girl thing I guess.


Nothing monumental happened in those months, I didn't meet him, we didn't become buddies or lovers or haters or anything. He (I'm hoping) didn't know I loved him (or seeing him) and I got along just fine when school started up again, and he wasn't there (being that he graduated.) I saw him once after the school year was done, I remember it well. We were driving home from the dentist, my mom and I, and we pulled up next to a jeep that was full of teenage boys with flippy hair. He was one of them. And that was that.I didn't really think about him much, there was always a special place in my heart, and the funny stories that could come out of my strange jounral entries about him still amuse me. I'd still think of him every so often and about how cute and all he was. No matter what I'll always have a little place in my heart for him and that hair. Passing in the tunnel, or sneaking peaks at him talking to (eventually my favorite teacher of my high school career) Mr. Poiry after school when I was at my trusty locker #322 in the Soc. Hall, (I had that locker for FOUR years, another one of my control things, I'm figuring) these memories made me always smile. But really, I didn't focus too much on the idea of him for the next three-ish years.

[to be continued next time...whenever I finish this vignette.]

Screw you and your stupid girlfriend.

I tried really really hard to be nice.
And, when you try extra hard to be nice, obviously that means you deserve to be treated like crap in return.
I'm not trying to be pathetic and sad.
But I really really really wanted to cry in my coffee tonight.


I hope she does hate you, asshole, because you didn't answer her phone call.
You deserve it.
Tonight sucked, I should've just gone home.

When a boy can't sit withing 5 feet of you, or have a conversation with you unless there are two or three other people around.
A boy who just 2 months ago could lay on the floor right next to you and listen to records for hours on end acts like he hates you.
It freaking sucks. Your. Ass.

Screw It all.
She was my friend first.
He was my friend first.
Screw the both of you.
I wish we would've just stayed where we were.
It was comfortable. I felt like we were friends.
I hate that I lost two friends in one swoop.


I hate that it's funny/fun to ditch me.




Shut up. Okay-please-thankyou.

Your mission, find Duran Duran!!

You're kind of like life partners.

A good one, for real this time.

I've had good friends before, I think.
But, not completely. I have forever been thinking of a friend like this.
One that I can just be with, and not get tired of them. Dare I wonder, if it is what love feels like. It is not that I love them, or am In love with them. I do love them, as a person, but not as a romantic counterpart, that isn't to be our relationship.
But that's kind of how imagine real love to be.
In fact, I am sure of it.


"True love ain't that hard to find, not that either one of us will ever know, can I lay here for awhile? Please, do not let me go

Dear collective population;
Please, stop ordering McDonald's food at Wendy's; it's annoying.
Please stop being jerky people, it's just not worth it, not even worth free crappy food.
I mean, come on now.
Specifically male portions: try and not look at my butt.
Look at my face, it's really not that bad. I'm lonely, but I'm not that lonely.
Specifically male portions that I'd be willing to fancy: appear.

Love, Hannah