So it’s this weekend that I’ll be moving away from home permanently, and next week I’m getting married. It seems like as the time approaches I’m nostalgically regressing through my childhood. I stopped by the high school one night and walked around. I drove down the roads I used to take riding my bike into town. I drove through Penfield and went by where we used to meet for Bible study and by where my first (and I would say only) obsessive crush lived.

This is the park where we used to skip study hall and hang out, here’s the music store where Eric and Dan would shamelessly try out every instrument.

Tonight I went to Wegman’s to get ingredients to make cookies, and I picked up some gummi bears from the bulk section like I used to for “splurge day.” In the checkout I saw my old friends Michelle and Mia. It was good to see them, we talked about what everyone’s doing, but it felt awkward. I feel awkward talking to lots of people though, so I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. It seems like there are lots of times where it would be appropriate to hug, but I can never tell when. I didn’t hug them.

I received a jury summons yesterday. I think it’s a good experience to have, and it’s important to do. But I got out of it because, you know, I’m getting married next week and I’ll live in a different state.

If you are from the Rochester area and read the Democrat and Chronicle, you may have noticed their infatuation with a certain Teddy Geiger. Well I made a little cartoon I’m submitting to their “local ‘toon” section. Let’s hope it’s printed, WORD UP?

I was driving on I-90 on the way home from New Jersey, and there was a sign in the rest stop bathroom: Wash your hands. It’s the law. This is news to me.

Crap, this is so depressing.

So I figured you saw what it said, but what is there to do, right? I was at someone else’s house once and saw the same thing. I was thinking I was glad it wasn’t me, more than I was shocked. I wish it wasn’t an issue, but people try to stop all sorts of things that happen naturally, and it doesn’t always work out.

I saw a guy in fairport today, I think he was homeless. He was dressed in a dark winter coat, jeans and a knit winter cap. What I admired most about his outfit, though, was the safety goggles.

This is what I overheard the workers say at Panera bread:

Some girl: “See, my problem is I don’t have a problem being pregnant.”

Manager: “Fertile Myrtle.”

So I recently read Nickel and Dimed, which is a book where Barbara Ehrenreich trys to live on a minimum wage, or essentially, to see if it’s feasible for those “less fortunate” to survive. It made me think about this summer. I moved down to Philadelphia, and I applied for a few different jobs, and nothing was coming through. I was starting to get in rough shape so finally I just put out applications everywhere for any place that was hiring. I got a job at Salad Works. I made $6 an hour, and I worked there for 3 (2?) days. The reason I wasn’t there long is because someone finally got back to me about one of my other applications. I was hired by a marketing company to play guitar and sing children’s songs, for a ridiculous amount per hour.

I went to Salad Works one last time because I was scheduled, and I told them I had another job so I was going to quit. They said I could just go instead of working the scheduled shift. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me but I felt bad for saying I would take the job and then wasting their time training me, so I said I was sorry for leaving, and that I wouldn’t be doing it except this new job was paying me x amount of dollars. One of the workers looked up when I said that, and I felt like an idiot. Whether he believed me or thought I was full of shit, I still feel bad. Because there are people there who could never land the kind of job I had. They just aren’t in that position. So I had my “rock bottom” experience and worked a crappy job, but went on to work 5 weeks that paid off my entire summer+. I don’t know what to say about it.

So I’m in New Jersey looking for apartments, and with any luck Kelly will be driving by a little street called “Manlove Avenue” every day. That’s not some kind of weird innuendo, there’s a street right by one of the apartments I visited that’s called “Manlove Avenue.”