Les vacances d'Avril.

One year ago today, I was about to board a plane to France.

On that plane, I sat next to Samm.

I sat next to Samm for 7 hours, took 1 roll of film, ate 1 coquette, the pudding stood alone, and our first baguette was dry as a bone and tasted like sand.

But it didn't matter, because we were wearing Sleepies and listening to airplane radio and playing with elbow rests and watching Cords.

We landed in Paris at 6 am, which felt like 10 am, and began the longest, yet possibly the best, day of our lives.

The Eiffel Tower is much bigger than you would imagine.

Natalie broke a glass at the Cafe Italienne where we ate lunch, and I don't think I stopped laughing from then on out.

We got yelled at by gypsies, I got bundt cake tossed in my hair by impatient French children waiting in line to walk through Notre Dame, we had a tourgide named Mandy who thought peasant was a synonym for pheasant, we frolicked in Dinard, ate 4 foot long baguette sandwiches and saved room for chocolate waffles, visited Le Mont St. Michel, bought some sailors, played endlessly with the sailors, spent lots of time in Tours, ate at Le Boucherie, toured beautiful castles and indescribable monuments, brought Natty back to life when she died at Versailles, went on a night train and slept like babies, experienced Cannes and Nice and Monaco in all their Southern French glory, and pretty much had the time of our lives.

It's hard to believe all of that was a year ago, because I feel like it was yesterday.

I'm leaving now, for another April vacation, this time to Florida, this time less European.

It's been 92 years...

Dear Rose, Director of Membership at Orchard Hills Athletic Club:

Although my fitness experience with you has been nothing less than satisfactory, I have decided to withdraw my membership.

Ever since I experienced a physically damaging blow to my left hand in Feburary of 2004, I have had neither the stamina nor the ambition to exercise of any kind.

Thank you for providing me with many fantasic experiences in exercise.

Sincerely,

Danielle Randall

Such went my letter of resignation, which was passed in today. I have offically thrown in the towel on my last attempt at physical fittness. 

For those of you who don't know Rose at Orchard Hills, she is the sweetest looking lady, and she knows it. Our conversation went something like this:

Rose: Are you positive about this, honey?
Me: Yes. Yes I am. I'm going away to school in the fall and am very busy at the moment, I just don't have time to come to your establishment.
Rose: But once you're in college you'll need to keep up the cardio...freshman 15 (insert laughs from Rose).
Me: Yes, well, if that happens, you'll be the first to know.

Confimation of enrollment to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst is in the mail. 

I'm thinking that this should feel like a weight being lifted off of my chest, but instead the thought forms a cannon ball in my small intestine.

In case you don't know, today marks the 92nd anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. If I could, I'd be watching Tape 1 right now.

Your subscription to Cat Fancy has been terminated.

Okay so I have officially consumed more ice cream in the past 2 days than I normally eat in a week.

This is not a problem. In fact, I see it as quite uplifting.

Today was interesting. Any day that starts off with Samm and I discussing UMass Male Escort services in AP Psych/Study (Which, by the way, is now officially taught by Coombsy, seeing as Ms. Bolarinho has officially bitten the dust) is bound to be amusing.

I then got to beat sticks together and on the stage, in rehersal for the Almighty Show Stopping Number that is Ugh-Ah-Wug. That's fun. Rhythmn sticks take me back to elementary school music class where Mrs. Dematis handed out instruments to play, and I always got mine taken away because I'd play it while she was talking.

Following rehersal, Jess, Bill, Kristina, Natale, and myself went Panera and spent a good 40 minutes in Market Basket debating which cake to purchase before deciding that nothing beats a pint of Ben and Jerry's, so we took the ice cream to the Blanchflower residence where we had fun.

Lots of fun. The kind of fun where Lovesquish releases a stream of obsceneties and ends them all with a threatening "So you'd better watch your butt, sister." 

Yes, friends, things like this are even more fun when you're a senior in high school.

Show me the meaning of haste.

Operation: Stalk the Shit Out of Luke: Completed.

For a more detailed synopsis, please see Kristina's journal.

I can sum up the evening in two words: Sweet Lord.

Aside from being thorouhly attracted to this Bard of a high school stud, my favorite part of the evening was by far Splash-Mountaining this Weston runner by driving through a 4 foot deep puddle at 50 miles an hour. She was appalled. And wet. But, hey, why would you ever run in the rain, in the dark, under bridges with giant puddles under them anyway? 

Oh, and by the way, their musical was outstanding. I find it hard to believe that one school can house a complete population of good looking AND talented students. Please.

One day I will be caught for all my crimes. All the jelly bean throwing, all the stalking...but you know what? They both make for extremely good stories in the end. And I'm glad we push the envelope of the law.

Let's just hope nobody from Weston or the FBI or the Boston Police Department/ Park Plaza Hotel Management reads this.

Hah.

Awesome.

So finals in Boston were incredible. Reminiscent of Mr. Fredd, I will outline the days by means of bullets.

-Saw the President of the United States' vehicle. No lie. He was there.
-Took pictures of secret service men and any odd pedestrian who may have been a "plain clothes" secret service man from the window of room 527.
-Found Lifesavers Pastel jellybeans in a 2 story CVS.
-Purchased said jellybeans.
-Embraced the fact that the window in our room opened wider than ANYONE else's window, and slept with it open, daring any pigeon to roost in our room whilst we were sleeping.
-Meandered around Boston in the morning, a truly magical city time. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Boston is the city that sleeps late and goes to bed early. Still, magical beyond all reason.
-Decided to challenge the law by disposing of the revolting green versions of the afore mentioned pastel jellybeans by tossing them out the window.
-Realized the window in room 527 overlooks the valet parking area.
-Hatian valet man comes up to Floor 5 of the Park Plaza and inquires as to who would possibly commit the crime of throwing UFOs out a window. We smile innocently and inquire as to what those out of control rascals were throwing. Hatian man produces a cracked, weathered, disgusting green pastel jellybean.
-Room 527 disposes of all evidence, and escapes any sort of criminal repremanding.
-We go and watch 4 billion plays. All of them well done. Many of them incomprehensable.
-Begin to stalk a very attractive boy named Luke Taylor. And I mean stalk in the most extreme sense of the word. We later come to the conclusion, after evesdropping and observing, that Luke Taylor is a constipated, theatre snob/stoner with a broken arm. Yet still very attractive. If you're interested in the footage, let me know.
-We wake up for tech rehersal at 6:30 AM. The first uttarance of noise aside from the evil that was the hotel alarm clock:
"WHERE is the SHEET?!"-Alison Rose Tully (BILL).
-I realize that the hand that is under my butt is not my hand, but the hand of Liz Itkowsky. Somehow we always manage contact even though we were sleeping on completely opposite sides of the bed.
-Entire group, including chaperones, gets admonished by a hung over, saggy eyed wench for speaking in the hallway while she was trying to sleep. At 12:30 PM. It's time to wake up, lady.
-We perform at 2:00 in front of an audience filled with the high school theatre elite. Many of them did not understand basic, in your face humor.
-Fortunately, wonderful people that I love who DO appreciate such humor came to see The Princess and The Princess enjoy it's last happily ever after. This made me very happy. And excited. Happy and excited.
-And finally, we end our magical run with Leeann and Natale recieving acting awards, and Katie getting recognized for the costumes, as well she should.

...And they all lived happily ever after.

Oh, bully sticks.

My mother bought Milo an unidentified cow part at PetCo today as a special little token of her undying love for him. It's stiff, and brown, and approximately 12 inches long, so we assumed it was a cow tail. By we I mean my mother, myself, and Samm the PetCo Employee.

Got home tonight, went online, while Milo lay beside me, happily chewing on his Bully Stick (tm). As the computer was logging on, I took notice as to how it was a bit disgusting to watch Milo chew on the petrified tail of a deceased cow.

So I finally get online, and begin a conversation with Samm, who informs me that she found out that what my mother purchased for our young puppy was not, in fact, a cow tail.

Oh no. What my golden retriever is munching on right now, happy as a lark in the glenn, is a cow penis.

A long, stiff, petrified, baked?, $5.00 cow penis.

Enjoy, Milo. Enjoy.

Why can't I be like you, Jack?

Grown up is such an odd phrase, and it had such a solid definition to me when I was little. When someone was grown up, they had a job, or they were married, or they lived by themselves, and were just older, in general. Only now I have no idea what constituted as a "grown up" to me back then. For all I know I might have considerded 18 to be equal in adult status to 35.

As far as what I want to DO with the rest of my life? Well when I was two, I wanted to be a ballerina, but by the age of 4 with a year of ballet lessons under my belt I realized that maybe I would just always have ballet as a hobby, because OBVIOUSLY being an actress was a much more stable career move. When I started kindergarten I developed such a crush on my teacher that I wanted to be just like her and teach kindergarten ALL the time. That ended when I was 6 and discovered that first grade was nothing more than a big disappointment. THEN I became penpals with Jan Brett (who, by the way, STILL sends me fliers advertising her latest books and stickers 10 years later. Enough is enough, Jan.) and that's when I wanted to become a pediatrician AND an author. Eventually seventh grade rolled around, and I had the amazing revelation that Katie Couric's job was probably the coolest one around, and that is what I focused my aspirations on throughout high school.

But now what? I've been really lucky to have the oppurtunity to work in a TV studio at school, act in school plays, and have some really amazing people as teachers. (Not so fast, Mr. Smith. I am certainly NOT referring to you. Ass.) I've really been inspired to do each of these things. 

There are days when I just want to go to college, get an education degree and minor in theatre arts so that I could become a Ms. Mastroianni and work in a high school and be loved by all these kids, and direct plays, because I see her at rehersal and in school and it seems that she is one genuinely happy person who likes her job and all of its benefits.

Sometimes I get ambitious. Sometimes I want to take a plunge into tv production  and do my best to stay above the competition and just believe that someday, eventually, I'd get to go to the Oscars.

And then there are those instances when I've just began rehersing for a new show or am really really enjoying myself when I just want to be extremely risky and just go out there and be in the right place at the right time and magically become an actress, and live the life that I have always been fascinated with. 

As much as my future is up to me, there is an equal measure of elements that are pure luck, and coincedence, and just simply a part of this master plan for my life that I am completely unaware of. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, and, in the end, everything works out the way it was meant to. So, with that said, I'm just going to keep pondering, and fantasising, and what-ifing, and whatever will be will be