I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. My mind is running around like an airplane in holding pattern because of some huge storm. Just like the storm I just rode my bike through. The lightning is flashing through my head with thoughts of God. As in “thank you God! I don’t think I could have gotten home in heels, with a purse, all in black, as a white girl, without a light, good breaks or a helmet from northern ghetto philly by my own self alive without you.” Or should I say “Why am I still here God? Wasn’t this supposed to be my last night in Philly forever?” Or am I supposed to have a sour taste of Philly forever in my mouth. The summer was so sweet with dinner parties and bars and drinks and fun and traveling and sex. Now in one night it has turned sour with bad moods and soberness and ditching me and not caring whether or not I bought the pita, made the hummus, bought the beer, am leaving tomorrow… It’s more convenient other ways. Isn’t the laws of one leaving mean they get to pick the venue and enjoy the ride while everyone flocks to them while they are being bought drinks and bump to the music in the same rhythm that their neighbors so thoroughly fuck upstairs? And what of love? What of sex? How do we know the difference when one is so attracted to another that they can’t stay away from that person and yet, after they’ve been had, they’re gone, but, a stalker. A stalker who’s calls are ignored, who writes songs about someone he barely knows, who dedicates sets to a girl who he see’s talking, dancing with other boys, who takes his cigarettes then shuts him down-keeps crawling back; keeps asking for more. How do we know that this man is not worthy, when in the beginning, he was worthy for one date, one kiss… Then there’s those that tell us nothing, but a connection, a story with their eyes, their body language-but they can’t call back, they can’t text back. They don’t keep crawling back. Except when it’s convenient. Should I then, only happen upon friends when it’s convenient? Or do I do that all ready? Perhaps, I need to be a better friend. Perhaps it’s me?

Hello everybody! I am well aware that I am on my way back to Philly from my last trip of the summer without having done any updates since my first trip in Kansas. Well, I'm going to attempt to fix that. There's a lot of stuff that went on that is very personal to me, and with respect to those involved, I'll make those entires private.

But first, I have a few lists on mind. I've learned a lot from my trips this summer and it has inspired me to want to go many other places before I settle in one place for a while. I would love more than anything to take a roadtrip down to FL since I have a lot of friends living there too. If anyone is interested in being my traveling companion, please do not hesitate to let me know!

I also have a lot of things I have decided to do in preparation for NTI and while at NTI.

Why am I listing things on here and not in a word document?

Well, when I came home after Kansas, my computer crashed. Yes, crashed. I lost everything. 13 years of poetry. So I figured, if I just publish my photos and write everything in blogs from now on, I won't lose them, right? Ok, well, hopefully. So here goes.

Places to explore in America over the next year:

-Chicago, IL (hang with Grace and her friend)

-Minneapolis, MN

-Indiannapolis, IN

-Missoula, MT

-Gorham, ME (Starlight Acting Institute retreat)

-Dallas, TX (Michael Chekhov tecahing certification)

-Seattle, WA

-Nashville, TN

-Atlanta, GA (see Isaac and my cousin)

-Tallahassee, FL (see Sarah)

-Pensacola, sp?, FL (see Will, Adam & Morgan)

-Orlando, FL (see my Aunt, uncle & cousins)

-Miami, FL (see Michelle and Kyle)

-Sarasota, FL (see Jeff F.)

-San Diego, CA

-San Fransisco, CA

-New Orleans, LA

-----Doubt I'll see them all, it will really all depend on if I know anyone from here and flight costs, car, etc. So yes, PLEASE get in touch with me if either you'd like to meet up with me there, let me sleep on your floor, carpool with me and/or travel with me!!

Stuff to do in prep for, and while at NTI:

-Stop dating, seeing boys, all together, no sex, making out, nothing. I need to get back to being in love with my craft so that once again, it's all I need.

-Write in a journal, a physical, non-blog, microsoft WORD one. Pen & paper.

-Bring lots of sweat pants, a space heater, and PB&J fixings

-snail-mail.

-not think about what to do after graduation

-allow myself to be fluid regarding myself being open to change.

-GET MY FREAKIN' HOMEWORK DONE.

-get my wisdom tooth pulled.

Syracuse stuff...

-See Timmy, Kiel, Mike, Caleb, Lea, Joanna & the neighborhood kiddies.

-Hang out with my family, drink with my sister.

-Roji, Strong Hearts, & the rest of the vegan places I never took enough advantage of.

Philthy stuff on the 2 days before I leave...,

-Horizons w/ Tommy

-Johnny Brenda's for The Armchairs show and a goodbye-to-me celebration-please come! Friday night!

-Govindas! W/ Varga boy.

-BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE

-As many museums as I can squeeze into my short time there.

-The Last Drop, everyday, possibly twice/day/ Going to miss that place.

-Call PECO, get them to stop billing me, & change my address with the post office.

Ok-I'm sure this will adjust, but that's it for now!

The place will land in about an hour. I'm sitting inbetween two dudes... mroe on that later.

Today, is completely contrasting of yesterday. My computer wasn't picking up internest yesterday except for the plane, however I hadn't slept in 36 hours and the plane was the only place i could really rest my eyes. Tried to update on my phone but it wouldn't work.

I got a swift kick in the ass yesterday regarding my "how-not-to-travel"-since it will just ruin my happiness at this moment now with stories of how horrible yesterday was, I'm going to try to just write it in a list. So here we go.

Leading up to my departure...

Monday, July 6th-I rode my bike 23 miles around the Schulykill River Bank Trail and then saw Food Inc. (GO SEE IT) The whole day I spent w/ my new friend Ian who gave me a boot camp in biking; definitely made me feel like a pro not like I hadn't been on my bike in 6 years or anything...

Tuesday, July 7th-I had 2 shoots in Bryn Mawr at this gorgeous studio that had a silo in the staircase. The first was with Rich Dunoff, we did some headshots, shots of me doing Yoga, then headed out into the woods to work on his series "Women in the Woods." I was in nothing but a bra, thong, and carefully placed sheer cloth to which I sat amongst ferns, climed trees, and got 2 bites right on my tush. After that I had a shoot with the owner of the studio and his good friend Ross. We did some ballet shots in my pointe shoes, even in teh staircase, and some headshots. After that I came home, ran to tutor George in speech, which was fun. We were aristocrats. Then I went to finally eat some dinner and while doing so I got an e-mail for background work in a Target commercial... in Long Island City. So after packing my outfits for the shoot I took a China Town bus to NYC and stayed with my friend Megan Campanile in her apartment on the Upper West Side who's currently the understudy for Ariel on Broadway and a mersister. We stayed up and ate gluten-free, vegan blue-berry cheesecake ice cream until 2am. I got up at 7am, got ready, and went to the shoot. Total time on the set was probably 2 hours, but we were there for 12. The commercial was for Anna Sui's Gossip Girl inspired line that's coming out in the fall. The commercial will be aired approx. 9/7/2009. There were only 12 of us background people. All very good-looking, driven actors, many of them new to the industry, from all different backgrounds. There were even 2 Philly actors. One of them, Zach, was awesome enough to drive me back to Philly, wait for me as I packed for Kansas and closed up the apartment, and then drove me to the airport at 2:30am since he lives only one stop from it anyways. I wanted to get there that early because I was trying to get the airtranu $69/segment standy ticket and figured since I was the first one there, I'd have a better shot.

WELL-

Here's the list

-1 standby left

-girl was on standby from yesterday

-called expedia, got a ticket for almost the same price, for 10:30, because they couldn't get me a 6am one.

-girl called airtran to ask if there were any 6am flights left just in case, they said there were 9

-called expedia back to ask WHY they didn't give me the 6am

-tried to get my ticket and then get on same-day standby-my payment hadn't shown up as gone through

-called my bank, couldn't get a hold of a person

-called expedia, they said it could take 8 hours for it to process

-Airtran told me they couldn't give me my ticket until it was processed, by that time my flight would have been long-gone

-called expedia numerous times-the payment wasn't going through because the airline wasn't issuing the ticket. Finally someone said they would arrange to have my ticket refunded and that I should just buy a new ticket then.

-Tried buying a new ticket, my card was rejected (even though I transferred all of my savings to my checking before I left).

-Called my parents, got my dad's card numbers, airtran wouldn't take them bc I didn't have his ID.

-phone died, no outlet, found an outlet far away.

-called my back, apparently I had a limit on what I could charge/day and that limit had been exceeded because the payment for expedia wouldn't be taken off for 72 hours (which I later found out), raised my imit.

-bought my ticket, missed a possible same-day standby because it took that long just to get a ticket.

-went to baggage checks-had my bag sent down b/c I had too many bottle and had to pay to have it checked.

-Flight from Philly to Atlanta, wasn't bad. Realized I was losing my voice though from no sleep. I also spoke to an older woman who had the same ear painful troubles as I do when it comes to flying and ear infections and she gave me some pointers.

-Atlanta. Big airport. Bought new headphones and got an airtran credit card so that I could get a free flight and not be cornered again with only one card again in case something went wrong.

-Waited in Gate C6-met and talked to strangers, read Oleanna. Waited as I drank tea. It's 3:35pm. my 3:34pm flight wasn't called yet. Um... What???

-No one was working at my gate, nothin was on the monitor listing any changes. Finally found someone, they said the gate was changed to C20.

-I RAN. JUST MISSED THE PLANE.

-Made a huge scene, I had been in airports for over 13 hours at that point. Was crying, exhausted, sick. Went to customer service to get the next flight. Got one for 5:54pm. Missed seing my friend Isaac.

-Talked to a girl who I think was from Australia, who was going to Lawrence, eventually, to see a "friend" as well.

-Got on the plane-ears KILLED while going down (my ears didn't pop until the next morning.

-Landed in Kansas City, Kansas, an hour behind east coast time, at 6:54pm.

-assumed I lost my luggage as well, since everything else had gone wrong at that point, why shouldn't this? This didn't, which means that I'll probably lose my luggage on the way to LA. My suitcase was safe and sound in the baggage claims office.

-I saw the Aussie girl with her "friend" while waiting for Paul.

The Kansas story starts here.

I saw him coming towards me near the baggage claims. He had shaved since I had last saw him. We gave each other huge smiles, I was so relieved, the nightmere was over.

In case you don't know, Paul and I met at The Last Drop last May because we kept staring at each other. He was drawing me the whole time as it turns out. He was visiting Philly, looking for representating of his work. I worked up the balls to text him the next day (he attatched his card to the drawing), and we spent an amazing 2 days together. Obviously it was amazing otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.

He welcomed me with a kiss and a bowl when we were driving. He had me put on his sunglasses and seeing the green, open space, I felt elevated-on top of something very close to the sun (his description, it was right). Not clostrophobic, but very open, and exposed. I felt vulnerable to sensations I had never come accross before.

I felt a clean high, and that in combination with the sunglasses, my ears not having popped, exhaustion and onsetting cold, I seriously felt as though I was in a dream, completely disconnected from my body and voice. My own words and thoughts echoed in my head and I wondered if I was really talking. I didn't want to talk too much because my voice hurt anyways, and I was, sort of speechless, from all of the beauty, and knowing that I had finally arrived. I had finally done what I said I was going to do even with all of the obstacles coming my way. Paul, a guy who I didn't really know, but trusted and was smitten by, was sitting next to me, smoking from the same bowl as me, laughing with me, pointing out all of the chiche midwest things to me, and I knew that no matter what we did here, I was going to be happy.

Entering his house I met his roommates who were really nice, and saw his paintings that I had only seen on his website, everywhere. They were more beautiful (of course) than I remembered them being online. His studio was in his basement along with his practice space. He had paintings from his friend who just came back from South Korea up as they were painting together. Paul has shown his work nearly everywhere in Lawrence for the past 5 years.

We then went to Carlos O Kellys-a midwestern Mexican chaine restaurant to meet up with his roommate and friend who play jazz in his basement. We ate-the vegan option I had, some delicious taco contraption, was huge, and delicious. We drank beer that was from a local brewery, it was delicious.

We then got a bottle of red wine, went back to his house and watched his friends play jazz. This was before I completely lost my voice, so I sang Fever along with them.

When they finished, I was about to pass out. I hadn't slept the night before afterall. So Paul rented The Day the Earth Stood Still while I took a shower (since i hadn't showered that morning at all either). Basically as soon as the movie started I passed out on his lap.

We woke up this morning and made love until 1:30pm, despite the fact that we weren't going to.

We left at 2:30 for "breakfast." We went to "The Mirth" and I had a huge bowl of granola with straberries and soy milk as Paul ate his French Toast-cut and displayed like a flower.

Now we're at "The Bourgeois Pig"-a bar/coffee shop and got 2 Irish coffees. He had website work to do, I had this to do along with many e-mails and a plane ticket home (since I'm not going to do standby again, I don't think).

We're talking to a few people in the coffee shop.

I'm enjoying this.

Today, is completely contrasting of yesterday. My computer wasn't picking up internest yesterday except for the plan, however I hadn't slept in 36 hours and the plane was the only place i could really rest my eyes. Tried to update on my phone but it wouldn't work.

I got a swift kick in the ass yesterday regarding my travels-since I will just ruin my happiness at this moment now with stories of how horrible yesterday was, I'm going to try to just write it in a list. So here we go.

Leading up to my departure...

Monday, July 6th-I rode my bike 23 miles around the Schulykill River Bank Trail and then saw Food Inc. (GO SEE IT) The whole day I spent w/ my new friend Ian who gave me a boot camp in biking; definitely made me feel like a pro not like I hadn't been on my bike in 6 years or anything...

Tuesday, July 7th-I had 2 shoots in Bryn Mawr at this gorgeous studio that had a silo in the staircase. The first was with Rich Dunoff, we did some headshots, shots of me doing Yoga, then headed out into the woods to work on his series "Women in the Woods." I was in nothing but a bra, thong, and carefully placed sheer cloth to which I sat amongst ferns, climed trees, and got 2 bites right on my tush. After that I had a shoot with the owner of the studio and his good friend Ross. We did some ballet shots in my pointe shoes, even in teh staircase, and some headshots. After that I came home, ran to tutor George in speech, which was fun. We were aristocrats. Then I went to finally eat some dinner and while doing so I got an e-mail for background work in a Target commercial... in Long Island City. So after packing my outfits for the shoot I took a China Town bus to NYC and stayed with my friend Megan Campanile in her apartment on the Upper West Side who's currently the understudy for Ariel on Broadway and a mersister. We stayed up and ate gluten-free, vegan blue-berry cheesecake ice cream until 2am. I got up at 7am, got ready, and went to the shoot. Total time on the set was probably 2 hours, but we were there for 12. The commercial was for Anna Sui's Gossip Girl inspired line that's coming out in the fall. The commercial will be aired approx. 9/7/2009. There were only 12 of us background people. All very good-looking, driven actors, many of them new to the industry, from all different backgrounds. There were even 2 Philly actors. One of them, Zach, was awesome enough to drive me back to Philly, wait for me as I packed for Kansas and closed up the apartment, and then drove me to the airport at 2:30am since he lives only one stop from it anyways. I wanted to get there that early because I was trying to get the airtranu $69/segment standy ticket and figured since I was the first one there, I'd have a better shot.

WELL-

Here's the list

-1 standby left

-girl was on standby from yesterday

-called expedia, got a ticket for almost the same price, for 10:30, because they couldn't get me a 6am one.

-girl called airtran to ask if there were any 6am flights left just in case, they said there were 9

-called expedia back to ask WHY they didn't give me the 6am

-tried to get my ticket and then get on same-day standby-my payment hadn't shown up as gone through

-called my bank, couldn't get a hold of a person

-called expedia, they said it could take 8 hours for it to process

-Airtran told me they couldn't give me my ticket until it was processed, by that time my flight would have been long-gone

-called expedia numerous times-the payment wasn't going through because the airline wasn't issuing the ticket. Finally someone said they would arrange to have my ticket refunded and that I should just buy a new ticket then.

-Tried buying a new ticket, my card was rejected (even though I transferred all of my savings to my checking before I left).

-Called my parents, got my dad's card numbers, airtran wouldn't take them bc I didn't have his ID.

-phone died, no outlet, found an outlet far away.

-called my back, apparently I had a limit on what I could charge/day and that limit had been exceeded because the payment for expedia wouldn't be taken off for 72 hours (which I later found out), raised my imit.

-bought my ticket, missed a possible same-day standby because it took that long just to get a ticket.

-went to baggage checks-had my bag sent down b/c I had too many bottle and had to pay to have it checked.

-Flight from Philly to Atlanta, wasn't bad. Realized I was losing my voice though from no sleep. I also spoke to an older woman who had the same ear painful troubles as I do when it comes to flying and ear infections and she gave me some pointers.

-Atlanta. Big airport. Bought new headphones and got an airtran credit card so that I could get a free flight and not be cornered again with only one card again in case something went wrong.

-Waited in Gate C6-met and talked to strangers, read Oleanna. Waited as I drank tea. It's 3:35pm. my 3:34pm flight wasn't called yet. Um... What???

-No one was working at my gate, nothin was on the monitor listing any changes. Finally found someone, they said the gate was changed to C20.

-I RAN. JUST MISSED THE PLANE.

-Made a huge scene, I had been in airports for over 13 hours at that point. Was crying, exhausted, sick. Went to customer service to get the next flight. Got one for 5:54pm. Missed seing my friend Isaac.

-Talked to a girl who I think was from Australia, who was going to Lawrence, eventually, to see a "friend" as well.

-Got on the plane-ears KILLED while going down (my ears didn't pop until the next morning.

-Landed in Kansas City, Kansas, an hour behind east coast time, at 6:54pm.

-assumed I lost my luggage as well, since everything else had gone wrong at that point, why shouldn't this? This didn't, which means that I'll probably lose my luggage on the way to LA. My suitcase was safe and sound in the baggage claims office.

-I saw the Aussie girl with her "friend" while waiting for Paul.

The Kansas story starts here.

I saw him coming towards me near the baggage claims. He had shaved since I had last saw him. We gave each other huge smiles, I was so relieved, the nightmere was over.

In case you don't know, Paul and I met at The Last Drop last May because we kept staring at each other. He was drawing me the whole time as it turns out. He was visiting Philly, looking for representating of his work. I worked up the balls to text him the next day (he attatched his card to the drawing), and we spent an amazing 2 days together. Obviously it was amazing otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.

He welcomed me with a kiss and a bowl when we were driving. He had me put on his sunglasses and seeing the green, open space, I felt elevated-on top of something very close to the sun (his description, it was right). Not clostrophobic, but very open, and exposed. I felt vulnerable to sensations I had never come accross before.

I felt a clean high, and that in combination with the sunglasses, my ears not having popped, exhaustion and onsetting cold, I seriously felt as though I was in a dream, completely disconnected from my body and voice. My own words and thoughts echoed in my head and I wondered if I was really talking. I didn't want to talk too much because my voice hurt anyways, and I was, sort of speechless, from all of the beauty, and knowing that I had finally arrived. I had finally done what I said I was going to do even with all of the obstacles coming my way. Paul, a guy who I didn't really know, but trusted and was smitten by, was sitting next to me, smoking from the same bowl as me, laughing with me, pointing out all of the chiche midwest things to me, and I knew that no matter what we did here, I was going to be happy.

Entering his house I met his roommates who were really nice, and saw his paintings that I had only seen on his website, everywhere. They were more beautiful (of course) than I remembered them being online. His studio was in his basement along with his practice space. He had paintings from his friend who just came back from South Korea up as they were painting together. Paul has shown his work nearly everywhere in Lawrence for the past 5 years.

We then went to Carlos O Kellys-a midwestern Mexican chaine restaurant to meet up with his roommate and friend who play jazz in his basement. We ate-the vegan option I had, some delicious taco contraption, was huge, and delicious. We drank beer that was from a local brewery, it was delicious.

We then got a bottle of red wine, went back to his house and watched his friends play jazz. This was before I completely lost my voice, so I sang Fever along with them.

When they finished, I was about to pass out. I hadn't slept the night before afterall. So Paul rented The Day the Earth Stood Still while I took a shower (since i hadn't showered that morning at all either). Basically as soon as the movie started I passed out on his lap.

We woke up this morning and made love until 1:30pm, despite the fact that we weren't going to.

We left at 2:30 for "breakfast." We went to "The Mirth" and I had a huge bowl of granola with straberries and soy milk as Paul ate his French Toast-cut and displayed like a flower.

Now we're at "The Bourgeois Pig"-a bar/coffee shop and got 2 Irish coffees. He had website work to do, I had this to do along with many e-mails and a plane ticket home (since I'm not going to do standby again, I don't think).

We're talking to a few people in the coffee shop.

I'm enjoying this.