It's amazing how my preconceptions have turned out to be wrong. Almost everything, really, these days, is turning out contrary to my expectations.

Matt and I were having a painful discussion yesterday about our terminally ill relationship and my sad sad life (you'll be breaking out the violin again once you hear about the motel, believe you me) and at one point, he started asking me about my grad school plans. "If you don't go to San Francisco, what will you do?" I don't think he knows how close I was to screaming and breaking plates.

Because, you see, I don't know. I've agonized over every choice I've made, and they've all turned out to be wrong. And I no longer trust myself to do the right things, or make the right choices, and I'm paralyzed as a result.

Months ago, I thought going to graduate school would make me happy. Now, I can't even dredge up the slightest bit of excitement. I thought quitting my job would make me happy; it just makes me stressed out about poverty. I thought my relationship was going to blossom and strengthen and continue to make me happy... I guess we all know how wrong I was about that one.

All the painful things have been said, from, "We're just not compatible" to "I want us to be friends." (My answer was "fuck that" in case you're interested.) I woke up this morning with my eyes puffy from crying, yet again. I just want to love him, and I want to be loved. I want us to make each other happy. I want to give and receive all those thoughts and gestures that you get so used to when you're in love. The ones that say, "You are the most important person in my life, and whatever happens to you, happens to me. Because our lives are entwined." That's what I'll miss. The feeling of entwinement. And kisses, of course. I'll miss kisses.

Matt says I'm not usually an emotional person. Maybe not; certainly not as much as I used to be. I used to be emotionally effusive, and over the years, I've gotten more reserved. Maybe that's why I feel so alone. I try, but I don't know how to tell people I need them to help me.

Every one of my "real life friends" is letting me down. Gavin is letting his own attraction to me get in the way. (I can't exactly confide in someone and try to deflect his crush on me at the same time.) Abby and Charlotte are inherently self centered. Danielle is a good listener, but the bond isn't there. Matthew is brusque. Bruce is ineffectual. Tim is adverse to emotional displays.

Matt says I am underestimating my friends. He specifically mentioned Matthew, Tim and Bruce (my three "ex boyfriends" which is interesting) and he says I am underestimating them. Maybe so. Maybe I am. Maybe a solution will present itself. Perhaps I will get by. But I don't know what I need, either, and I don't know how to ask for it.

Aside from Matt, of course... who is the one thing I can't have.

Little do you know, that was actually a big tangent. On the topics of friendship and expectations, what I really want to talk about is my weekend. Somewhere in there are the two themes delineated above. I'm going to go chronologically rather than thematically, though... so bear with me.

I left for New York feeling slightly apprehensive. It was a spontaneous decision for the most part, and I had no set plans. But I decided, what the hell, I'll go and have fun. In the meantime, my mother insisted upon flying to Oakland to find me a place to live. I thought that was really wonderful of her, and I said so. She was extremely enthusiastic about doing it, I think in part because my grandmother would never have let her take a trip alone. (You'd think a 50 year old woman would be able to run her own life, but while my grandmother was alive, that wasn't the case.)

Anyway, I told Sunshine it was a huge load off my mind. "I'm sure I can find something," she said. "Just trust me!" "I trust you," I said. Famous last words. But I'll get to that bit later.

I should never fly to New York. The first time I went (with Abby) our plane caught on fire. No, I'm serious. One of the engines caught on fire.

It's a funny story, really. On the way over there, there was a whole lot of turbulence-- it seemed an excessive amount. Abby was terrified of flying, but I wasn't, so I spent the better part of the flight acting like it wasn't bothering me for her sake. So we landed and I said, "See? That wasn't so bad."

As we taxied across the airport, we saw a whole buttload of emergency vehicles tearing across one of the runways. Fire engines with sirens blaring, and ambulances, and everything. "Boy," I said. "I feel sorry for whoever that is."

Of course, guess where they were headed? Straight for our plane. Some guys leapt out of a red vehicle and started spraying one of our engines with foam. The captain came on to announce that one of the engines had shut down in mid-flight due to an engine fire. Now, it was unsafe to move the aircraft any further due to the possibility of explosion.

We had to laugh at the situation, even though we ended up being stuck on the plane for four long, hungry hours before they let us off. (And we didn't even get to slide out on the slides. They brought a transporter bus over and it raised itself to the height of the airplane so we could deplane. How disappointing.)

At any rate, the moral of that vacation was, "Don't fly to New York." On Wednesday, my flight was delayed. So I missed my connecting flight. When I got to Pittsburgh, they said, "Hurry! Get on that plane over there instead! We're taking you to Newark!"

To which I thought, "Where the fuck is Newark?"

I was anxious all the way to Newark, but when I got there, they gave me a voucher for a taxi ride straight to Alice's front door on the Upper East Side. I was only four and a half hours late, too! I said hello, dumped my stuff in her (tiny, expensive, but way cool) apartment, took a shower and crashed.

That was Wednesday.

On Thursday, Alice had the day off, so we hung out together. We walked over to the Guggenheim, which was sadly closed, and then hightailed it to the Met. I'm glad we did, because we were able to catch an exhibit called Painters in Paris: 1900-1950. It is highly recommended. A good number of Picassos (some were brand new to me) and also some Modigliani, who has a piece at the Bellagio and who I had been wanting to see more of. The exhibit spanned a number of different styles and a seemingly infinite subject matter. It really was quite impressive, and I purchased the book to go along with it.

In the evening, we grabbed some pizza and rented Erin Brockovich. I felt sort of queasy all day (jet lag, maybe) and so I just read and went to sleep. Or tried, really. My sleep during this vacation wasn't what you'd call "good" in the traditional sense. This is due in part to the fact that Alice has recently acquired two one-eyed cats. (The two cats are brothers and they have two eyes. One each. Well, they each have two eyes, but only one works. The other just sort of stares off into space.) They are cute in a "Tell-Tale Heart" sort of way, and one of them is quite friendly.

Too friendly.

Whenever I was in a reclining position (for instance, while trying to FALL ASLEEP) the cat decided he wanted to walk on me. He would start at my head and begin walking in slow laps around my body. I tried throwing him off me, and he jumped right back up. I tried moving him to the side or towards my boobs, but five seconds after I did, there would be a paw in my eye. I shoved his butt down so he'd lay flat... and he'd immediately get back up again and start wandering.

It wasn't very restful, I'll tell you that.

And that was Thursday.

On Friday, I decided to get tickets to see Superstar. First, I had to go with Alice to get my "unwanted hair" lasered off (it takes 10 days to fall out, though). That was fine. Kinda smelly, slightly uncomfortable, but fine. After that, I headed over to see if I could get rush tickets for Superstar.

Well, the rush tickets sold out, so I decided to venture to an art store I had heard tell of, and then come back to Times Square to the TKTS booth to get tickets. (This was all in the rain, by the way.) (I had no umbrella, by the way.) As it turned out, this was a stupid plan and I wasted my whole day trying to get to SoHo and get back and wait in line for two hours and get tickets.

I wasn't at all disappointed by the art store, which is a six story behemoth called Pearl Paint. I did my only real shopping of the weekend there; I spent $40 or so on a whole bunch of pastel pencils, a drawing set, some tracing paper and some charcoal paper. Reasonable prices, and really great stuff. Thumbs up.

But the problem was that I wasted a lot of time wandering around and waiting in line and being rained on, and then I couldn't get a cab and walked 10 blocks the wrong way and couldn't find my way back again.

I commented to several people how pathetic I must have looked, wandering the streets, disoriented, soaking wet, and very sad. It was like a bad music video by Guns n' Roses or something. I should have had a popped red balloon trailing behind me on a string, and then the picture would have been complete.

Because really, at that moment, I felt as lonely as I have ever felt before in my life. I can't ever remember such utter misery and desolation.

I don't know that I've ever really been lonely before. Even when I was in junior high and had no friends, I had my family and my books, and it was fine. It was enough. And ever since then, there's always been someone who cared about me and kept me from being lonely. But right then, I wondered what the hell I was doing in New York, alone. How had I gotten there? Did anyone care I was there? I felt like my plans for the weekend were falling apart, like I had fucked up the day, like I had fucked up my life... and of course, my relationship was over...

(This would be your violin cue, by the way.)

Anyway, I eventually figured out how to take the subway and the bus. I still had to walk a bunch of blocks, but I made it to Alice's apartment, and I had gotten my theater ticket. I was ready to stay in, though, and be miserable.

Plus, I had plans to meet Jen, and I was scared.

But Alice talked me into going. "You'll have fun," she declared. So, at the appointed hour, I hopped into a cab and headed to the theater.

The production is pretty bad. Jesus has a thin voice, sings with an inexplicable British accent, and twitches his way garishly through Act Two. The music drowns out the voices, the attempts at modernizing the show fall flat (come on, machine guns?), and there are some odd new lyrics. However, the show does have one thing going for it: Tony Vincent as Judas.

Bleach blonde hair and leather... a wonderful, wonderful voice... a lot of energy and passion... he is like Spike meets Ben Stiller, if you can imagine such a thing. From where I was sitting, he was the sexiest thing in the universe. Judas is my favorite character, and I love all his songs, and he carries the production, in my opinion. There's nothing that makes me swoon like a good Judas. I leapt to my feet and cheered when Tony came out for his curtain call, because he is just... mmm... so yummy.

The audience seemed to enjoy Jesus, too, which is kind of odd. His big number (the Garden of Gethsemane one) totally sucks, and he keeps doing this weird pose (think an interpretive dance version of the letter Y) but the crowd went wild for him. Whatever, you indiscriminating fools.

Oh, it was also amusing that lots of people there seemed to be super religious. The woman next to me asked me to "pray for her" that someone tall wouldn't take the seat in front of her (I'm sure God will get right on that, lady) and almost everyone in the cast had put Bible verses in their bios.

Not my beloved Tony though, for what it's worth. (Oh! Hey! His web site has a clip of his performance at the Tony's. Damn, he's sexy. And you can sort of see Jesus twitching, too!)

After the show, I stood on the corner and tried to explain to Jen where I was and vice versa. "Look for a blue piece of shit car!" she said. Then two Armenian guys drove by in a blue piece of shit car. "That must be Jen!" We finally located each other (and no, Jen is not two Armenian guys). She had her brother and a friend with her, and we went and had coffee.

All three of them are very funny (even though her brother was sick) and we started teasing and picking on each other (and Jesus Christ Superstar) right away. Very much the sense of humor I'm used to with my cousin and my sister, so I felt right at home.

I'll try to say something interesting in describing all these journalers. (Otherwise this entry will read, "Kymm is totally cool! Jen is so cool! Melissa is way cool!" and be annoying.) So Jen. I love her. She's every bit as witty and clever as her journal, and she's got a great style (I admired her outfit tremendously). I'm still a little in awe of her, and at the same time, I want to move into her house and be her new best friend. Or marry her, or something.

That's Jen.

Our time together was, sadly, far too short. I went to bed happy, though. In contrast to my misery of earlier that day, my time spent with Jen caused a complete 180. I didn't see a magic wand or anything, but the fact that I clicked with her helped me to feel less nervous about meeting eight people the next day.

On Saturday, I had to get up at some ungodly hour in the morning to catch the train. I met up with Kymm and Tracing, who, as Kymm points out, were rather easy to spot. I was too tired to be really nervous, and glad to have people to talk with on the train.

They aren't what I was expecting (of course). I expected Tracing to be extremely serious and studious. I expected Kymm to be gigantic and scary (she described herself as eighteen feet tall, if I recall). Well she is brilliant, but Tracing is also sweet and friendly and cheerful. And Kymm is perfectly normal in size. (As the Caterpillar would say: "It's a fine size indeed, since it also happens to be exactly my size." Well, not exactly, but close enough.) She was just what I expected personality wise, though, since she sounds exactly like her journal. You know, outgoing, witty, fun. Odds are, you've met her. You know.

We got off the train in Philly and I prepared to meet Kate and Melissa. Yes, that Kate and Melissa. Two people who I really, really, really wanted to like me. So I was scared.

This is actually the funniest part of my whole "not what I expected" theme, here. I expected Kate to be intimidating and sophisticated. I expected Melissa to be girly and bubbly. I was right about the descriptions, but I got the names completely backward. Upon first impression, Kate is effusive and energetic while Melissa is elegant and self-possessed. They're both charming and lovely, of course, and like all the people I met, they have a great sense of fun and a wonderful sense of humor.

We took a mini-tour of the Cradle of Liberty, and I saw everything from the Liberty Bell to the Stoplight of Liberty to the Blade of Grass of Liberty. It was quite educational.

Then we went to the shower, and I met Corina, Wes and Colleen. Once I met Corina and Colleen, I realized why all four of "the girls" that I met are such good friends. They are very different, but at the same time, they are so similar. They're all self confident and gorgeous, in totally individual ways. I admired them all simultaneously. If I get that lip gloss, can I be like Corina? How about if I put my hair in ponytails so I can be like Kate? Maybe after I dye my hair black like Colleen's, I should cultivate a cool accent like hers, too. Or, I could wear a sparkly Blue's Clues shirt and transform myself into Melissa! Yes, I adore them all.

Of course, by the end of the weekend, I had discovered their secret. They somehow make you feel like you're just as cool as they are just by being yourself. There's no prescribed mold you have to fit into to fit in with them. (I might be presumptuous in saying this, since this implies that I did, in fact, fit in with them. But I've also inherited their self confidence, so I'll imply it anyway.)

Colleen was obviously very busy with her whole "being the bride" sort of thing, but luckily I had a chance to talk to her on the phone a few nights prior and she is just as wonderful as can be. With, seriously, the coolest accent. She's so put together, in a way I've always admired in people.

And I can't possibly say enough good things about Corina and Wes. They have the relationship I wish I could have-- not ostentatious, but they obviously respect each other and are so considerate of each other. And they're both hilariously funny (and dorky in a great way, Corina) and I want to move in with them, too. If they have a big enough bed, I can sleep next to Corina! (In Wes' head right now: "Thank god she DOESN'T live on the East Coast! The girl's crazy!")

I went outside to call my father, and found out some horrible, awful, no-good, very bad news. The good news is, my mother found me a place to live. The bad news is, it's a motel in Fremont with weekly rates. Here's a quote from my father: "So, you just bring some clothes and a pillow, and you're all set!"

Oh, I could weep.

Where the FUCK is Fremont? And (Austin Powers voice) who lives in a motel? Honestly! Of course, the motel is now known as the motel. And in my head, it keeps getting worse. There's a butcher shop where they kill bunnies right next door, and I have a next door neighbor named Jack (formerly from Camden, New Jersey) who keeps kegs of tequila in the bathroom and injects laundry detergent in between his toes. (Aah, the perils of a vivid imagination. I'm concocting more horrors as we speak.)

Anyway, I came inside and announced the motel situation. You should have seen Melissa's eyes get big. "A mo-TEL?" They all made me feel better by making fun of the motel for the next 24 hours, which helped quite a lot. No, really. I can almost smile about it now. Really.

But I'll save the motel stuff for the next entry, and continue relating my weekend. When I came back inside, they told me that they wanted me to stay, and wanted to work something out so I could take a late train, or maybe spend the night at Melissa's. If you recall my mood on Friday (friendless, alone) this meant a lot to me. I felt welcomed and accepted and all that good stuff. It was really a wonderful gesture and it erased the dark, motel-shaped cloud that was hanging over my head. Of course, I decided to stay.

So, we dropped off Kate (which was truly depressing) and left Colleen (equally depressing) and went to South Street. We shopped and had dinner, and I'm leaving the details out because this is already three hundred pages long.

After that, Corina got us lost in Camden "smells like ass" New Jersey. We passed the "Welcome to Camden" sign three times, leading us to suspect that we'd never escape. We actually saw a crack whore, otherwise known as the Camden Welcoming Committee. "She throws up on your shoes, draws you a map, and says, 'Welcome to Camden!'"

We finally made it out of the vortex that is Camden and to Melissa's area. I then bought a toothbrush and underwear (the absolute essentials) and we found our way to the apartment. We talked, we laughed, we slept.

Sunday morning found us at the Philly diner, having breakfast with Colleen. I then had to progressively say goodbye to my new friends (v. sad) as I made my way back into the city in the afternoon.

I was tired and had slept in my clothes, and I was already 20 minutes late, when I had to walk from Penn Station over to somewhere (by the Empire State Building, I guess) to meet Shmuel, my final journaler meeting of the weekend. So I was late, and I wore a dress I had slept in. I was ready to impress.

In contrast to everyone else, he was exactly what I expected. Smart as hell, a great conversationalist, lovely eyes. (Okay, I didn't know the thing about the eyes.) I asked him a million questions and he answered them all with no trace of irritation. We spent four hours talking, and despite the fact that I was exhausted and wilting, the conversation didn't flag.

All in all, a great cap to an all-around wonderful experience.

And that's it, really. I packed, I came home, I tried to sleep. I was really happy with the way things had gone, and it took me a long time to settle down. I'm excited to have met all those people, and I'm thrilled it went well. Now I have to go find what everyone else wrote and compare notes.

And I hope someone sends me pictures, because I didn't take a single one.

Even though this group of people are not my blood relatives, we have come to love each other. Even though we are all genetic strangers, even Abby and my parents, I feel like we’re a family. I know that genetics is not everything--after all, Abby and I are closer than the vast majority of siblings that I know. But I guess I was a little afraid that Conny and her family wouldn’t feel the same way.