"Landlocked blues"

What an absolutely miserable day.

At least if the rain were pounding there would be some energy. But instead it dribbles and runs lazy rivers down my window before, bored in its own purposelessness, retiring to that ground where it makes slush of this morning's flurries. The roads are in ruins, everything is getting cancelled, I've got no plans for the evening, and everyone seems to be holed up in their own personal spring break hibernations. Morale is low. Life took a fucking snow day.

Though I suppose, in all fairness, it hasn't been the worst spring break. I mean, it started two days early when I got picked up at 4am and driven to Newark to catch a 6:45 plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was there attending a leadership conference and conducting some evaluation and planning. Business. As usual. We got to tour Old San Juan, however, and I suppose it was kinda cool to be in a city made up entirely of crumbling ruins and overpriced bars. It was a good trip, though I was eager to get back home and spend some time with my friends from home.

How silly of me.

The only schools that ended up having "off" the same week as mine were Rutgers and Dartmouth, the latter of which is only half true as Tom came home Tuesday. Early this week I enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with Eric. We trekked out to a drama rehearsal with Bryan, Kristen and Rich and were greeted by the mass chaos that tends to go hand in hand with tech week at FTHS. We got to talk to some of the kids which is always nice but for the most part we kept to ourselves in a quiet corner of the classroom behind backstage. After escaping we drove to Applebee's for cuisine and conversation characteristic (+3 alliteration points) of a night in good ol' F-town. It was nice and we ate a record number of half-priced appetizers, 8 dishes for 5 people... a record I am bent on breaking.

The next day Eric drove me to the mall and window-shopped while I filled out applications for summer employment. Thus far I have applications submitted for Six Flags Great Adventure, The Gap, Banana Republic, Fossil, and the Apple store. Number of phone calls recieved and interviews scheduled? Zero. Perhaps I'm impatient, but this is rather distressing. Later on we drove to Manasquan to go to Surf Taco. We could have just driven a straight line to the one in Point Pleasant, but since Eric's friend works at this one we spent half an hour or so wandering the shoreside streets of Manasquan squinting a street signs 'til we found it. I wasn't even hungry... but I ate a Sunset Classic anyway. There are certain things you just don't pass up.

Thursday was exciting. I got up mad early for my second driving lesson.

[[For clarification sake... and for those of you readers (ha!) not completely down with my life and history... yes, I have my driver's license. However, last year I was in a car accident and totalled the car I was driving. Now, a year later, since I need a car to drive to work and things, we got a new one... a 2003 Jetta. Sweet, right? The catch is that she's manual... and I have no idea how to drive stick. Hence, driving lessons. End anecdote.]]

It didn't go so hot and I was pretty pissed at myself for a while. But then at 10am or so Tom picked me up and we drive to pick up his cousins before catching a train outta Matawan, City bound. We were going to see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. After arriving we ate lunch at Bella Vita off 7th, which beforehand opened up the opportunity for me to be cool and say, "we could go to this little Italian place I know." We did the obligatory Toys 'R Us stop and then headed west to get on line, for 90 minutes, for the show. All in all, it was funny and a pretty cool experience. The program is a lot shorter in person but I got to see Sandra Bullock in real life... an event that may very well sustain me in future tribulations. We ate dinner at Nathan's (ew.) and headed home, exhausted.

Which brings us, me, to now. Sitting in my room, in the quiet, with the lights off. Eyelids heavy from neglect and utterly reduced to one word responses to half-hearted questions. Break isn't supposed to be like this. Hell, home isn't supposed to be like this. And with the weather like it is, it looks as if I'll be completely and totally landlocked for at least the rest of the night. Probably even into tomorrow.

I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike