saltines and the china town bus

alright, so! lots has been going on i suppose. jazz formal the other night was absolutely fantastic - i really loved seeing everyone all dressed up and looking sharp. everybody just seemed to be in a fanatastic mood.

before the formal, i had driven about 2 1/2 hours into PA for a job interview, spent about 3 hours there, and then drove 2 1/2 hours back. it was actually pretty great... i was interviewing for a job this summer as a nanny at the pennsylvania governor's school of the arts. i would be taking care of this little 4 year old girl named emily, who is pretty much amazing. well, i got the job!!! i was (and still am) super super excited. this summer will be pretty excellent.

what else.... oh yeah. i've been sick on and off with this weird stomach bug... not a fan, that's for sure... definitely something i don't appreciate too much.

and last but not least, i'm heading to nyc tomorrow with anastasiya! she has an interview for an internship at this art gallery in manhattan, so we're going to head up early and then stay late and have a fabulous time. i love the city.... it's been way too long since i've been able to get there and hang out. must love adventures :) on another note, i think i'm going to start up another blog as well that other people can actually see, but only have art work and such up there. so yeah, that's about it for now.... i guess. yeah. my head is fuzzy...

job interviews and... tanooki?

first off, i'd like to say hello to the only 5 people on the internet who can read this blog - wazzup sam, alissandra, tyler, justin, and beege.

so for the past several hours i've been doing a lot of information changing. let me explain.

see, my rooommate has this ex-boyfriend... this guy is a paranoid schizoprhenic, and also potentially dangerous and all that marvelous stuff and has been trying to track down anastasiya ever since she broke up with him and left for school. well he hasn't had too much luck contacting her, so starting last summer he found my home number and was calling the house non stop, threatening to come to my house, to come here, to hurt ana, all that good stuff... so we changed that number. he would also go through my myspace, and look at my friends and try adding them and messaging them to get information on me and/or ana, since he knew we lived together. then he emailed me this creepy, cryptic email over spring break, and starting today started texting my phone.

some of the texts were really random... he sent me a this picture message:


it had the caption "Tanooki!!" so yeah... really random. i asked ana if there was any significance to it, and she just looked at me and was like uhhhh yeah no. so yay. he also messaged me with a text saying "I used to go to wegmans with ana too." so that's when i went ahead and made my blog private... thank goodness for that sitemeter thing that i have working through my page. i was able to see exactly when it was that he went to my blog, and saw how he found it since really the only link i had to it was through my facebook... he had googled "cory crose" and it was listed there. i went through the list of sites my name popped up in, and some were from old accounts on other sites that are similar to myspace, one that i had made quite a while ago and i saw that it had my phone on it, so that's how he got that originally... so i deleted all those, and also went ahead and deleted my myspace, and also made it so only people that were added as a friend on facebook could see my new number, and i went through my friend list and deleted anyone who i didn't actually know... there was only one or two, so no real worries there. yay for online safety or something?

anyway, on a lighter note, i'm traveling into PA tomorrow for my job interview for that nanny position! i'm really excited, and i hope the little girl, emily, likes me. the jazz formal is also tomorrow, which i can't wait for! i love getting all dressed up now and again. and thank you so much again sam for taking my shift - you pretty much rock.

so i need to get to bed i think. i need to be out of here no later than 8:15. so much for getting a bunch done tonight.... ah well...

get your kicks and do some fire escape picnicing

after all the rambling i did with alissandra about how much i don't like running, what did i just get back from? a run. and damn, did it kick my ass. it felt awesome. i can't even believe i can say that. i went by myself, blasting coheed and cambria (shut up hata's) on my ipod and just jogged for about 1/2 an hour. i really enjoy going by myself... and the weather was amazing. so i'm making this day 1 of my jogging resolution. let's see how i do.

more awesome things are that this saturday i am most likely heading to Philadelphia for an interview of sorts for that summer nanny job, and also mica's jazz formal is that night! it's pretty much the one and only chance for students here to get all snazzy... kind of like prom i guess, except that it's an annual thing for everyone. i didn't get to go last year because i was sick, so i'm really looking forward to this one. i've had my dress picked out for 2 months, i'm that cool.

ok, time to get decent - i don't think i can really pull that whole towel look. i'm going to go put my clothes away and tidy my room a bit, because seanikins is coming over! he's going to hang out with me while i do homework. sounds like oodles of fun, i know. sorry, you can't come. we're also probably getting chinese! wooo!


......seriously, stop begging, you can't come.

sirloin steak and squishy fish

i went grocery shopping at wegman's today with anastasiya. it's nice to go someplace other than giant, super fresh or save-a-lot now and again. plus it's pretty.

i've been eating loads of tofu and pasta lately (not necessarily together, but still...) and really hadn't had much other stuff. so for the past week, i've just been craving me some steak. i'm a carnivore for sure.... i could never do the vegetarian thing. so anyway, i just finished eating my dinner a little while ago: steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus. i love cooking.

oh, is there anything else in my life that i love? funny you should ask!

i've recently been drawing these little fish guys... see, the deep ocean and it's creepy little inhabitants freak me out. i mean, the pictures of the things that live down there could give you nightmares. so i happened to mention this to bj one day, i can't even remember how it came about, and he sent me a link to a whole bunch of terrifying looking creatures. he says that the third one down doesn't look all that bad... that he looked like he'd be kind of cuddly. so the boy may be crazy, but it got my ridiculously cheesy brain working and later that night i made my cutesy version of a prickly shark. then today, i did another of a chimaera pup. there will be more to come for sure, as i found a page with about 30 creepy guys.

it's fun to just do something pointless and fun for yourself every once in a while. i don't really care if they turn out "good" or not, i just enjoy doing them. i made a photo album on facebook for them too, but i figured i'd put them up here as well since i don't really have any of my other stuff up here yet. so any way, here's some squishy fishies (enjoy):

wagon wheel coffee tables and the moon wrapped in cellophane

just watched a sappy movie and i'm listening to michael buble, and all i want is to go for a walk and hold someone's hand. i'm lonely. curse you billy crystal and meg ryan. curse you.

on the upside, i discovered i had a bag of my favorite coffee in my cupboard, and also found a way to tame my locks (however short) when they start to get sassy. and i'm kicking this watercolor's ass, in the best possible way.

on more upsides (this is making me feel better! yay writing) i got to hang out with my friend sean (aka seanikins) last night for st. patty's day, which pretty much rocked. we went down to fell's point and got to witness the funniest drunken mass of people. it was a good time, especially since we were probably the only two sober people down there. it was really beautiful, and we walked all around, down these little side streets and through exotic, "mystark" (haha, you had to be there) alleyways and mosey down the docks. we had some delicious seafood at bertha's mussells, and took goofy pictures. i am now on video singing and dancing along to prince's "kiss," which is pretty fabulous. really quite a wonderful evening.

so this blog was pretty pointless, but it's been a while. i've been recording video diary entries mostly, which really helps to get things off my chest. mmmmmmhmm. ok, well, that's all for now my loves. nighty night, enjoy the last few weekend hours.

puppies and rainbows and gumdrops and sunshine...

.... and then everyone gets sick from cute perky overload. but you know what i say to that?
uhhhhh f-you. with love.

today is absolutely gorgeous. it's supposed to be a high of 77 degrees, and i'm in shorts and a t-shirt!! i got to break my bike out of it's hibernation from my living room, and rode it to work. unfortunately i found out the hard way that the back break isn't working for whatever reason, but i pulled a flintstones move and used my feet in combination with the front break. woo!

so i absolutely loved having my brother (colin) here. he didn't stay with me at my place, he stayed with our friend ronni who lives just a few blocks away, but it was just really great having him in baltimore. just to be able to call him up and be like hey col, let's go grab some food, or hey come on over and we can do work together, was just really awesome. he just left this morning - i pulled my weird hours to get some work done for my midterm crit today - it's for life drawing - so he called me around 9:20am and dropped by and we chilled out for about an hour. i made breakfast (and by made breakfast i mean poured us some cereal and made a pot of coffee) and we talked in the kitchen for a bit. this is his spring break right now and he was not looking forward to going back to ny. he has to go to his internship at our local paper as soon as he gets home pretty much. it's at 4pm, and he left at about 10:30 this morning, and it's a 5 hour trip. sooo he's going to be cutting it really close. but yeah, i loved having him and i'm sad he had to leave. i really hope that when he and i are both out of school that we don't live too far from eachother. we've been close ever since we were kids, always playing together and teasing eachother in a non-malicious sort of way... haha we've certainly gotten into our share of trouble together too. it's funny, because honestly, i really feel like we have a similar connection to that of twins. i mean i can't know for sure since i've never experienced being a twin, but i'd say we're pretty damn close to it. so yeah.

it's almost spring!!! even my toes are springy. i may not like pink, but this definitely called for some hot pink toes for sure.

i am just in the best most fabulous mood. i'm getting really in control and on top of all of my work, even to the point where i feel i can almost do some of my own personal work. mmmmmmhm. it's a good day.

took the bones of me shook the bones of me

in response to alissandra's comment on my previous (however short) post:

ya damn right.

but anyway, happy daylight savings everybody. i think it's funny that daylight savings isn't actually changing time... just a practice that synchronizes a mass change in the perception of time on nation-wide level. sweet. to me however, this time of year is exciting because right now, it is jutst one step closer to summer. and normally, no matter how much i enjoy summer and have enjoyed it in the past, i don't think that i have wanted it to come as much as i do right now. i mean in elementary school there was always the dragging feeling until the final bell when you could dash onto the bush, get home, and stay out well after the porch lights came on, playing a solid game of manhunt and chasing fireflies. now, it's the immense excitement of things to come and things to leave behind. right now, i have 8 more weeks left of my sophomore year. just 8. that is absolutely incredible to me. this year, despite many of it's less than happy events and ridiculous moments, has completely flown by i think perhaps even faster than the year before. this is terrifying, considering the fact that that means finals will be here very shortly, that anastasiya and i really need to think about and figure out where we'll be living, and then of course the prospect of moving out of this apartment.

however this is also just fabulously awesome.

i'm very much in the "excited about life" mode right now, even if most the excitement has to do with the somewhat near future.

some resolutions i have for the remainder of the semester:

actually go jogging. i've wanted to do this for a while, but never had the time. well, i dropped a class to get more work done and actually live like a normal human being, so i am going to further make use of the additional 24 hours to my life and get things done that i want to get done.

do better art work. again, with the more realistic amount of time i have to get things done now, this should reduce some stress that makes work more craptastic, and also giving my a normal amount of time to put into something to make it quality.

get to work on time on thursdays. again with the getting things done and being able to sleep.

not kill a few select people. you know who you are. actually... no... no you don't. but my goal is not to kill you during the rest of the year. we'll see how that goes.

things i'm so so so so so so excited for:

SUMMER! because this includes:

spending time with friends and family; when my parents come to pick me and all my stuff up at the end of this year, my dad is going to take me to a ball game! i honestly can't wait. it has been much too long since i've seen a live baseball game. i think the last time was the summer before freshman year.....
sleeping
annual family vacation to new jersey
maybe a camping trip?
working at the daycare some more - i love my kids!
sleeping
hanging out with certain awesome people.
taking an obscene amount of pictures
and, one thing that i'm most excited about (but shouldn't be yet because it's still so up in the air...) is a potential job i might have!!

see, this summer, i may be working for the Pennsylvania Governor's School of The Arts. my job would basically be to take care of, hang out and play with this adorable 4 year old girl. not only is it super cool that that would be my job, but included would be my own apartment and a college meal plan. i'd be surrounded by students attending the program, so oodles of all kinds of artists (musicians, visual artists, writers, etc.), and meet and hang out with the awesome people working there during my off hours. it would be for 7 weeks, so i'd still have a large chunk of my summer at home (it works out to almost 50/50). i'm super thrilled, and really hoping i get the job. i feel like i have a good shot, considering the fact i got an awesome recommendation (thanks beege!) and because of my experience with kids and all, but there's always the chance i won't, and unfortunately there's also the possibility that they won't need a nanny at all. so, i'm basically waiting to hear about all of that. i'm trying not to get my hopes up or put too much into it, but come on people..... if you honestly know me, then you're reading this and thinking "yeah, right... you're probably packed already." and to that i say...... well... what of it!?

so besides that, i am also excited to have discovered a new outlet for more personal feelings and such so as not to divulge a whole bunch of crap into this blog. see the other night while i was back home in new york, i mentioned online to bj that i needed to get out of the house. actually, i think it was more along the lines of "i neeeeeed to get ouuuuuuut of the hoooooooooouuuuuuuuuuussseeeeee." or something to that affect. to which he replied, "well go frolick." which sounded like a fabulous plan to me, so i did. it was freezing, and 1 in the morning, but it was a fabulous frolick. i took my camera with me, and ended up making a video of me just talking and spilling my guts about things that i felt like talking about. yay for video diaries! it's fun and i think easier to some respect because it can be difficult for me to express myself in writing/typing sometimes, so being able to talk and use hand gestures and the like is good. it also feels good to get things of your chest by saying them out loud. good times, for sure. so any way, i need to get my lazt bum out of bed and get cracking on all the work i didn't do over spring break. yaaay! buhbye my loves.

ok that was a lie - before i go: my brother drove me back to baltimore yesterday, and it was so hilarious and fun. i love my brother! i get to spend all of tuesday with him, so that'll be a good time. he made some fabulous analogies along the way, and also now have some very memorable catch phrases involving boston accents to cherish forever... heh heh heh...

alright, for serious, peace out girl scout.

lobsters and penguins

nope, the title for this blog isn't from a song. that'd be pretty interesting though huh?

i am however listening to come rain or come shine by b.b. king and eric clapton. so good. it's a bluesy kind of evening, but in the best kind of way. no worries - there's no mopeiness going on right now or anything. quite the contrary in fact, and alissandra can atest - i was on the phone with her for over an hour tonight, and there was an obscene amount of giggling.

i should be sleeping now but i decided to blog instead, because i'm super cool like that. my brother is driving me back down to baltimore tomorrow and is going to be around for a couple days, so that should be pretty fun. i've been trying to get him to come down for ages, and now he finally is!

actually, me sleepy, will finish this later tomorrow.....

who made, who made up, made up the myth

i have been pearl jamming my heart out.

i like titling some of my blogs with lyrics from songs i'm listening to at the moment.... mmmhmm.

so, i haven't been doing much on my break. but i've recently had the revelation that, well, that's ok. i'm not really supposed to be doing anything - it's my break! so you go to hell, work.

yesterday actually was full of good times though, once i managed to pull myself off of my bed and away from my tv and lap top. i don't have a car, so if i want to drive around places i have to kind of figure that out in advance, which is sometimes difficult for me because when it comes to going places or driving somewhere, i don't plan for the life of me. but eh! mostly the planning came from the fact that i was going to go out to lunch with my mom over her break that day, so i drove her in that morning so that i had the car. i drove back home, puttzed around a bit, and then showered and did all that good stuff. i lost track of time doing nothing, because it's such hard work dontcha know, and took off to grab my mom. we went to this place called double o, and they were quite tasty. very enjoyable. i love when i can sit down with my mom and just chat. she's pretty much my best friend - i can talk to her about pretty much anything, and she has some great advice. the same kind of goes for her too - she tells me everything and i try to give some outlook or perspective on it. sometimes that can get a little weary, because i think a lot of times parents don't really talk to their kids about everything going on, or what's really going on in their life, and when someone who you're used to being the rock shows that they're wavering, it can sometimes be difficult to handle. but i like being able to be there for her when i can, and i know a lot of it comes from the fact that sometimes it's just really good to have someone you can completely bear your soul to.

so yeah, we had a fabulous lunching experience, and i was able to tell her all the things that were weighing heavily on my mind. she has the knack for knowing when things are wrong when i don't even know something's wrong. gotta love mom's. : )

after lunch i had to bring her back to work, but by then she only had a little less than 3 hours left, so i went to the mall to pass the time. and i was in the mood to spend. which almost never happens.

i'm dangerous in that mood.

i went and got a haircut, which i absolutely love. i decided that it's time to grow these locks out - 3 years of short hair is enought for now. there's not much i can change with hair this short unless i shave my head, and i don't plan on doing that any time soon, so i'm going to try to do the longer hair thing again. after that, i headed over to h&m. i bought a killer black pin-striped blazer which is super cute, and totally rocked it for the rest of the day, and also got a black trench coat that, i must say, is freakin awesome. i also bought a black and white polka-dotted umbrella! woo! i pulled myself out of there, and headed to best buy. i went to get the new decemberists cd, the crane's wife, and also some pearl jam, but i'll be damned if there was just too much pearl jam for me to decide. i texted bj for his advice, as he is, to me, the pearl jam expert. i was trying to decide between 2 pre-determined cd's and he responded with "why just those?" where i thought dammit.... this is going to be a while. i knew i wanted to get their newest one, and then one other. he suggested Vs. and Yield, as those were 2 of his favorites, and that what he'd heard of their new stuff was pretty good. he then texted me again saying that those were more "rockin" albums and that Vitalogy and one other i can't remember were good for more softer stuff. damn my indecisiveness! i ended up putting back the decemberists and getting their new one, Vs., and Vitalogy. i feel that's a decent compromise, eh? hehe... i also finally got a wall charger for my ipod. i left there and wasn't done yet, so i went and looked at some puppies. always a bad idea. so cute, and so sad... i just wanted to take them all home with me. i got into a nice conversation with this guy about dogs, until this lady come over who i assume was his girlfriend and gave him the "let's go NOW" face, and left. i almost asked the someone who worked there to take out one of the bogle puppies for me to play with, but decided that probably wasn't a good idea. "so yeah mom, i got a hair cut, bought a new coat, some cd's, and oh yeah a puppy ok gotta go!" so instead i headed to the shoe department, which is equally bad as puppy shopping. i looked at some really cute black peep-toe kitten heels, but they didn't have my size, and that happened with 2 other pairs, so i took that as my sign to stop shopping. i definitely knew it was time to go when i was starting to justify spending $38 on a pair of sunglasses.

so i went i picked my mom up, and then had some delicious dinner cooked by my papa bear! and then i fell asleep listening to Vitalogy. then i woke up, woooo, and watched me, myself, & irene.

'twas a good day.

now i have to go and shower, and clean the house before my parents get home and before my aunt and uncle are here for dinner. plus, laur is coming by around 2! yaaay! that's all for now my loves.

tell me that you're alright yeah everything is alright

so i almost just beat the everloving crap out of my brother....
i forgot he shaved his head, and he's fast asleep on the couch.
ah well.

well, i'm home. or something like that. it gets weirder every time i come back - feels a little less and less like i belong here which is unfortunate. i love my parents and my brother a lot, we've always been close and get along great but by the end of any break i'm just so ready to be out of there. the unfortunate thing this time is that i was feeling that as soon as i got in the car after they picked me up from the train station. i mean it could be that i had been traveling for 12 hours too, and didn't really need/want to be fussed over at all.

i really shouldn't complain though. i'm really lucky to have the family that i have. they are incredible, and i would do anything for them as they would for me.

it is unfortunate though that mica decided to make spring break so early this year... everyone else is still at school. my best friend's break doesn't start until the end of this week, and she booked a trip to florida starting on the 9th, so there are only 2 days that she can actually hang out with me at all, which kind of blows. gwaaaaaar enough complaining!

i kicked off break pretty well, i feel - it was a lot of fun. i like fredonia a lot, and yay! so much snow!!! i was really excited to actually go some place where winter actually existed... even if everyone else there was ready to stab themselves in the face with an icicle. nothing too monumental happened - beege and i watched oodles of goodness, like tom & jerry's greatest chases, friends (season 4), nacho libre, pink floyd's the wall (sooooo gooooood!), and other fabulous things. it was so nice to just chill out and not have to worry about work or school. the trip back home was an adventure as well. it was long, but not awful. i took a bus from the fredonia campus to the buffalo train station (it's so tiny!), and had 2 hour and 40 minute layover there so i had the guy that worked there lock up my ginormous suitcase and took a walk through the windy windy streets. i got this absolutely delicious bowl of homemade soup and some splendid coffee - i took a picture of it with my cell phone and it is now the main wallpaper, because i'm a huge dork. what of it!?

once i caught the train, i slept for pretty much 5 1/2 hours straight, which was good, considering it was supposed to be about a 7 1/2 hour long ride. it did end up being longer, only because when we got into albany they had to switch engine cars (bj got fabulous texts from me yelling "they're switching the ENGINES! WTF!?" where he then explained that they were probably just switching the cars.... which made me feel better. and more sense), and also where albany was doing some sort of electrical testing and had to turn off the power. so my train was supposed to get home around 8 or something, and it ended up getting in about 9:30 instead, but that was ok. i had my laptop with me and was giggling along to some episodes of friends (have i mentioned i like friends? :-P) so the time went along quite nicely. and also, amtrak trains? A freakin +! so comfortable. good god.

well anyway, i'm going to go do some work and figure out what my week is going to look like... hopefully there is a haircut in my near future! and extra layers. because according to weather.com it is 11 degrees with a "feels like" factor of -4. f-you wind.