here is a picture of the car i bought today to replace my dead little green one. it's basically the same one i had, except with 2 doors instead of 4 and with a hatchback instead of a trunk. regardless, i love it so very much... especially its bright blue color. i'm so grateful that everything went smoothly at the dealership and that they were able to help me out so much. thank heavens my dad knows the general manager. anyway, i'm excited...and more than a little relieved.

well, i'm back. i had a really excellent, relaxing vacation in fenwick island, DE. the place we stayed was absolutely beautiful...as you can clearly see from this panoramic picture. i thoroughly enjoyed all that the beach community had to offer. played a little tennis, used the treadmill in the fitness center, and spend several hours sitting by the pool. we drove to the beach a couple times too, and as a result i got plenty of sun. in fact, i'm actually tan now, which is odd for me considering i usually end up looking like a lobster. all in all, it was a great week and i did absolutely nothing except rest, eat, and shop. the fun couldn't last forever though, and soon it was back to reality...

i got some very unfortunate news on saturday. it turns out my car was totalled in the accident and therefore it's officially gone. i was absolutely heartbroken to hear that, not just because it means i will need to buy a new one, but because i was so dissapointed in myself. i know, i know...everyone keeps telling me that i shouldn't be so hard on myself, but i just can't help it. hearing that the car is completely wrecked makes me feel like a failure somehow. that car was the first legitimately valuable thing i've owned and i'm just sad that because of a split second error in judgement, it was taken away from me. i've never been a materialistic person; in fact i'm secure in owning only the necessary things and know that, in the end, tangible objects don't mean anything. but i really loved that car. i took pride in owning it and being responsible for it. i'm doing the best i can to pick up the pieces and get back on the road again; dad and i are going to look at cars tomorrow. but i know that my driving mentality has really changed. i've cried more tears of frustration in the last few days than i have in a while.

anyway. it will work out somehow. it always does, i guess.

yesterday was fun. i went to a huge bbq/picnic/potluck party at happy john's place and had a blast. so many cool people were there, mostly from starbucks. it's amazing to me what a great group of friends i've met from that place. and i've noticed that once you are a starbucks employee you are officially a member of 'the club' for life. i swear, no matter where people move to, or what jobs they leave starbucks for, somehow the experiene of working there permanently connects you to everyone. i'll always be friends with these people. we'll always hang out and talk about all the crazy stuff that we deal with, all the funny moments, all of the things that only coffee shop people would understand. it's really special.

ok. bye for now.

congratulations are in order for ms. morissette! this is just so cool. i'm so happy for her. now i finally know who she wrote all those songs about on her new album...

to update everyone....

i'm on the mend now. my soreness seems to be dissapating a little every day, and though i still have moments of stiffness and discomfort, i can deal. for a few days, i was finding new bruises on random parts of my body, which was weird. although it's difficult to remember every detail of what happened, i do know that i must have been banged around quite a bit...much more so than i realized initially. i guess my body was still in shock for a little while before i noticed the damage. the car is in the shop and it should take a couple weeks to fix it. i'm really anxious (& worried) to hear the extent of the repairs. i just want my little car back.

my parents have been a wreck over this, needless to say. my mom sat down and had a talk with me yesterday, basically laying out what i needed to hear. her relief and gratitude that i am ok has turned into distress and anger in the past couple days because she wants me to understand the magnitude of the incident and realize that if i'm not more cautious, it could happen again. of course, i got really emotional because i take pride in being a responsible person and any time my mom questions that or my good judgement, i get defensive. but we talked it out. i'm so incredibly lucky to have such loving and supportive parents, that's for sure. and the last thing i want them to worry about is me coming home every time i leave the house now. i know how much this has scared them and me. i'm just so lucky, on so many levels...

i can't wait to get away from things for a little while next week. i'm going to rehobeth beach with the family where my dad rented a townhouse on the bay side. it should be really quiet and relaxing. all i want to do is sit on the beach, listen to music, and read. i'm taking my pentax camera and journal with me as well, in the hopes of focusing on 2 of my long lost hobbies. i need to take some time away from certain people and the smell of coffee and regain my inner glow. either that, or just come home with some sun...

i don't want to alarm anyone, but i got into a pretty scary car accident last night. the important thing is that i'm ok; i didn't have to go to the hospital or anything. i walked away from it, miraculously, with just a sore and stiff body. but judging by what happened, i'm shocked i wasn't severely injured or killed.

i was driving home from visiting greg in frederick, which is about 50 minutes away from my house. i was almost home, about to get off of 695 onto 83N, when i overshot the exit, turning too sharply too late, and i lost control of the car and hit the jersey wall, head on. my car bounced off it and back over 2 lanes and then finally stopped in the grass next to the exit. both of my airbags deployed, causing the car to fill up with smoke. my first instinct was to grab my cell phone and call home, but all of my stuff spilled out of my purse onto the floor. so there i was, scrambling to find my phone and thinking my car would explode. two very nice gentlemen stopped to call the police and calmed me down. i was too shocked and scared to cry really, but once my dad got there, i pretty much fell apart. my car looks horrible. the entire front is smashed in and the windshield is cracked. sadly, i was more concerned about that than i was about myself. because the car is actually mine and completely my responsibility, all i could think about what how much this damage would cost me. insurance will help, but i'm really really not looking forward to my rates going up. so, i'll be driving a rental car for probably the next week until they can fix my car. hopefully by the time i get home from vacation, things will be back to normal.

the whole thing was just a nightmare. while it was happening, as i was headed toward the wall, i thought that was it...i was gone. it felt like it wasn't happening to me. i was more scared than i've ever been before. this experience has changed me, profoundly.

it's amazing to me how one second, you can be so happy, so lighthearted and carefree, and the next minute you are heading toward a cement wall at 50 mph, completely helpless. such extremes, such completely different emotions. i'm completely dumbfounded.

things on my mind right now:

- matt nathanson. i went to his show at fletcher's last night with my sister and john hess. we had a really great time and matt put on a wonderful show. he is even more amazing than i remember him being 2 yrs. ago. and now that he's sporting the pseudo-mohawk look, he's even cuter. the energy at the show was out of control. most definitely one of the best concerts i've seen. a really great band called louque opened for him, and really impressed us. i love getting turned on to new music.

- happy's last day at work. my best starbucks friend john (aka happy john) worked his very last shift at yorkridge today. even though i was off, i came into work early anyway to set up a little surprise for him with a couple of the other girls. to make a long story short, back in february, i stole a very incriminating and embarrassing photograph of john from his apartment. it's this picture of him when he was 14 and he's got this insanely ugly mullet and looks really silly. we planned on pulling a practical joke at some point and making photo copies of the picture to hang up all over work, but never got around to it....until now! shelley went out and made about 30 copies of this picture, enlarged them, and we basically wallpapered the back room with the fliers. my boss went out and bought a smiley-face ice cream cake and, ironically, the box it came in said "now you can see what happy tastes like". LOL. very silly and inappropriate, i know. but so perfect for john. i also wrote him a letter in this card that he hasn't read yet, because he knows it will make him all emotional. leave it to me to be the sentimental one. i'm just really going to miss him. we've gotten really close and that store just won't be the same without him. i'm not going to cry, i promise...

- greg. he's the guy i'm seeing now. that sounds funny, saying i'm "seeing" someone. don't i technically "see" a lot of people? whatever. my brain hurts. point is, i like him.

- work. i got my 2nd review today and once again, i scored the highest possible score. yay. so that basically means that i get a miniscule raise and props from my boss. he really really wants to promote me too, but at this point i don't know if that's what i want. i didn't even think i'd be there this long. but still, it's great knowing that a shift supervisor position is mine if i change my mind.

that's it. now go download or buy some matt nathanson music...and rock it out!

*note: here is the long awaited post! see, i wasn't lying!*

11 of us went to chambersburg, PA on thursday and each of us jumped out of a plane flying 14,000 feet above the ground. to say it was a thrill would be a major, major understatement. it was the most surreal and fantastic experience of my life so far.

i cannot, for the life of me, get the image of the moment before i jumped out of my head. try to imagine this: i was crouched on the edge of an open plane door with a parachute and an instructor strapped to my back with nothing between me and the open air. all i saw was clouds and endless blue sky; all i heard was rushing wind. for a split second, i thought i couldn't do it, that i was going to die. but i did it, i jumped. and it all happened so fast that to try and explain it to anyone, is sort of difficult. but alas, i will try....just for kicks. ;)

first of all, i should say right off that i can't believe how fearless i was. i really wasn't all that scared, except in the moment described above, and for the most part, the experience was painless. i think the fact that this was a group effort, and we were all so pumped up and united, no one felt scared. i was in the 3rd group scheduled to jump, so we had a while to wait. i spent most of the time taking pictures of the site, kicking back in the sun, and asking lots of questions. after the first group jumped, all i could do was ask, "how did it feel when you jumped? what was it like? was landing difficult?" of course, it wasn't until later that i realized that it's virtually impossible to answer any of these questions with any accuracy or clarity. in fact, all you really can say afterwards is, "whoa. that was INCREDIBLE." honestly, the reactions don't vary a whole lot. because the experience renders you completely inarticulate. the sheer shock of it leaves you pretty much speechless for a couple hours. even while i was calling my family and friends after i jumped, i couldn't compose a complete sentence. it was so strange.

anyway. so when my group (consisting of happy john, his girlfriend dana, and myself) went up, i was raring to go, decked out in my snazzy black nylon skydiving gear. frankly, it was quite hot and combined with the very uncomfortable harness, you look like a real winner, let me tell you. oh, not to mention the very odd looking rubber cap and goggles! so, we got in this tiny plane and proceeded to sit on the floor in the order in which we would "disembark"...(i think that word sounds so much better than "jump out of the aircraft" haha.) i was getting progressively more tense, because as we're flying up, the airplane door is open, so you can clearly see exactly how high you are flying. plus, they gave us these altometers (sp?) that you wear on your wrist that monitor your level of elevation. so while you're sitting there, the plane dipping and making your stomach somersault, you can look at your altometer and see how many thousands of feet you are climbing in the air. yeah...quite freaky. john was freaking out the entire time, but in his own quiet way, and once he jumped out, i was next. seeing him tumble out and inching closer to the edge, was probably the most nervous part. because once you jump, you fall SO quickly. it's like, WHOOSH!!!! and you're gone...completely sucked out of the plane. and it is such an overwhelming experience to be in freefall. you are flying at 120 mph and so stunned by what is happenening, that it affects every one of your senses. you are supposed to keep your mouth shut on the way down but, of course, i couldn't do that because while i was jumping i couldn't help but say "oh my god!" and before i knew it, my mouth was filling up with air. i got the wind knocked out of me for a little while and i could even feel my cheeks flapping. i had seen plenty of pictures and videos of skydivers with their faces stretched out in funny ways by the wind, and let me tell you, that is precisely what happens. my cheeks were all over the place! the freefall lasts about 50 seconds or so, and your face and hands get pretty cold, considering all the wind. i'm proud to say i kept my eyes open the entire time, though! it's such a sight, you don't even understand...

so, about a minute into it, my instructor (bob) pulls the chute and all of a sudden it goes completely silent. prior to this, it is so unbelievably loud and so to have the wind noise stop so abruptly is remarkable. i think that transition period was my favorite part actually, because you are going from a sheer chaotic state, to one of peace and calm. flying in a parachute is AMAZING. what astounded me most was that you don't even feel like you are falling; more like you are hanging, suspended above the earth. and because your perspective in relation to the ground is all whacked, it just seems like you will levitate above the ground forever. SUCH a weird sensation. bob talked to me the entire way down, giving me a tour of what we were seeing. he pointed out hagerstown, camp david, all of chambersburg, the airport...ALL of this i was seeing from about 5,000 feet. we even saw a tiny, tiny pasture of cows, of which (from my perspective) i could completely obliterate with my foot. seriously, you feel so powerful and gigantic and focused while looking down on everything. and from that vantage point, every single thing looks fake. it's like hanging above a scale model of a community...or a monopoly board. everything is so representational, that you can't believe it's actually houses and highways and forests. it's totally nuts...but in the best way possible. i've never been in such a state of complete focus and calm in my life. at that moment, i wasn't thinking about anything other than where i was. i was completely in the present and felt so incredibly alive.

the landing wasn't nearly as complicated as i imagined. the cool thing is that you are completely in control and can steer the chute basically anywhere you need to. you simply pull down on the left handle to turn left, and the right handle to turn right. once you get about 200 or so feet above ground, this weird phenomenon happens called "ground zoom" where the ground seems to surge upwards, and all of a sudden you realize you're about to land and that everything is getting bigger in size. unfortunately, i was a bit taller than bob, so i tumbled a little in the landing because i couldn't get my feet quite high enough above his to land smoothly. it was all good though, and i walked away with not a scrape. once i landed, i noticed my ears were all whacked out, having popped from the elevation. i could barely hear anything but was super excited anyway. my right ear actually didn't get back to normal until yesterday....(what is today anyway? i've been writing this damn post for 3 days now!)

so, yeah. that's pretty much it. it was over before i knew it, but the anticipation and the day in general, was well worth it. a couple hours afterwards, on the ride home, i felt really really tired due to the after effects of all that adrenaline. when i say tired, i mean completely lethargic. and i was actually sort of nauseous too, probably because i hadn't eaten much and my body had just been thrown completely out of whack. i think that's the 3rd time i've used that word "whack". ha. that's the best way to describe the experience, i suppose. it's totally whack....yo.

there you have it. i know that i didn't even come close to describing what the experience was actually like, or how i felt, but i tried my best. if you in any way have ever wanted to skydive, GO FOR IT. you won't regret it. seeing the world from that perspective will change you in so many ways. i'll be jumping again, i'm sure...

in less than 24 hours, i will be jumping out of a plane.

holy shit.
i'm so excited!