"I Hope You Get To A Beautiful Film This Weekend"

I know that it seems premature, but I am already looking toward Spring Break. It isn't that I am too worried about class or living back in the dorms. In fact, I'm more excited to go than I was fall semester.

Instead, everyone is leaving for spring break, and it is my personal goal to be one of the lucky chaps who has a blast on break. I am planning a road trip. Actually, it can't be considered a trip, because there is no set destination. That's correct. I want to finally fufill a goal on my list of 50 things to do before I die. I am planning on packing light, hopping in the car and speeding off toward some perfect place. I am not concerned with comfort or luxury. I am looking for a partner in crime and a few amazing entries in this little puppy.

Today is the first day that I have shared a Caribou table with someone that I don't know. She is fragile and thin and we haven't spoken yet. Her short brown hair bobs tightly around her head, and her protruding black glasses make her look (but not look, the word should be feel) like the artsy English teacher that everyone loved in high school. I can tell that she is smart and determined from the four or five glances that I have stolen while she sipped her coffee.

So, I am reading the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (and I really shouldn't try to begin to analyze it because I'm hardly half-way through. I just want to discuss one point that I feel Rand makes very evident. While I can't remember who exactly says this, it is brought up that everything important you can possibly know about someone is in their face the very first time you regard them. You should be able to read how the person thinks, and what protrudes from their mind when they are alone.

The subsequent meetings and conversations sometimes betray this first thought, but the initial feeling should trump all forms of rhetoric the person enlists. Anyway, there is my philosophical plug for the day.


Things that make me smile:
The fact that I order differently depending on which coffee shop I am in (grande nonfat sugar-free vanilla latte vs. medium sugar-free vanilla latte with skim), the woman across the table from me (she is thinking to herself and smiling and I hope that it is because of a joke she remembered or some remark her child made when he was still innocent), coffee and caffeine and lattes and espresso and coffee mugs.

French and french teachers, the irony that I am not religious but my three favorite teachers from high school taught religion, old music jams in the car (when you still know every word to "independent women" by destiny's child), haikus, looking for apartments, kitchen appliances (call me weird, but having my own stove seems like it will be the highlight of next year), run-on sentences like this one, thick-rimmed glasses, making presents for Steve, giggling and kissing and fighting and most action-verbs, wishing others a pleasant day (even though the weather is wishing the opposite), the color brown (which may possibly be my new favorite color for no apparant reason). I like that this list is much much longer than the next one in my head.

Things that make me frown:
Soy milk is more expensive, my horoscope (that I usually read every few days) told me that a confrontation will change the way I approach my professional life and career, mittens and coats that are the same color but don't match.

While writing this, that wonderful woman that I mentioned earlier and I bonded over how we think that some places lie about actual fat contents. Then, she spoke of theatres and beautiful foriegn films and directors and how rochester could never compare to new york city. She then said good-bye and put on her large black overcoat with a daisy pinned on the collar.

I don't think she realizes how much better I feel.