so of course being back in the city has been cool- literally it's 20 degrees people. i got off the plane with short sleeves and a vest to the chill of my first breath of fresh air just outside of terminal 2 of jfk. though i rarely get cold i was forced to throw on my ll bean coat so i did not look completely ridiculous as if my jansport leopard print rolling luggage was not enough of a clear sign. it took me a bit over an hour to finally reach home because somehow i managed to get lost on the air train watching myself loop through the terminals while directing my friend through whole foods for the people she babysits for's grocery list when i'd come full circle literally so i decided to get off and reorient myself. thanks to lirr before i knew it i was in penn station and then on the subway home. finally reunited with one of room mates we then smittenly walked down the avenue of the americas to grab some chinese food to christen our reunification. well really she had already eaten dinner and we just sat sipping tea waiting for my "curry rice chicken" (literally what it said on the menu) to arrive. it finally did and it's texture and color was a bit off putting but i was too tired to care and ate half the plate till i found some restraint and handed the waitress the dish and asked for a take out box.

the next morning i woke up to my suit cases still not unpacked, i'd secretly been wishing that a fairy might give a girl a hand and yet no such luck, so i unpacked them and then went out with the wishful hope that whole foods wouldn't be crowded at 1:30 on a saturday. boy was i sadly mistaken. the customers couldn't even fit in the arena of the digital system that organizes them into lines to eventually face the multitude of cashiers. it was then and there that i elected to return tomorrow at 8 when it opened because though the city never sleeps people do exclude sunday from that. i hadn't eaten yet so i settled for a mexican restaurant in the area that had a unnerving amount of signs warning those that they would not serve alcohol without an ID. under normal conditions, like it wasn't bone chillingly cold out and i wasn't starving, i would have let my unsettled self drive me somewhere else but hunger took hold. the restaurant was quaint once inside and despite the kind service my tacos were less than satisfactory.

i then returned to my room and fell asleep watching glee till i eventually resurfaced wandering about the village aimlessly finally settling on a upscale grocery store. which i cannot tell you what possessed me to do this but i then purchased curry sticks & twigs and bumpers (ie "healthy" cocoa puffs but mom's approve?!?). i came back to the room and waited for my room mate annabella's arrival with excited anticipation. when i heard her rustling outside our door to get her keys i swung the door open quickly almost as quickly as i found us hugging a bit at a loss for words. we wandered about the hall finding our friend jake and reminiscing about our good memories of surviving our first semester and running through an impressive amount of pop culture as is traditional. we ran into a few new faces on our floor and most likely overwhelmed them with our enthusiasm, stamina, and just pure words per minute count. we were all happily chatting in the hallway when we began to hear what i can only describe as a swallow on a timer squawking as if it was constantly flying up and down our stair well. concerned bystanders we knocked on our RA's door at midnight so that he could not only confirm that we weren't alone in hearing the bird calls but the hope that he could investigate it and keep us from changing from our pjs into bird watching garb ala those old people in parks (whom if birds didn't terrify i could most easily adore). we all braved the stairway and concluded that it must be the new fire alarm malfunctioning and left it at that. then jake annabella and i talked in our dorm until about 4 am and then hit the hay.

i got up reasonably easy at 8 considering the time my head actually got to rest from itself. i threw on my coat and headed out the door back to whole foods with a new found ambition to complete my grocery shopping with nothing to stop me. i arrived and was glad to discover the store basically empty. i went to the prepared foods section grabbed eggs and yogurt and strawberries, which i don't know why because i never have that in the morning or rather ever, and checked out then climbed the stairs to the seats at the third floor of the over priced health food mecca. but of course the fun didn't end there. i was sitting eating my rather luke warm eggs when i heard hip hop music emulating from someone's headphones. i looked up from my compostable fork and take out box to see a man in his early twenties in jeans (bedazzled backside don't worry) and a tan shirt complete with bejeweled pocket aka ugly sad knock off ed hardy, nikes and pink socks and grey headphones looking into the small mirror whole foods hangs on the wall to add that artificial look of space that restaurants love to inject into their atmospheres. he was practicing his movesss complete with not just tapping his feet but shaking his back side. i shouldn't be surprised by this shit any more but i am never too amazed: just a normal scene for the beginning step up 11 (aren't they there yet and if they aren't they will soon though i wish they'd just give up same to pirates of the caribbean and bring it on) at 8:30 am on a sunday on the third floor of whole foods. but the plot thickens a security guard also grubbing on the whole foods breakfast bar caught my eye and clearly was just as taken back by the young dancing gentleman as i was and mouthed "believe me i know."it felt great to have my confusion verified almost better because it came from an absolute stranger.

when i finished my eggs i didn't stay around just in case he had an encore in his back pocket. i climbed back down the stairs grabbed a cart and began to shop for my groceries (which is a joke because not only do i not have a kitchen in my room or the whole building, i don't even have a proper counter top) so whatever i buy is like cereal or chips or something that takes zero effort to set up. i was in the grains aisle and a not particularly impressive remake of "somebody to love" came through the speakers though i have to say i wouldn't want to be faced with the impossible challenge of out doing queen. not only are they great but they are so confusing that i couldn't understand them enough to remake them and frankly i doubt that they ever understood themselves. but any way the was a whole foods worker stacking dried food boxes and it must have been his jam because he began to belt it out almost rhythmically to the stacking of annie's mac and cheese. it was marvelous. i took the cart escalator back up checked out and then came back and really checked out. i passed out for an hour cat nap only to resurface to accompany annabella down to the "cafeteria" just to reintegrate ourselves together. after a longish "lunch" i guess with the buddies down there we returned to the room. annabella headed to a lunch and i headed to target in brooklyn. just got back from the extravaganza of red swirls and spirals and feel pretty accomplished. got my necessities. the one nice thing nice about my room is it always feels like the holidays because i must have santa's workshop living above me (well at least i'd prefer that visual) because they are like always hammering their floor or walls or something which i don't understand or truly care to. it'd be nice if once they could stop when people try and sleep you know at night or something.

for f*cks sake