The Case of the Stolen Identity

Author's note: This story is a completely fictional creation of my imagination, except that it really happened.

It was gone. She knew without a doubt in her mind that she had placed it back in the wallet holder after purchasing that $2.69 bottle of red wine on Friday. It was Wednesday. How long had she been driving around without it? And why didn't the thief take her $13, ATM card or credit card? Granted, she was a pretty sorry pick for an identity thief, with her $1000 line of credit, thousands in student loans, and $75 in her bank account, but still.

The first thought in Annie's head, after searching her purse and car on the off-chance it had fallen out, was that her younger sister Brittany had taken it. Months ago, Brittany had begged Annie to go to the Secretary of State, tell them she lost her drivers' license, and get a new one so she could have the old one to get into bars and clubs.

"Please, Annie," Brittany had whined. "Lydia and Kayla's big sisters did it for them! It works!"

"No!" Annie had protested. "I can just see you forking over my ID when you get pulled over for drunk driving and sticking me with the ticket and the driving record. I'm sorry, but no."

Brittany had pouted, but that was the end of the conversation.

Annie had a gut feeling that Brittany had stolen it. She sent Brittany a text, since she was at work.

Annie: I lost my id.

Brittany: what? you mean your license?

Annie: yes

Brittany: that sucksss!

Annie: have you seen it?

Brittany: no I haven't

Annie: please tell me you didn't take it.

Brittany: omg no annie I would never do that to you!

Annie, trusting her sister, decided she was telling the truth. This is in spite of the fact that Brittany had a proven track record of "stretching the truth" (read: lying.) Annie told herself, "Brittany may be a sneaky little bitch, but she would never steal from her sister."

Meanwhile, Annie was faced with a plethora of predicaments. Her best friend in the whole wide world, Sadie, was in town from Minnesota. They searched Annie's entire car, all her pants pockets, the laundry room. Annie called Walgreen's and the liquor store where she buys her hookah tobacco. No sign of it. Annie and Sadie were supposed to have gone out to Royal Oak with friends from school, but alas, with no I.D. Annie could not have got in to any bar. So Sadie bought some beer and they sat at home that night.

Desperately needing identification, Annie, who worked 20 hours a week at an internship and 20 hours at an office, had to call in to work to go to Secretary of State to apply for a new license. Already in a glum mood about missing out on $70 from being at work, she was even more disheartened by the $25 fee she had to pay for a replacement license. Annie waited at Secretary of State for four hours, so long that she had to call in to job #2 at the last minute. Cursing her bad luck, Annie had nothing to look forward to except the Tigers game the next night.

Free tickets. Free parking. Amazing seats. Great company. The night should have been perfect. However, the vendors would not serve Annie with her paper license. Royally pissed off by this point, she had to have her friend buy for her and sneak around like she was 19 years old again. Once, a vendor eyed her suspiciously as Mike handed her a beer he had just purchased. Luckily, he chose to walk on. Phew.

Annie's mother, feeling for her daughter, mentioned that she should bring her passport next time she went out. Annie, appreciating the suggestion, said, "Mom, if I lose that, it's another $100 that I don't have, plus someone could REALLY steal my identity. And I have a lot of nice stamps in it."

On her way up north on Father's Day weekend, Annie thought she would stop on the way and buy her father a nice (small) bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum. Alas, she could not. Her license had not come in the mail yet, and she had left her passport safe at home.

Eventually, Annie got her license in the mail, and life was back to normal.

Until one fateful June 26th. It was a strange day to begin with. It was cousin Hailey's 13th birthday, and she had had a seizure the night before and spent the night in the hospital. Needing to be by family, Brittany called off work and she and Annie went over to Auntie's house. Hailey came home and seemed fine; she wanted Chinese food. After calling in the carry-out, Brittany asked Annie if she'd go with her to pick it up.

Climbing into the drivers' seat, Brittany tossed her wallet onto Annie's lap.

"This is so cute!" Annie said, never having seen it before. It was Coach, multi-colored, with a wrist strap.

"I got it from Tracy," Brittany explained. "I like it, too!"

Annie loves to explore new things, so she said, not even thinking, "Oh, what do you keep in the front pocket?"

Annie unclasped the front pocket and slid out some cards. Debit card, library card . . . one was sticking out. A telltale horizontal blue bar reading MICHIGAN was visible. In Michigan, when you are under 21, you have a vertical license with a colored background. Over 21, you are issued a white horizontal license with a blue bar at the top with the state's name.

Brittany snatched the wallet from Annie with amazing speed. Her voice was high-pitched as she trilled, "Oh, the front pocket? You know, my debit card, library card, BioLife card, stuff like that."

Annie was stunned, but since Brittany was driving, she wasn't exactly going to wrestle for the wallet. Brittany was notorious for flying off the handle, crying, screaming, accusing no one of loving her, getting mad when people clean the house,generally throwing temper tantrums, and the last thing Annie wanted to do was die for her drivers' license.

A plan formulated in her head. Weeks ago, one of the professors at Annie's work told her that his younger daughter stole his older daughters' license years ago. Frank told Annie to go into Brittany's wallet and look behind her real I.D.; that's where his daughter had finally found hers. Frank told Annie to just take the I.D. and not say a word about it. That way, when she goes to pull it out to use it at a bar or a liquor store, she’ll be completely screwed over. Annie thought this was a brilliant idea. She had proof; now it was time for payback.

Annie had butterflies in her stomach, but when Brittany got in the shower later that day, Annie went to the pretty Coach wallet.

It wasn't there.

Annie thought she had blown her chance. Thinking back, Brittany had taken her wallet into the Chinese food place with her - although she had the cash from Auntie in her pocket. Brittany must have taken the I.D. out of the wallet and stashed it in her pocket. Later, when she got home, she went into her room and hid it.

It was somewhere in her room. Annie knew it. It was just a matter of finding it. Because without that I.D. in her hand, she had no evidence.

By this time, Annie was so mad, shocked, and disgusted that she almost threw up. For days, she watched Brittany chatter away happily, asking Annie for favors, being silly, and it made Annie feel sick knowing that Brittany could act this way, knowing what a dirty rotten trick she had played on her own sister. Annie could imagine her gloating -- "Ha ha! I got away with it! Annie had to pay $25 to get a new one, no one knows I have it, I can get into bars and Mom and Dad will never know and I'm so smart YAY!"

After a few days of this sickening feeling, Annie lost her iPod car adaptor. Since Brittany had stolen before, Annie angrily went into her room to look for the iPod thing. After finding it in an old purse, Annie sat on the floor of Brittany's room, just thinking.

"If I wanted to hide something small, flat and thin, where would I hide it?" Annie thought. In a book. Well, that was a bust. Brittany wasn't exactly literate. In Annie's room, the I.D. would be impossible to find. This room was different.

"Where do detectives always find hidden documents?" she asked herself. "If I never read detective novels, where would I hide it? Annie, where WOULDN'T you hide it?"

Annie was staring at a photo of Brittany and Kayla. She was seized with inspiration. Flipping it around, she took off the back of the photo. Nothing. Undeterred, she looked around wildly, eyes landing on a photo of Brittany, the boy she had sleep in her bed all the time but wasn't her boyfriend, and one or two of the twins she hung out with.

Shaking, Annie picked up the frame and plunged her fingers into the cheap plastic gap between the photo and the back of the frame. Sure enough, she emerged with her own smiling face looking back at her, on a horizontal piece of white plastic with the word MICHIGAN emblazoned across the top in blue.

She went to the bathroom and vomited.

Then, she took scissors and cut it in half. She was too upset to be vindictive at the moment. Sending a quick "I found it" text to her mom, she left it on the counter and went for a run.

Even as the Glee soundtrack vibrated through her eardrums, Annie just kept thinking "Brittany lied to me. She stole from me. She let me skip work and go to Secretary of State. She let me pay for a new one. She let me miss out on going out with my best friend. All because her social life is more important to her than her sister."

When Annie got home, her parents were there. She was doing a good job of holding it together until her mom said something to her, and then the waterworks started. Annie couldn't stop crying. The tears turned into sobs, and her mom tried to hug her, but Annie didn't want to be hugged. She wanted Brittany to get what she deserved. She wanted to see some punishment. This was low. Stealing from your own sister just to go out to a bar a year early? And yet Annie wasn't really shocked at all.

To skirt around the ugly family drama, suffice it to say that the mother sent Brittany a text telling her to come home immediately after work. Brittany flipped her lid and started calling everyone to see what was going on, but no one would answer. Annie soon received this text.

Brittany: Aren't we supposed to have each other's backs? If you were in this situation I would give you a heads up as to what the F**K was going on instead of ignoring you

That sealed the deal for Annie. After all the times she had bailed Brittany out . . . bought her alcohol . . . let her borrow her car . . . drove her places . . . lent her money . . . cleaned up after her . . . this is how she was repaid? By stealing, lying, and now being accused of disloyalty? Her social life was THAT IMPORTANT that she would sacrifice her relationship with her family instead of doing what EVERY OTHER KID IN AMERICA DOES which is a) pay to get a fake I.D. b) get someone older to buy for you or c) WAIT TIL YOU ARE 21 TO GO TO BARS LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Annie was livid. This was going to be ugly. And it was. Lots of screaming. Crying on Annie's part. Crying on Brittany's part . . . when she found out her mom was canceling her phone. Eventually Brittany left. Annie hasn't seen or talked to Brittany in two days, and she's probably not ready to yet.

The sad thing is, even though Annie won, she lost.

Signs the Apocalypse is Coming

Recently my mother and I have been discussing all the extremely shitty things that are happening in our world. Both of us have come to the conclusion that possibly, just MAYBE, the world really is going to end by 2012. (Which would be okay with me, since then I won't have to pay off my student loans.) I've compiled a list of signs that definitely point to The World's End - (not the tavern in Edinburgh, although that would be cool.) I take a lot of my stylistic hints from Cracked.com, if you can't tell.

Signs the Apocalypse is Coming

1) Crazy strong earthquakes

Obviously, there are earthquakes all the time. But within the past 6 years there have been some freaking monsters. (I STILL say that these are caused by giant fanged earthworms that burrow through the ground, but that in itself is a sign of the apocalypse, so . . . )

The tsunami in 2004 was caused by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake. NINE POINT ONE. That killed 227,898 people. That is more people than live in my entire city. Not to mention the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan that killed over 80,000, the 2008 Chinese earthquake that killed over 85,000, and of course who could forget the recent tremors in Haiti (over 222,000 fatalities) and Chile. There was even a 5.0 earthquake in Canada. Fucking CANADA.

We're all screwed.

2) Weather That Wants To Kill Us

Is it just me, or is the weather . . . stronger? I know we're supposedly going through climate change and that's all dandy, but all I know is that everything seems more intense lately. Winter storms are a dime a dozen, even though we in the northern Midwest had about a decade's worth of shitty brown Christmases. Tornadoes used to be a novelty, now I get bored when I see a tornado warning blaring across the screen (because DAMN IT, I'm trying to watch "The Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle"!) Scientists are predicting that the hurricane season will be worse this year. And oh yeah, even though we had a frigid, icy, colder-than-Naomi Campbell winter, the heat is intense this year. Which, of course, I wouldn't know, since I'm holed up in an office all summer.

3) Al Gore is Getting Divorced

Let's be real. We all know about Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth". The world is suffocating from greenhouse gases, and pretty soon it's going to be like The Day After Tomorrow and the entire northern hemisphere is going to be covered by a polar ice cap, forcing the evacuation of all Americans to Mexico (how's that for irony?) and finally making Dennis Quaid into a hero after he was unceremoniously dumped by Meg Ryan.

Hmmm . . . it's okay, Dennis.

But the most damning signal that the world is coming to an end is Al and Tipper Gore's pending divorce. Because honestly, the guy must know something we don't. He knows he only has roughly two years to hit all the insanely hot young tail we all know he can get before the whole freaking world ends. So long, Tipper, hello, Lindsay Lohan.

4) The BP Oil Spill

It's aliens. That HAS to be the only explanation why we can place a well under the ocean but can't seem to repair it once it exploded (by aliens). ALIENSALIENSALIENS

Also, we can put cameras down there? Which leads me to my next point . . .

5) BP Bought Technology From Kevin Costner

You read that correctly. Kevin Costner, the brilliant actor from such classics as The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, and The Postman (that last one was a joke) has apparently sold 32 of his oil-sucking-up inventions to BP. And now they are testing them to see if they will work. I don't know why they are bothering, everything the man touches turns to gold.

Or maybe water. Either way, it works, right?

Costner says, "I'm not on a white horse. I'm not the savior to this thing. But I'm kind of saying, like, I got a life preserver."

Like, OMGZ.

6) Guido Pandemic

One of the possible predictions for exactly how the world is going to end involves

A global pandemic with very high or even 100% mortality rate caused by a human-made infectious agent, which could be released among population on purpose. The source could be an individual, a laboratory workers group, a terrorist group, governmental or international organization.

-- Wykypaedia, Source Moste Excellente

This is already happening.

As a rampant consumer of anything related to pop culture, this is one of the few things I fail to see ANY sort of appeal in. Celeb Rehab, I get. People like to see C-list celebrities be bigger train wrecks than the majority of mainstream America. Sex and the City, I get. People want to see an NYC fashionista living beyond her means manufacture her own problems and then whine about them to her best galpals while sipping a cosmo in a trashy dress. Even American Idol, I get. People want to see a trailer park dropout who "only ever wanted to play music" achieve superstardom, come out of the closet, and descend into the depths of the drug world before ending up on Celeb Rehab.

But Jersey Shore? I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't want to see anyone putting a Snooki near anyone's Situation or watching humanity get wiped out by that new-fangled STD I constantly hear referred to as GTL.

7) Amanda Bynes is Retiring From Acting

This is the one thing on this list that has the most profound effect on my daily life. From her infant days as a sketch comedian on All That and The Amanda Show to her lovable turn as Holly on the critically acclaimed WB comedy What I Like About You, Amanda Bynes has changed the world - for the better. Who possibly could have portrayed a more quirkily off-key Penny Pingleton in Hairspray? Amongst a slew of talented singer/actors, she definitely stood out. And who could look less like a boy in She's The Man than Amanda?

I'm being serious here. At 24, she has a solid 15 years left to play a high-school outcast who undergoes a series of trials and tribulations before finally attaining the boy of her dreams.

She announced her retirement via the popular social networking site Twitter, tweeting "I don't love acting anymore so I've stopped doing it".

I DON'T LOVE PLUCKING MY EYEBROWS, BUT YOU DON'T SEE ME STOP DOING IT! Come on, Amanda. Do it for me. Your movies are like crack to me. At least we'll always have What A Girl Wants.

Whoever told Colin Firth he should do an Amanda Bynes movie . . . THANK YOU!!!

Plutarch and Toy Story 3

Recently, for my "Golden Age of Greece" class, I have been reading Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives. Now, I must admit I feel VERY smart when I walk around with that book in my purse and pull it out in various situations, i.e. waiting rooms, Secretary of State, my bedroom. And it's very interesting. I think right now my favorite is Alcibiades, who was Athenian, came to power, fought for them, then when they kicked him out for being too awesome, he went to Sparta. The Spartans said "LIKE OMG IT'S ALCIBIADES LET'S GIVE HIM A SHIT TON OF POWER EVEN THOUGH HE USED TO WORK FOR OUR MORTAL ENEMIES". It's because he was so damn beautiful. I'm serious - Plutarch goes on for ages about how hot Alcibiades was. I think he totally had a man-crush on him. Also, did I mention he was a manwhore and cut his dog's tail off, took a ton of bribes and was basically a lifelong juvenile delinquent? Anyway, so A-Dogg fights for the Spartans for a while, then decides he misses Athens, so he goes back, and the Athenians are all "LIKE OMG WE ARE SO SORRY WE BANISHED YOU FOR BEING SO AWESOME WE MIIIIIISSSSED YOU!" And then Lysander from Sparta ends up kicking the shit out of him or something. But I have to write a paper about Pericles, an Athenian leader who rebuilt the Parthenon, gave his wife away (legally) to someone else, and took political advice from a prostitute.

There was just an earthquake. This beast of a building didn't let me feel it. Damn you Zeus.

On to Toy Story 3, as the title of this post promised. I loved it. I think it's the best of the 3. I love Toy Story. I love Toy Story 2. But this one - I was alternately laughing, terrified, and sobbing. I almost peed myself during the dump scenes. Ken cracked me up (LOVE YOU MICHAEL KEATON!). And the last 15 minutes . . . let me just say that I had to hold back the hysterical sobs. The best part of the whole thing is that I went to the 9:30pm showing, a packed theater, and no one was under the age of 16. There were these five 20-ish year old boys in front of me, looking like they had just got back from the gym/beat an old lady and stole her car, and they were joking around obnoxiously before the movie started. During the whole thing they were dead silent. At the end two of them stood up and started clapping, and the whole theater burst into applause. So poignant. Toy Story changes lives.

Sore Soul

The title says it all. Not only is my throat sore, and my back, and my feet (inexplicably) and my left pinkie finger (explicably - I broke it when I was four and whenever it's humid out it gets stiff), all of that would be okay if I didn't have this lazy apathetic malady called "sore soul".

I really have nothing to complain about, but if I didn't complain I would have nothing to write about. I know I'm lucky to have a job in this economy. I know that I'm sort of lucky to have been hired for an unpaid internship (literally costing them nothing but the power for the computer and the name tag). And I should be happy that I am enriching my educational experience by taking a summer class.

But I just feel so BLAH. Every day. I'm in a bad mood every day. I said that, and Dan said "I noticed." And my sister, at least three times a week, gets really pissy when I won't go turn on the dryer for her or I interrupt her 4 hour baths to use the loo and she yells "TAKE A FUCKING NAP!"

If only, young child, IF ONLY THAT WOULD CURE ME!

I have a few things that I need to keep reminding myself of, so that I will remember to be grateful.

Reasons Janelle Should Try To Love Summer
1) Fox is re-running every episode of GLEE from the beginning of the season on Thursdays.
2) Netflix.
3) My mom will play with my hair if I ask her to.
4) I never work weekends so I can go up north.
5) Now that my boss knows that Danielle and I will almost always take his Tigers season tickets, I may have more free games/parking.
6) The Sims 3. And making drama on it.
7) Dan getting a job so this means he will be making about 14 times what I make so he can pay when we go to Taco Bell or the bar.
8) If I get back on my pseudo-workout schedule I will have a hard body.
9) There is an electronic stapler at the office now.
10) I have a killer playlist on my iPod for when I am driving to the ends of the earth for jobs and school.

Hakuna Matata. Or something.

The Possibility of Evil

By evil, I mean plans.

I'm reasonably sure I will be heading to graduate school in the fall of 2011 studying something vaguely within the realm of film studies/production/screenwriting. There are numerous possibilities for schools, including but not limited to:

UNC-Chapel Hill (film studies)
UW-Madison (communication arts)
UCLA (producer's program)
Ball State (digital storytelling)
Birmingham (U.K.) (History, Film and Television)
East Anglia (U.K.) (Creative Writing - screenwriting)
Nottingham (U.K.) (English studies)

UNC-Greensboro has a sweet program, but they only accept people every other year in even-numbered years, so maybe I'll go get a second masters' for absolutely no reason.

Birmingham, though, is emerging as the frontrunner. They have a program in History, Film and Television that offers a 12-week placement program in the industry. WOW. Literally all three of the subjects listed on my bachelor's degree, AND an internship built in? That is very ballin'.

Of course, money is the huge issue here. I will be putting myself and maybe even my parents in an even larger amount of debt while continuing my education. But the fact remains that I like school, I'm good at school, even though I complain about it ALL THE TIME.

I'm still just very interested to see what grad school is actually like. In the US I would have two years of it, and one in the U.K. Of course, this is considering that I wouldn't chicken out on going there for a year. But if I get good scholarships then I'm going. Also, I need to actually get into the schools, but I'm so awesome no school would ever think of rejecting me. (crosses fingers and hopes that karma didn't read that)

Oh, and I also need to become funnier so I can be a writer on cracked.com.

Revelations

As a child, I was obsessed with many movies, some of which include E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Grease. The reason I point out these three out of MANY is the simple fact that upon watching these shows again around the age of 14 or 15, I suddenly realized that I had NO CLUE what these movies were about as a child.

E.T.
1) I had no idea that Elliot and E.T. were physically co-dependent.
2) I thought those guys in the suits were also aliens.
3) I didn't understand the implications of the rude name "penis breath".
4) I didn't understand that the flower was healed by E.T. and then died when he was dying. I just thought they were crying over a dead flower.
5) I DID NOT understand why Elliot acted so weird in the scene where E.T. gets drunk and Elliot is acting out the movie while he's at school. Totally over my head.
6) I thought Drew Barrymore's character name was "Birdy".

Raiders of the Lost Ark
1) What's an ark?
2) What's the covenant?
3) Who's the evil guy?
4) Why does the bad guy make Marion put on that dress?
5) That's it, I want to be an archaelogist.
6) SNAKESSSS

Grease
1) "A hickey from Kenickie is like a Hallmark card." I thought that he just made up a word to rhyme with his name, and he really gave Rizzo a card.
2) "75-cent insurance policy" I really thought he meant the insurance policy for the car, not a condom. And when he said "it broke", I thought he meant that a) the certificate ripped or b) it was expired. Yes, I was 9.
3) I thought Danny was just being nice by giving Sandy a ring, and I couldn't understand why she got so pissed, then I realized he basically tried to rape her. Yeah, that would piss me off too.
4) I also didn't understand how Rizzo thought she was pregnant and then she wasn't. I didn't understand the female menstrual cycle at the time and I just thought she was stupid.

Ooo-de-lally, ooo-de-lally, GOLLY what a day.

Random Musings

- I am strangely attracted to/obsessed with David Niven. Yes, he's dead, and yes, he was born in 1910.
- All I've been thinking about for a few days is The Muppets. Why? No idea. I just think Jim Henson was absolutely genius. Plus I saw that Labyrinth was on TV the other night, and I was so upset that it was on HBO and I couldn't watch it. And now I'm hunting for a bootleg copy of the Muppet Babies on DVD. Plus so many famous people have worked with Muppets and loved the shit out of it. I want to be in a Muppet movie.
- Right now, more than anything, I want to go home and watch Robin Hood the cartoon. I LOVE PRINCE JOHN in that movie. "Mother always did like Richard better." CLASSIC. Also a "Lion in Winter" reference which I adore. And he's a thumb sucker. No I was not a thumb sucker, but I think it's hilarious.
- Why is my work computer so slow? It feels like dial-up.
- Netflix will get me through this sucky summer.
- I wish my last name was Ustinov. Okay, I like my last name, but if I had to enter Witness Protection for witnessing a drive-by Mob whack in the D, I would request the last name Ustinov.
- Was I supposed to get mad that my boyfriend went to a bikini bar?
- I don't mind being imprisoned in a cubicle when it's pouring down rain all day.
- We get to watch 300 in my class tonight. I love Malinda Foster with all my heart for letting me stare at Gerard Butler's abs after a long day of updating web-based media portals.

Burned.

I've been a little MIA from the blogosphere lately, and I know my 2 readers (myself and Mary) are very upset about that. This whole working-40-hours-a-week-only-getting-paid-for-20 thing has rendered me exhausted. I have worked this much in the past (helloooo last summer!) but I never really had a commute, plus I worked at K-Pool for one of my three jobs so that was stress relief. I also have a class Mondays and Wednesdays after my internship which is just another time suck. Whatever. It just means I'm crabby all the time and never want to go anywhere, which saves me money.

Let's see, this weekend was NICE. Friday after work I zoomed home, changed, and then Dan and I took off downtown to go to the Tigers' game. We are pretty much awesome because we just bought a 6 pack and a hot dog before we went down there and spent $8 total, which is what you spend for ONE BEER there. So that was fun. Cabrera hit 3 home runs and yet we STILL lost. Dan was a little mad because we missed the Polish-American Night festivities because I was too slow drinking my beers in the parking garage. WHAT EVER. Haha.

After that we headed over to Matt's because of course Alex was over there, and we hung out and listened to Alex complain about how his testicles hurt, so there were a ton of tasteless jokes all night. Glorious.

Saturday morning after my BITCHING hangover (a.k.a. about 2pm) I took off to go up north for the extended weekend. It was hot. Very, very, hot. I arrived at my cottage at about 4:30pm, sat outside for an hour and had a pink face. The next day I put on SPF 30 (mind you, I was already burned from last week) and by the end of the day I was a lobster once again. Although this time since I was in a bathing suit it's a little less patchy. CLOTHING IS VERY PAINFUL RIGHT NOW.

So the weekend up at the cottage was great, I did a whole lot of nothing. Boat rides, laying around, eating, drinking. I read the Beggar's Opera. Which I was supposed to read about 7 months ago. Well, I had read most of it, but had never finished it, so I just read the whole thing over again from start to finish. It's funny. And in my head all the airs are Queen songs.

"Thus when a good Huswife sees a Rat

In her Trap in the Morning taken,
With Pleasure her Heart goes pit-a-pat,
In Revenge for her loss of Bacon.
Then she throws him
To the Dog or Cat
To be worried, crush'd and shaken."

(Sing that in your head to the tune of "Fat Bottomed Girls".)

Now, although I got a day off from my internship and school, I'm back to the daily grind of working at school. No one is here. I am alone. LOVELY.