i primed the hallway and painted two of the walls in the living room. i am a painting power house and i am completely exhausted. i have learned that when painting you need at least one of the following – a large group of friends to help – or endless amounts of free time. right now, i have neither and so, i am working my booty off to finish before i return to work on wednesday…or at least finish as much as possible. after all our stuff comes THIS WEEKEND!

caramel sugar is looking mighty good on my living room walls. i can’t help but think what a fresh coat of paint would have done for a few of the other apartments i have lived in over the years but…even paint couldn’t have helped some of those places. i think that my work today will prove to ABN (and others) that i am, in fact, capable of painting an apartment…i think he’ll be way impressed. while i spent most of the day cursing the fact that the walls are plaster, and thus not smooth…it is difficult to distinguish between what is plaster and what is a paint drip so in the end, i think plaster maybe like an inexperierenced painter’s dream (although i am also convinced that when my dad comes to visit next month, he’ll be able to tell the difference).

being away, i seem to be missing different people, different things, different places at various times. like on shabbat, i miss THE LOUDEST COUPLE and when celeb gossip breaks, i miss the SAM girls. i miss BESTIE when ABN is being irrational and i miss CURLY – well i miss CURLY constantly. but i try not to focus too much on who i miss…or where i miss…or what i miss. and i try to just enjoy this place…and create a life. but today, as i was painting, admiring my work and thinking about what a fabulous color i had picked out… i couldn’t ignore how much i missed the CASTLE ROOMATE, and how much i needed her consultation on my redecorating project.

CASTLE ROOMATE and i met on our first day, freshman year and became fast friends (i feel like i have written about this before but can’t find it now…so…) while avoiding roommates who had more problems than we wanted to/could manage. a drunken night of singing “how do you call your loverboy” followed by crawling down the hallway of our dorm (that is so gross!) to discover the truth while sucking on ice pops…seems to stick out in my mind. she has spent many jewish holidays in westport and i travelled to hungary to see the country from her family’s point of view (we both vowed to keep our bathing suits on when we went in for our massage at the bath house and when we emerged an hour later, we both admitted that disrobed…the extent of our risk taking behavior). we never had a group of friends in common but through it all we remained important to each other’s story. and when i moved back to boston, we picked up where we had left off in college – if there was a store opening, a new exhibit at a museum or a hot restaurant – CASTLE ROOMATE would be game to check it out. leaving boston it was especially hard to say goodbye to her, and today…today i missed her more than anyone else.

i have a picture of the two of us, long before i used a digital camera…of the two of us on a roller coaster in hungary. it captures our friendship perfectly…just the two of us…laughing hysterically at all that we encounter. for now, this will have to do: