Posted May 22nd, 2003 by Michelle

It’s amazing how you can live in a place for years and never see some of the most beautiful things that are a mile from your door. In the last three days, my best friend Anastasia and I have gone to Coney Island (where we rode the rides and ate ears of corn on the beach), walked the Brooklyn Bridge, explored Chinatown and Little Italy, ate dinner at a restaurant that was transplanted from Tuscany, saw live music in on the Lower East Side, and sat in a Ben and Jerry’s for two hours and talked about the our past together and apart, the present state of our disgusting government (had to throw that in there) and our futures. Anastasia found out last week that she won a Fulbright-Hayes, which will fund her research in Vanuatu and Indonesia. Years ago she thought about applying to the Peace Corps, and so is thrilled that I’m headed in the same direction. Both of us hope to be overseas by the end of the year, and she has promised to come visit me wherever I land. And if I don’t get into the Peace Corps (which is not an option as far as I am concerned, I will go visit her in Vanuatu. It would be amazing if I could do both.

I’m already starting to dream about what I could do if I get in. I could give up my apartment early, spend some serious time here with my New York family, some serious time with my California family, quit my job a month early. All good stuff. Here’s another things I’m thinking… I have $4000 in credit card debt. I also have terrible eyesight, requiring contacts and glasses and all sorts of other evil devices which might not be

readily available in the jungle. So… here in New York, certain hospitals are paying women $7000 for their eggs. I mean, the ones in our ovaries. I don’t know how much the general public knows about this procedure but a good friend of mine has done it three times and the only after effects were a fatter bank account. 7 grand would get me out of debt and more than pay for laser surgery to improve my eyeballs. My only concern would be that both procedures would be pretty taxing to get done in the same summer. But it would put me in a great place- frankly, a safer one- if I didn’t have to rely on contacts and glasses to see. I’m basically blind without them.

Just another idea I thought I’d put out there in cyber-world…

Tonight Anastasia and I were fantasizing about kicking a certain someone in the… I mean, is it illegal to simply want to kick someone where it would really hurt? I know the threat of physical hurt is illegal (assault) but what if someone makes you really, really mad, so mad that you lose hope, and you daydream about walking up to him and saying, ‘THIS IS FOR ALLOWING SNOWMOBILES IN YELLOWSTONE!!!!” SMACK! One well-placed foot. Ah, well. A girl can dream.