Posted June 20th, 2003 by Michelle

I got an email from the Peace Corps today. If I told myself, even two years ago, that I would be getting emails from the Peace Corps, well, maybe three years ago, I would have laughed out loud. I get these emails once a week or so that tell me that my application status has been updated. When I went to the website today, and logged into My Toolkit, it said that I’ve finally been mailed the medical forms. I’ll have to take these forms to my physician, my gyn, my eye doctor, and my dentist, and all of them have to complete pages and pages of paperwork all about my lil’ ol’ body. I will know more about my health when they are done than most people will know in a lifetime. Once I get all of those completed and mailed in, there really will be nothing left for me to do. It will be in the hands of the folks in the D.C. placement office, and I will wait each day for a packet or a letter to come in the mail. The packet will tell me where I’ll be going, and the letter, or email or phone call, will tell me they’ve found something wrong. Wrong how I don’t know but somehow something that would prevent me from going. I hate waiting games.

So, yeah, I, uh, went to the placement office for my French Class, and I thought I did pretty well on the test. I mean, I made some stuff up, but that’s all Sean and I ever did at Ridge High. Sean and I were in the same class, French 2, which he was taking for the second (of three) times, and when we all had to say our names, Sean announced that we were married. I really feel for that teacher. I went more often than not, barely, but Sean showed up, I think, three times, the last being the final where he curled up on the carpet of the floor and went to sleep. Granted, we weren’t sleeping that much that year, but… needless to say he failed his junior year.

Thinking back, I feel like that was so bold! I have degrees with honors, and Sean managed to squat at four colleges, and after all has been said he and I are not far from each other in our lives. In fact, I’m the one slaving away at a restaurant a billion hours a week and Sean has found a way to survive without being beholden to anyone other than those he loves.

I got my paycheck yesterday, and did a little dance for joy that it was $675. $675 measly bucks, and I need it so badly that I was happy. That little sum of money, barely half my rent, made in a forty-five hour backbreaking week, living in New York City. Times are hard for restaurant workers in this city, and my place is not immune. It’s weird to me that my birthday is next week. I know I talk a good game about Birthday Month and all, but it’s not shaping up to be much this year. Not that it should, or needs to, but I will admit that when there is not a certain person in your life who will make your birthday special, you kind of dread the day. Even when I’ve not had a man in my life, the last six years I’ve had my friend Hayley, who will be out of town this year.

I’m working with Sean today on our show, called “Rehearsal”. And really, I must stop writing this and work on that. It is to be a show about our musical lives, and it is a kick in the pants to go back and remember these stories. I’m really hoping everyone in the family will be able to get here and see it. And I’m really hoping that by the time this show goes up, I will know what I will be doing for the next two years.