It's just like Santa's workshop! Except it smells like mushrooms... and everyone looks like they wanna hurt me...

so many firsts this past weekend:

-first time at work that someone gave me a break (i didn't even realize that the one manager forgot to give me breaks until i left work and was like, "i'm hungry. why am i hungry at 11:30?")

-first time i got a real cell phone (not only do i get to live with suzannne and husayn, i get to be on their cingular wireless family plan. plus! i have one of the easiest phone numbers ever.)

-first time i went to the zoo and did NOT sing nor had stuck in my head, "Ohhhhh...I went the animal fair! and all the birds and beast were there!...something something something....the monkey he got drunk. bah-bum. and sat on the elephant's trunk. bah-bum. the elephant sneezed and fell on his knees and that was the end of the monk. the monk, the monk, the monk. and that was the end of the monk."

-first time (just now) that in my head i pictured the monkey flying through the air from the elephant's sneeze. it's late and i'm delusional and i'm laughing (hard).

-first time i got a day off from work since starting (which was suppose to be on monday but they called me and asked if i was doing anything important. if i could lie, that would have been i time i would have lied. but i can't lie and so i went into work and didn't get out until 12:14 a.m. yeah, after that i found myself slightly wishing i could lie. p.s. clean up is a bitch)

-first time i remembered where the condiments button was located on the cashier for the "you pick two" screen.

-first time i made a latte, hot chocolate and cappuccino. (the latte was good, the hot chocolate over flowed, and the cappuccino was almost made without foam. thanks to carlos, there was foam)

-first time someone gave me a rough idea of how much i'm making an hour at panera (by the time i thought to ask, i felt stupid asking because i had been already working for a couple of days)

-first time i rode the "el' by myself. funny story. imagine me getting off my first "el" ride at 12:23 a.m. and walking (very funny due to the aching legs from standing up seven hours straight) back and forth trying to find the exit. that's right i couldn't find the dang exit. don't. even. ask.

-first time i got to sleep in a bed since i got back home from south carolina.

-first time amia cried for me when suzanne (holding her) started to walk into the other room.

-first time amia tried to share something with me. (she was sitting on my stomach knawing [if you can really knaw on keys] on keys and she would stop and hold the keys up to my mouth and wait until i [pretended] to knaw on them like she was doing and then giggle in delight).

-first time i got something other than a hot chocolate at starbucks. (i got an iced chai latte while waiting for an interview)

-first time that i found out that if you google "Do you has" or "do You has" or "tomasha gordon" you'd be directed to this very stie, onionlee.blogspot.com (i don't understand the "tomasha gordon" either).

-first time i went to a target in the last three weeks (which IS a big thing).

-first time i feel somewhat independent and somewhat grown up.

so after my interview with starbucks i was thinking of how i really will have no life if i get the job. i will have to wake up early, work, take a three hour break, go to work (at another place) and close (getting out anywhere from 10:45 to 12:00). that doesn't leave much time for getting to know and meet new people (which is a bit sad, considering i am in the chicago area and there are lots of bahai's in the chicago area) or even for going home to see people (can i really survive this long, being so close without movie nights?). i did request and was granted tuesday nights off (for ruhi). other than that, i don't think i'll be getting out much to meet new people. which is okay. i mean, for one, i need the money for school and once school starts (if i'm commuting) i'll have a car and will be working less hours. also, i'm a bit of a homebody anyways and look who i'm living with; amia! like i would really rather go out instead of staying in and playing with her? oh, puh-lease.

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I used to laugh at all those songs
`bout the rambling life, the nights so long and lonely
Well, I ain't laughin' now
Now that I'm caught up, it seems
In all the same ambitious dreams
That only lonely life allows

And the home I don't go home to
The friends I don't see
Aren't the part of this life
That endears it to me

If that's the price I have to pay
For doing things my own way
Then it's what I'll have to do somehow

Till I find my way back to my heart
For there's no one but me's gonna take my part

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And just when you think that you've got enough
Enough grows
And everywhere that you go in life
Enough knows

Up up up up up up dances
The steam from the sewer
As she rounds the corner
The brutal wind blows right through her

Up up up up up up raises
The stakes of the game
Each day sinks its bootprint into her clay
And she's not the same

And just when you think that you've got enough
Enough grows
And everywhere that you go in life
Enough knows

Half of learning how to play
Is learning what not to play
And she's learning the spaces she leaves
Have their own things to say
Then she's trying to sing just enough
So that the air around her moves
And make music like mercy
That gives what it is
And has nothing to prove

She crawls out on a limb
And begins to build her home
Amd it's enough just to look around
To know she's not alone