Spud, Pudgie and a whole lot more.

It's been a minute since I actually have the time to sit down and blog foreal-foreal. Not that there's much to talk about...but the little things add up. With winter saying goodbye, along with it will be all the feelings of dread I had going to work at old company. To say that it was chipping away at my soul day by day would be a great understatement. I'm much more satisfied where I'm at right now...even getting excited about office supplies and my flat screen monitor. Getting to do what I've always aimed for is putting me in a better mood. Even my boys see the difference in the few days since I've started in my new position. I'm not as sarcastic and volatile as I was a month ago...but I can see why people would misinterpret it me as being a typical New York wiseass with an opinion about everything. Which I pretty much am, come to think of it.

Lately, I'm surprised by all the people coming out of the woodwork calling up just to see what's good on my side of the world. Old Delta Chi brothers...the founding fathers, Alpha Class, my Beta Class line...I always wondered why we fell apart not just as an organization but as friends. With age, we've all mellowed out and forgot why there was that huge falling out that Delta Chi Stony Brook never received charter status from the national office in Iowa. Some of the brothers are married...others are engaged...and the rest all looking so settle down, myself not included. It got me thinking that the semester I pledged, I was the youngest Stony Brook brother, not including the Delta and Gamma lines after us...and now that I'm turning 25 this summer...man these guys are getting up there. It's about time we grew up and let water flow under the bridge. I'm excited to see these crackheads after all these years. But if they call me by my pledge name, I'm going home.

Speaking of strange nicknames, one of the more interesting I've been given is Pudgie. Pudgie was born out of constantly eating and talking about campus food. Luckily for me, it was when I was hitting the gym hard and my metabolism was proving to be more alien than human. I was pretty much in the same boat as my Spud...my Her. Okay. She is the one who indirectly taught me the most valuable lesson I could ever learn when it comes to matters of the heart....which is, find someone worthy enough to let down my guard. And by "guard", I mean the Fort Knox that surrounds my cold-blooded black heart. Yup, she put me through the ringer. However, in the past few months since my last birthday, we began by getting trashed and telling eachother how we really felt in the two years since we spoke last before that. Is this making sense?

All in all, we're back to where we were in college, but we are better friends than lovers for everything we went through in between. We're actually going to get "mooooo-heeee-tooooees" at this dope Cuban restaurant in Brooklyn on Saturday with her sorority sisters and assorted PUSO peeps. I'll be introducing them to the latest "flavor" who's been sticking around and putting up with my crap, which is not an easy thing to do given my wiseass attitude and remarks. "Babe, meet Spud...the girl who I compare you and everyone in between to." Is that weird? It would be if I had the cajones to say that...but I never would.

So work is good. Me and Spud...good again but as friends. Me and the latest flavor are good. Dancing...not so good. Lately, it's been proving to be more stressful than enjoyable...with an experienced choreographer on board and putting in more nights of practice...I'm starting to get burned out by the idea of dancing from week to week. It wasn't even this intense back in Stony and we used to rehearse 16 hours a week from September to May. Not that we were exactly dancing the whole time but still.... Ahh, it may just be a passing phase but with everything going on, I'm thinking of hanging up my sneakers after this summer. Who knows?

After all, I've got to put in more time for my extracurricular charity work. I thought I was going to a meeting for some free snacks and information but I ended up being in charge of their new "marcom" strategy. Damn...this is what I get for wanting free stuff. But I won't complain if I get a trip to the Philippines!

*That first pic was at a senior year BBQ...we haven't changed much in that pic at Eunice's 25th...