"You have to be like this at least once a day, don't you?"---Jenny, 5/28/03, to Lexi "Like what?"---Lexi "Delirious...hysterical...like THIS."---Jenny...well, maybe just when around JJ, I am not sure

"OK, so you can kill a monster but cannot open a pack of chewing gum?" "Lexi, you have to do something about this."---Charlotte (Jenny's French roommate), 5/28/03 (?), both in reference to Matt

"Man, I'd be all over that if I were 15 and not, um, RELATED..."---Katie, 5/31/03, about cousins Erik and Patrick

"OK you guys, the key in this family is to be slightly suspicious of the government, not downright rednecks."---me, 5/31/03, to Chloe and Rachel (10 and 9 years old respectively), who think they want a police state..."I would arrest the driver because he hit another car" ---Chloe "Chloe, you don't arrest people who get in accidents" OH MAN...have we got work to do with my young twin...

May 31, 2003
Back In The USSR...Or Something!

time 4:18 pm, where the hell did my Saturday go?! feeling happy to have seen my family reading Sloppy Firsts wearing Camieau clothes music DOS (Supreme Beings of Leisure) ready for cleaning up my room! next hopefully just that

Wow. I have never had anything come out of my nose before. That's why to have it be wine on the first time was particularly painful. OUCH.

So that's in reference not to the lunch party today for (cousin) Katie's graduation from UWGB, though had we had wine this may have happened as well. No, rather, it is what happened when we went out for our last dinner in Valencia, me, Jenny, Matt, and Charlotte, and Jenny spilled on herself within 30 seconds. It was too funny for me to take, apparently. Wow. I miss her so much.

ANYWAY. So we are back; I have these senseless updates from the last 10 days but we did a whole lot more than that. However, time and patience are not my friend right now, so I'll spare you all that. If I know you and/or see you, you will be subjected to this regardless, so let's save it, shall we? The point is that Spain was fantastic, it was so, so wonderful to spend 10 uninterrupted days with Jenny and makes me wish I had studied abroad (of course...just in time to graduate. The irony of my life is never lost on me.). ALAS. I will go back someday, hopefully soon. If I did not have a job lined up I would have just stayed (Jenny's thinking, GREAT, live in a mattress-room? I THINK NOT!). But being the responsible person I am, obviously I am back here in Madison, ready to start my job on Monday, not sure if I feel any jet lag, and thinking of Jenny and Spain all the time. What a crazy life. I love it.

We'll miss Charlotte too (Jenny's French roommate). She (as well as Jenny's German friend Camila) was so funny and quite like me. It is always refreshing to meet other people that, um, tell it like it is. It makes me feel more justified, or something.

I was awake for 24 hours yesterday, let me tell you, that was a good time. I was hallucinating by the end of it. Yet we made it back safe and sound, after discovering that my Spanish skills were not quite what I expected, and all is well. Today then was the party for my cousin Katie's college graduation, man, Katie and I are on the same wavelength about some things, it is too weird. I got to see Pat and Lauren and of course the Burkes and Theissens (including baby Zeketh) as well so I was very lucky. Nobody, nobody, NOBODY in this world is funnier or more strange than the Mason side of my family, and being with my cousins was as always the best time. We had joke time with Rachel and Chloe for quite some time and Katie and I were very amused by their cluelessness. We should cut them a break though, they're only 9 and 10. We also worked on our quest to ensure that each cousin marries someone named MIKE. We'll figure it out. Maybe they'll just have to change their names.

One of the best things was listening to Chloe's life plan. It includes blowup furniture, being a lifeguard and waitress, marrying a rock star, and being proposed to on her golden birthday (May 20). I told her that when I'm 31 I'm going to call her up on all this and make sure it's as planned. She seems to think this is fine, although was not pleased with my insinuation that she would live in a trailer nor with Katie's that she would live in a 'divey' apartment. Huh. At least Rachel has the rationality that Chloe seems to lack (except when Rach sawed apart her food container and kept telling me about the horse named "Steve"). Rachel can be the engineer and Chloe, the artist (because that's what you're supposed to be in this family, although Christie and Katie messed this up). Anyway, congrats to Katie, because she has proven everyone wrong and is ready to kick some law school ass here at the UW-Madison.

That's enough. I have a room to clean and a sister to call. Have a nice day.

---Lexi