from Jonh's Great Cars to John's 625

2000 Ford Escort

aka Ivan

So, as you all know, I've been trying to find a car that actually works in the past month but haven't had much luck. As I wrote before, I found a very nice black Jetta but they were only willing to give me $300 for my baby, Carmen, and the car still had some problems. So mom did some looking around for me and found a very nice one at John's Great Cars. I went to look at it yesterday and fell in love with, not only the car, but the deal as well.

For those of you that are familiar with John's, the upside down sign won't be a surprise to you. With the new car I will have a 3 month warranty or 5,000 miles including engine, transmission, differential, seals and gaskets, drive axle, electrical, steering, and brakes warranty. Michael even gave me a carfax history report on the car. It's never been in an accident, it's only had two previous owners (one rental and one personal), it only has 112,000 miles on it so far, and the title history is completely clean and clear. The original price was $3,450 and with the $500 off it's now $2,950 ... plus sales tax ($177) and the title and tag fee ($123.50) makes the cars payment only $3,250.50.

I'm taking it to my mechanic, John's 625, this Friday and if all goes well hopefully I'll be buying the car sometime next week!

Wish me luck!

creation at its finest.

First the sky and universe, then one planet at a time. Clouds, air, sun, moon, water, grass, plants, trees, insects, animals, humans ... in the world's fastest personal definition of creation. All leading up to where we are now.

She started as an egg and sperm, grew into a fetus, "cooked" for nine months, and then came the birthing process. Red faced, crying, dripping wet ... and I'm not talking about the baby. Alanna had to make a grand entrance into the world. Any less would not be my little sister. Over the past four years, I really haven't seen it as it seemed to fly right by me. I feel as though I was cradling her tiny infant body in my arms only yesterday. She has grown so much in such a short period of time.

Loves princesses, movies, playing "dog", Hide and Seak, wrestling with me, and apple juice. Couldn't pay her to eat dinner most nights, drink soda, or sit still for more than five minutes unless a movie is involved. She's insanely funny and quite the actress. When she wants to, she's still just as big of a cuddle bug as when she was one or two years old.

I refuse to play favorites between her and my youngest sister, Emilia, but there will always be that silent special bond that I have with her since she was my first sister. There's a special pride that I feel when I pick her up or drop her off at gymnastics or pre-school, or make her lunch, or play with her, or when she sits on my lap to watch a movie, or when I still get asked to scratch her back and sing our song. The day that she really surprised me was the day that she sang that specific song to me out of nowhere for the first time and remembered all the lyrics.

Ever since she was born, I always sang this song to her to help her sleep. You might know it, actually. It's the song from 8 Mile where he is singing to his sister. I just changed the name to 'Laney' (Alanna's nickname). The idea that at only 4 years old she already knows it by heart leaves me breathless.

Alanna Louise Liszcz; creation at its finest.

carmen and her last legs.

Work and school are slowly but surely taking over my life but I don't mind so much. School Tuesdays and Thursdays and work Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. But each day seems to get me closer to "hitting the highway". As some of you know, I fell in love this past Christmas. Her name is Carmen and she's a light blue 1994 Honda Accord. Sadly, our love is on it's last leg. She has already been totaled plus some in the few months of our relationship. My right front tire popped on a back road in HB and my axle just decided to fall off while I was on another back road. We put the spare on the first time and that got us to our destination. Slowly, but it got us there. And, when my axle fell off, Becca was with me and ended up calling her dad to come get us with his tow.

I found out a few days ago that the love I have for my car definately has a price. That price just happens to be as low as $300. She took me to a Volkswagen used car dealership the other day to *shock* check out other cars. As motor romance wanted it, I fell in love all over again.

His name is Ivan, for my Psychology professor, and he's a black 1996 Volkswagen Jetta. For $3,500 I can have a new motor lover. Without a doubt, this is a car that is in my spending range. It's always hard to let go of the "first car" but it's something that seems to be out of my hands. So this is my final goodbye to the latest love of my life. I will miss the sunroof on sunny days, the cruise control I have mastered to a science, the ashtray that is always difficult to find at night when driving home from work. I will miss my black pit of a trunk, the back seats I never even got to sit in, the wheel that I constantly had to counterturn to make a successful turn possible. I will miss the distinct smell, the baseball and Grateful Dead bumper stickers, the certain way I had to sit so my left leg could bend up and lean against the door and my right leg was only inches from bumping my knee on the wheel, and leaning back far enough to see the road but also manage to find comfort.

I will miss how there's a certain way to get her to start in the mornings, how prominently I can feel the speed change and gears shift, and how the seats felt to sit in with the seat reclined almost all the way and pushed back as far as it allows, legs propped up on the wheel, playing Vortex on my iPod and listening to music.

a little nonfiction for anyone who has ever had her.

Ever had that "one girl", should I say. My title makes this post sound like a terrible article about a huge AIDS epidemic that is spreading because everyone sleeps with whoever "Her" is. Totally not the case. The complete opposite, actually.

For anyone who has ever had her. The girl that changes your mind about life, about why you're here. The girl whose eyes can look right through you with little or no effort. The girl that you can't go a day without seeing to and an hour without talking to just to see how her day is or to hear her voice. The girl that always has something interesting to say; you sit on the edge of your seat just waiting for her to breathe. The girl that, when you touch her, your subconscious can't help but create a mental map of every inch of her body so that you never forget the difference between how it feels to touch her hand as opposed to how it feels to touch her arm.

She is that girl that you will never forget no matter how much time goes by. The girl that you could never hate in the slightest even if you fight all the time. The girl that gets you so worked up just so that she can smile and remind you why you discovered beauty in small places. She holds power over you. So much power that you feel like you need to go over and above anything you've ever done before just to make her proud or blush or smile or cry. She is the girl that owns your personal government, the reason you join that facebook group for dying animals in Africa because her passion for something you never thought about makes you want to be a better person.

She is the girl that makes you wish you knew everything just so that you knew how to never hurt her. How to protect her from something that, in the end, needs to happen anyway so that you can learn and grow. Sometimes you don't fight hard enough to keep her and end up losing her forever. So where does that leave you? Your life will never be the same and she's the one you should blame. A trade of sorts. Her heart for your heart. Hopefully, when you find her, you're smart enough to hold on because there's no one else like her. No one else's body will feel like hers or be shaped like hers. No other girl's mind will ever work like hers or compare to your conversations. No other girl will share the night the same as she does, will smell exactly like she does, taste like she does, or bring the morning rays of sunshine through your window (when you don't even have windows) just by smiling at you.

Don't believe me? Just wait till you have her.

why yellow hasn't mixed with blue in a long time. universal questions only, people.

So today really was my day. Things I want to talk about and things that I'd rather keep to myself. One update is good enough for now.

Jess is gone.

Ok, she's not the one that's physically gone but it feels like she is. We talked about our friendship today via phone conversation (she didn't like 'Broken Romance' too much) and finally put an end to it all ... every cent of it. I don't know how much she lost but I lost damn near $100,000,000,000.

NOTICE TO READERS: I did not post 'Broken Romance' to color her in a poor light or make her out to be the bad guy. I was merely venting from the conversation we had. Jess is not a bad person, she's actually one of the most amazing people I've ever known and I'm proud to have been able to call her my best friend for the years that I could ...

Now those days seem so fleeting. I want to give our friendship 110% effort and 150% chance but I needed to know if I was the only one who wanted that so I asked her if she wanted to try to fix this and move forward as friends or leave it all behind and pretty much call it quits. She chose quits. I guess I can't really blame her. I did a lot of pushing her away and now it's finally done for real. So why is there this little man sitting on my shoulder, crying, scared to death? Why he's a man, I have no idea. I'm all for women's rights and ... I'm getting off topic.

Jess ...

Seriously the best thing that ever happened to me. Or should I say "best person that ever happened to me"? Just doesn't sound right, I guess. ANYWAY! She always made me laugh. Her sarcasm is endless and, if you know anything about me, you know how I deeply love sarcasm. Her smile stretched for miles and knocked everyone off their feet when she showed her pearly whites. On a side note; I could say anything to her and she'd never think it was strange (a great example would be how we both used to talk freely about how we couldn't stand bad teeth - when someone has that kind of ailment, you just can't help but stare and it's frustrating! Get a toothbrush, man!). She's smart as hell and is kicking ass at one of the best schools around, Barnard. She was always the gal that got me by when I was struggling, always there for me no matter what. Like I said, there is no one to match her.

My heart is heavier than usual tonight on the subject, knowing that this might very well be the end of the best friendship of all time. Well, of my time. Sure, friends come and go but what happened to the important ones sticking around and fighting it out with you? For you? For the friendship?

I'm just happy she was finally honest with me ...

say ABSOLUTELY anything.

Despite your pseudo-bohemian appearance and vaguely leftist doctrine of beliefs, you know nothing about art or sex that you couldn't read in any trendy New York underground fashion magazine.

Prototypical non-conformist.

You are a vacuous soldier of the thrift store gestapo. You adhere to a set of standards and tastes that appear to be determined by an unseen panel of hipster judges, giving your thumbs up and thumbs down to incoming and outgoing trends and styles of music and art. Go analog baby, you're so post-modern. You're diving face forward into an antiquated past.

It's disgusting!

It's offensive!

Don't stick your nose up at me!

You spend your time sitting in circles with your friends, pontificating to each other. Forever competing for that one moment of self aggrandizing glory in which you hog the intellectual spotlight, holding dominion over the entire, shallow, pointless conversation. We're not worthy.

When you walk by a group of "normal people", you chuckle to yourself, patting yourself on the back as you scoff. It's the same superority complex shared by the high school jocks who made your life a living hell. It makes you a slave to the competitive capitalist dogma you spend every moment of your waking life bitching about!

I'm proud of my life and the things that I have done, proud of myself and the loner I've become. You're free to whine. It will not get you far. I do just fine, my car and my guitar. Well let me tell you this, I am shamelessly self-involved. I spend hours in front of the mirror making my hair elegantly disheveled. I worry about how this album will sell because I believe it will determine the amount of sex I will have in the future. I self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to help treat my extreme social anxiety problem.

You are a FAKER!

ADMIT IT!

You are a FRAUD!

ADMIT IT!

You're living a lie!

Your life is living a lie!

You don't impress me.

You don't intimidate me.

Why don't you bow down,

get on the ground,

walk this fucking plank

now! ......

And I am done with this!

I wanna taste the breeze of every great city.

So you'll come to be, made of these urges unfulfilled.

the start of a born life

A little bit about who I am ...

I love the color yellow.

I don't completely understand myself but I'm getting there.

I've had the real thing so I know what it's like already. You can't play me.

I'm looking for friends, someone to share life stories with.

Not many people understand me but the few that took the time to try, know me inside and out and often help me understand myself at times.

I have a few very good friends and that's ok with me.

I'm extroverted and love interaction but there's nothing like good alone time.

Books; I love books. And music.

I'm a broken girl when it comes to certain things so getting close to me can be hard sometimes.

I also have a thing for animals ... even bugs. Do not kill a living thing in front of me.

I've loved with all my heart and that's one thing I can say I've accomplished. Maybe I wasn't always good at it but I know the feelings were true and real and that's good enough for me.

I'm going to be honest, not everyone who reads this will always like it. I'm tired of feeding the same old horse crap. I want this to be real. I want this to be honest. So, if you find something in here you don't like ... suck it up.