All We Have Is Now

Part of me feels like I’m cheating any potential readers out of an insightful, thought-provoking entry when I blog about how my summer has been going.

But the other part of me wants to share my summer with the blogosphere, being that this is the last summer of my life as an undergraduate college student, and so I’m doing everything in my power to live it up. So with that said, I'll save the deep blogs for later and pick up where I left off, by updating you with the past seven weeks of my life (in no particular order).

On the fourth of July weekend, my good friend Brian and I went on a vacation to Washington D.C. to see the fireworks and do other touristy things. We saw all the monuments, visited the Air & Space Museum, took lots of pictures, mastered the Metro, and explored areas that included the National Mall, Foggy Bottom, Downtown, and DuPont Circle. We saw the fireworks on Independence Day from the Lincoln Monument, facing the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument, which was breathtaking. Seriously, you need to see the fireworks in D.C. before you die. Afterwards, we went to a few bars in Georgetown, which was such a good time. All in all, it was an amazing trip and I would happily go back again!

As I’m sure you’ve read in my previous blog post, I was banned from Six Flags this summer (see “Out And In And In And Out”). And since that’s usually where my friend Kara and I go to hang out on long summer days, we had to improvise. Hence, Kara and I went to Dorney Park on a random Wednesday in July with some old co-workers from A&P, Amanda and Beth. I enjoyed the water park-half of the day more than the amusement park-half, primarily because it was unbelievably humid outside. ‘Twas fun, but I spent too much time in the lazy river (which, contrary to its name, was the complete opposite of lazy), resulting in a really bad sunburn.

My water follies continued throughout the season. For example, I can recall an instance off the top of my head in which I was aiming to throw a basketball into a hoop from inside Chris Scaffa’s pool, and overshot horribly; hence, the ball bounced on the table and knocked over a glass bottle that Chris ultimately had to clean up. Good times. Seriously though, the Saturday afternoon and evening I spent at my good buddy Chris’s house (yeah, I said “good buddy”… I can dream, can’t I?) in late June was really enjoyable. I got to see Mark, Mike, Chris, and Tehila, so that alone was worth it. And relaxing in a hot tub with good brews and good pals was just one of those moments where you’re like, “woah, this is a moment, right here. A really good moment.”

I actually spent a good deal of time at the poolside this summer. One Saturday night was spent at Kara’s birthday bash/pool party, a Friday night was spent drinking with friends at Dave’s pool/hot tub party, and one lazy Sunday afternoon was randomly spent at the Channel Club in Monmouth Beach with Ali, Alan, and Christine (where I accidently and unfortunately saw a grown man naked in a changing room… eww). Speaking of random events, other summer highlights included: betting and drinking at Monmouth Park with fellow interns, dinner with Mark, Casey, Mike, and Tehila in Red Bank, Medieval Times with Ali and company (followed by Tehila’s surprise party in which we made it just in time for the surprise), late night volleyball and drinking at Nick’s, going to Pt. Pleasant, the many meals enjoyed at Applebees and the diner, Warped Tour with Steve and Nick, and dinner in NYC followed by the hit musical known as Wicked.

I finally explored the South Jersey Shore this summer, and really enjoyed it. It all began when I went to Ocean City, NJ with Mark and Jason back in June, and it was a lot of fun. It seemed to be storming pretty much everywhere in Jersey that day expect Ocean City. We grabbed lunch at Mack and Manco’s on the boardwalk and it was seriously the best boardwalk pizza I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. I would totally be down for road-tripping to Ocean City just to grab a few slices during the upcoming semester.

I also went to Atlantic City during the second weekend of July with Andrew, Steve, Nick, and Nelson. Nick had recently turned 21, since this was our way of celebrating our coming of age (or lack thereof). We drank, gambled, wandered the boardwalk, and lounged around, making it the quintessential mini-vacation with the guys. Oh, and we also wore suits. The entire time. Even in the scorching daylight while walking up and down the crowded boardwalk. But hey, we got a lot of feedback, so I’d say it was worth it. A good amount of people thought we were crazy for dressing up in such weather, while others made comments along the lines of, “so who’s getting married?” Our game plan was to tell people we were on business, and when put on the spot, we told people we worked for Pfizer. The best was when people thought we were Mormons. And the Blues Brothers. And the Jonas Brothers.

My most recent South Jersey excursion was all the way down by exit 4B off of the Garden State Parkway, which many of you know as that magical place where families go to bask in the sun on the massive beach and graduating high school seniors go to get piss drunk, get random-ass tattoos (not to be confused with random, ass-tattoos) and probably have wild, promiscuous sex. I’m talking about Wildwood, of course, and wild it was. We stayed in Ali’s cousin’s apartment, which was in a small, private community with a pool that was literally right next to the boardwalk. The proximity was ideal for grabbing a quick slice from Mack’s (also very, very good boardwalk pizza), wandering the boardwalk at night, and getting to the beach quickly (although it still took 5 minutes to get to the water from the boardwalk). The trip only lasted a weekend, but I really loved the town and how relaxing the vacation was.

Last night, I went to Alan’s apartment to have a taco dinner with the Knoebels gang. It was great to see them again, since we haven’t all been together since our Memorial Day weekend trip, which feels like all too long ago. Today I’ll be going to happy hour after work with some of my favorite co-workers - Bryan, Michelle, Nicole, and Nicole (no, that’s not a typo). I’ll be spending the day after with my cousins, the weekend after that with Alan (we will probably go to NYC for a free comedy show), and a week later will be the most exciting part of the summer – my annual tradition of going to Outer Banks, North Carolina for a week! And this year, it’ll be followed by a week in Virginia Beach! So psyched.

So there you have it.

I will always have fond memories of the last few months, of the summer that never slowed down. I only hope that, even when I'm employed as a full-fledged member of society (this is me being optimistic that I'll have a job next summer, considering the crippled economy and all), I'll still be able to make the most of my time off. Hopefully these last few months are a testament to the seemingly-improbable idea that you can work a 40-hour full-time job and still have one of the best summers of your life.