This morning I woke up from a really scary nightmare in which a murderer who had the same voice and disposition as the dog Doug from the movie "Up" was trying to stab my friend Molly and me with a knife in a dark suburban neighborhood. When I woke up, I was traumatized and felt certain that actual death was imminent. Alexis said, "Let's go to a coffee shop." I thought, "I might as well. It might be the last coffee shop I ever go to, what with all the soft-spoken murderers just wandering the streets."

Yesterday we went to an island called Aegina. The fact that this island's name is very similar to a certain part of the female anatomy was not at all lost on my family. If anyone spoke English on the ferry on the way to Aegina, I can promise you that they were disgusted and disappointed, because my family is loud, and we think we are VERY funny.

I am in Greece.

I don't really know what I want to write about Greece yet, and that has prevented me, largely, from writing. I keep thinking, "I don't have a crux. I don't have  point. There's no purpose to this writing. I will end up just listing."

I got back from Belize two nights ago, very late. I secretly love coming home from vacations: there's almost always one piece of good mail, and for a little while the cats aren't jerks because (they hate to admit it but) they were a little lonely. Sometimes I look forward to coming home from a vacation so much that I fail to enjoy the vacation itself properly. I tried not to let that be the case in Belize, although I found parts of Belize to be a challenge: namely, when you are there, you are supposed to relax.

We spent two nights in Caye Caulker -- a small limestone coral island off the coast of Belize. When I say "small," I mean you can easily walk the length of it -- in fact, that's really the only way to get around. The roads are made of sand-dirt-mud; the houses are all wide open and breezy and choked with swinging hammocks and candy-colored Adorondak chairs and reggae music. Every single building is either a place where you can have sex on your honeymoon, or a place where you can buy dirt-cheap grilled lobster. It's heaven. 

I have only ever spent Thanksgiving with my family.

I have these big dreams about how Thanksgiving should look, which are not unlike my big dreams about how the Fourth of July should look, which are not unlike my big dreams about how My Birthday should look, and so on and so forth. That's right: I'm a Holiday Romantisizer. I should probably come clean.

Last night my coupled-up roommates had a pair of coupled-up friends over to eat chicken in our kitchen. I was invited, but I am a vegetarian, and also, I am woefully un-coupled-up. Usually, this isn't a big deal, but it stressed me out last night because the boy in the coupled-up friend pair was someone I had briefly dated, and who had rejected me, I am pretty sure because my breasts are too small. He said it was because I was too nice, but that's a stupid reason that no one would ever believe. I think it's because my breasts are too small. That's generally what I assume when I get broken up with. My bra size is 34-Nearly-A. That's literally what it says on the tag: "Nearly A." It's like the bra company wants me to think that if I try hard enough, I might be able to do better. To protect everyone's identity here, we will call this friend couple Diane and Woody.

Yesterday I met my friend Allie for tea. Because it was under 70 degrees in New Orleans and no one has central heat or any sort of grit, everyone else in the city had the exact same idea, and the coffee shop where we met up was super-crowded. We lurked near the tables of the people with empty cups like vultures hoping for something to die, but to no avail. These were the 22-year-olds-moving-back-in-with-their-parents of coffee-shop-goers: they were going to hang on as long as they could.

Six years ago, I met Carrie at Teach for America Institute. At first, I didn't like her because I was smoking a cigarette and she said, "You seem like a really cool person, and those will kill you, so I wish you wouldn't smoke that." I hate it any time someone points out that I am making a mistake. I want to be the kind of person who never, ever makes a mistake, like George Clooney. I'm not unique in this, I don't think. Most people want nothing more than to be right all the time. Especially most seven-year-olds. Which is my age, after you adjust for emotional maturity.

Yesterday I threw a Pie Party. This is my favorite kind of party to throw, which I discovered my junior year of college, when I threw my FIRST party (pictured). It's a good kind of party because 1) Pie is the best food there is. Pie joins together delicious crusty bread-part with fruit or chocolate or kale or vegetables or WHATEVER, and they get married in your MOUTH. And 2) If everyone brings a pie, I can easily actualize my life dream of having one pie where every slice is a different kind of filling. Then you can EAT THAT PIE. 

But when you look at all the things you want in life -- to be successful, to experience beauty, to have a family -- you may put those things up on the top of a hill like this one, and you may ask how you reach them. The thing is that taking the path means wrapping your arms around fear. It means inviting fear into bed with you, putting your head on his shoulder, and sleeping with him night after night after night.

The reason, of course, is that I have been terrified of failure. If I failed at teaching (which is what I have been doing for the past six years), I would just be failing at teaching. That would be OK, because I never really wanted to be a teacher.  If I failed at writing, I would be failing at writing: the only real thing I ever wanted to actually do.