Erin and I visited Ben in Philadelphia. Philly is such a cute city in the middle part. It's SO urban in comparision to Seattle. It's cuter, too - all of the houses are row houses built a really long time ago. I bet they all have wood floors and radiators. I covet wood floors and radiators. Those are my two requirements of the next place I live. Philly doesn't have coffee like Seattle, though. I like the neighborhood feel of Seattle better too. Seattle isn't anything like I pictured it would be when I moved here - it's like a giant neighborhood - houses with yards and plenty of new buildings. Oh, also, Philly's public transporation is very freaky - they have the most bizzare trolleys that run underground and are really narrow and I couldn't figure out how to make them stop for me. They're also loud. I think I might actually consider moving to Philly someday - it has potential.

It was good to see Ben again. He has the best job in the world. He gets to design stuff for non-profits. I'm going to try to convince him to move out here, though, when he comes to visit at the end of next month. I know that Philly has some uh... shall we say... emotional baggage for him now. He recently broke up with his boyfriend, "Sly." While we were out at dinner, Sly came by and took all of his stuff out of the apartment, so when we got back to Ben's place, it looked like he had been robbed. It was really sad to see. I thought they were really good together, but I guess that sometimes even the best matches don't work out for some reason or other.

Erin and I played "unlimited questions" on the way back to Maryland. Erin doesn't like to play when you can only ask 20. Of course, eventually we got really obscure. He started it by thinking of a pixel. I followed up with the concept of the number three. The final straw was when he came up with camoflauge.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my family. It snowed and it was the first white Christmas I can remember. It was so pretty. I've missed snow terribly. I miss making snow forts with Erin and Becky and their friends (that's how I know Ben - Ben was Erin's best friend in high school and then Erin and I combined our friends into one giant group of people who hung out all the time - Ben and I also ended up going to college together). Anyway, the family loved the kinder eggs I gave everyone, and my photos were a hit too. I'm always more excited about giving stuff than getting things. I'm always proud if I can give something that people like a lot. Yay!

And my cousin who shot off his hand a while back has all of his fingers. You can't tell that one of them had to be reattached. Modern medicine is amazing. He's also our own personal weather predictor. His hand was aching something awful before the winter storm.

So my week of TV catch up wasn't very successful. (Did I already write this? I'm experiencing Deja Vu.) I didn't see CSI or sponge man or the Osbournes. That was my list of things I wanted to see this year. Alas. I'm not heartbroken, though.

My flight back was nice and uneventful. The boy was here to pick me up and he's been so sweet and wonderful and it's been good to see him again. I don't have much time, though. My train trip is coming up in a week. Less than a week! I can't wait!!! I hope I meet neat people on the train.

I feel like my diary here is getting boring. Nothing super exciting or funny has happened lately. I need to hire a better screenply writer.

Well, I'd best clean my room. It's a horrid wreck - I pulled everyting out of drawers and off shelves while packing last week and it looks like a two year old armed with a bag of pixie sticks was trapped in here while I was gone. That sounds like a fun evening, huh?