Sessions: 2

Growing up my mom told me that I was just like my father.  Just like my brother, I was just like my father.  I think she was upset that no one in our family resembled her, physically or emotionally.  She's Italian, with olive skin and jet black hair, and those eyes that I assume people describe as almond.  Now, my dad and my brother and I, we're Ukrainian.  We're fair-skinned with blond hair and blue eyes.  Mom's even tempered and cheery, always whipping up some kind of dinner that sits in your stomach for the next two days like a pound of bricks.  My dad, brother, and I?  We're moody.  Moody and closed in on ourselves and, being the girl, I took it upon myself to spend the majority of my teenage years trying to be anorexic.  It never really worked out the way I planned.

We used to have a dog that had brown hair and she was always jumping around wanting someone to pet her or feed her.  Whenever my mom would start complaining about no one in the family being like her, we would point to the dog and continue on our mopey way.  I didn't grow up in a bad household.  My parents never got divorced (although sometimes I think they should have), no one ever hit me or even grounded me for that matter.  We always had food on the table and every summer we were able to save enough money to spend a week on the Jersey shore; beachfront house and all.  It was a typical childhood; all that was missing was a white picket fence and saddle shoes.  All things considered, I should have turned out normal like my brother; my physics professor brother who teaches at a university downtown and lives with his girlfriend of god knows how many years.  They just bought a cat because she loves cats.  I'm allergic to cats so I have yet to visit their apartment since Snowball entered the picture.  Who the hell names their cat Snowball?

So yeah, word on the street is that I'm pessimistic with the possibility of self-destruction.  My parents had the misguided foresight to name me Sunny.  Fortunately, they spared me the torture of it being a nickname for Sunshine.  Apparently my grandmother on my mother's side, her nickname was Sunny because she was just the jolliest woman around.  

When I was eighteen I went to school in the Boston area; just a small, little liberal arts college that didn't do much good for me.  I took a lot of art and poetry classes, and one of my professors told us one day that if you want to be a poet, go into advertising.  It's simply industrial poetry that actually makes you money.  So that's what I did.  The afternoon I graduated, I packed up the tiny two bedroom apartment I shared with three girls and moved to New York City.  Cliche, I know, but money motivates me and I wanted to get right in the action.  Somehow I managed to get an internship at this place that handled a lot of those infomercials you see at three AM on channels you didn't even know existed.  The head boss of the place was a heinous bitch which worked out fantastically for me.  We got along great.

So that's where I am now.  I've been here for five years and logistically speaking, I've set up quite a nice little life for myself.  I have a decent sized apartment which I live in by myself with the exception of a fish tank a friend pawned off to me a year or so ago.  I keep my extra rolls of toilet paper in it.  I'm still doing the advertising thing.  I don't mind my job.  Waking up at the crack of dawn doesn't exactly make me dance around with happiness but I manage to drag my ass out of bed every morning at five-thirty.

Since I live by myself and have surely come off as sufficiently bitter about life in general, a question I'm sure you're dying to ask is, Hey Sunny, do you have any friends?  Well, it depends on how you define 'friends'.  I have acquaintances, most of whom I met at the bar I frequent down the street or at work, and I do have a pretty close relationship with some cousins back home.  You know, I guess they're my girlfriends who, if I was thirteen, I would paint their toenails and than have a pillow fight with.  Now as for boyfriends, the situation's not any more interesting.  I'm not opposed to getting drunk enough that I bring home a random guy to sleep with and then kick out the next morning.  I'm not looking for a relationship right now and I have a whole freakin drawer full of condoms so I don't necessarily see anything wrong with this.  I've had a handful of flings since I've been in the city, usually lasting no longer than a few months.  And have I ever been in love?  Well, I never really took the time to think about it.

This is boring, right?  It has to be, I'm getting bored and it's about me.