and we live in a beautiful world

I saw 'Hero' tonight w/a bunch of random people (Walter, Claude, Claude's brother, Zach, Emily, John, Felicia, Victor and Geoff). I thought it was fantastic, and basically cried through the entire thing, to the point that I didn't even pick up on the basic fact that China is now communist and the whole movie was made just to appease them to the point that it could be shown. This realization didn't strike me despite the fact that I read an article earlier about the director and how he basically made this movie because he wanted to make something beautiful that wouldn't get censored. I just didn't care. It was *beautiful*. That was all that mattered. And the story was good, in my opinion. And I cried a lot. That's all about that.

It's 11:46, and I'm about to go to bed, and that's the earliest I've gone to bed in like three weeks. I'm physically exhausted, and I think I'm emotionally exhausted as well--staying up really late is taking its toll, and I'm stressed at work, and I have to go to a Giants game tomorrow night as 'team bonding', which annoying because I really just want to sleep. Damn.

However, we do live in a beautiful world. And that means a lot.

so go on, if it'll make you happier

The Olympics are over. Sadness.

But, it's probably for the best, since it means that I will get to sleep again. I need to decide promptly if I am going to take a language class this fall--it's really frustrating because the community colleges around here don't offer Russian, which is what I really want to take. I could take German or French instead, but it's a matter of deciding what I want to take and why. This decision needs to happen soon, though, so that I can register. Oh, joy.

Now, time for bed! Although it's tempting to stay up and watch the replay of the closing ceremonies just for old times' sake.

don't panic part ii

So I noticed today, finally, that the reason that there are no longer ads on top of my blog is because Google is now allowing bloggers the option of showing ads. And if you choose to show ads? You get a cut of the profits, because it's part of Google's AdSense for Content program. I noticed the invitation to AdSense had replaced my unused invitation to Gmail in my account sign-on, but I hadn't really paid any attention to it.

Anyway, the point of that is that the top of the blog now has a SiteSearch box so that you can search my previous posts. More hysterically, it has a link to 'Next Blog', which apparently serves up a random blog every time you press it. You should check some of them out--they're quite amazing. A quick run-through on ten random blogs showed that a) the vast majority of people don't spell anything correctly, and seem to go out of their way to not make sense, and b) are even more inane than I am. The fact that there are billions of completely useless webpages out there is a little ridiculous, and shows just how lame people can really be when they are screaming into an abyss. I am definitely including myself in that judgment.

Two things about that latest statement: 1) if you know the person writing the blog, I have found that it typically moves from inane to interesting rather quickly. I read the blogs of people I haven't had an actual conversation with in months, and somehow feel that I am still in touch with them. I'm a little sad that more of my friends don't have blogs--at least with my casual friends/former residents, I feel that if they're reading this, they know so much more about me than I now know about them, and that makes me slightly queasy. But blogging is definitely not for everyone, so whatever. 2) Go see 'Garden State'. I enjoyed it; I saw it with Walter and some of my coworkers last night, and I thought it was good. There was also an abyss scene, which is why I thought of recommending it after my 'screaming into the abyss' statement. It was slightly too indie for my tastes, but there were some truly amusing parts, and it tugged on the heartstrings.

That's all, kids, it's seriously time for bed now.

don't panic

Wow. I'm overworked and over-Olympic'd, and that combination is v. dangerous. It basically means that I'm no longer getting enough sleep, but I guess that's okay. So, it's 1:24 a.m. and I'm sitting in front of the TV working and watching the Olympics. I spent far too much time watching the men's 50k speedwalking event (soooo boring), before realizing that the latenight coverage of mainstream sports was back on NBC, so I switched over. I was in time to see an interview with the three Americans who swept the mens' 200m sprint--they're great. At first I thought they were all punks, based on some of their antics during the prelims of the 100m dash, but they've since showed a lot of class. This was especially surprising given that the crowd for the 200m sprint booed for ten or fifteen minutes, apparently trying to stop the race in protest of Kentaris' withdrawal. This meant that the athletes couldn't hear the start gun, and it was really frustrating. But, they brought home three more medals for the US. Yay.

Anyway, nothing else is really going on. I had a really good quarterly review a couple of days ago, and it improved my spirits somewhat. I'm rather sad that Walter is moving away in a couple of weeks, but I am excited to live with Claudia. I am also looking forward to seeing all the people who will be coming back to school soon. So, things are changing, but some of the changes are for the better. And that, at the end of the day, is a good thing.

this is my picture

splash!

Whoa. So much time watching the Olympics! I came home Friday afternoon, and baked two cakes that night while watching Olympics coverage with Walter. Saturday, I baked three more cakes, and then Jack and Nita came over and we pieced them together in the shape of the Olympic rings. I used so much food coloring in these cakes that a couple of people have reported that their solid waste has had a rather strange green tinge to it. Ew. But, the green cake is so awesome--funfetti with funfetti frosting, all dyed a fantastic green color. The lemon cake was oh-so-tasty, the chocolate was intense, and the blueberry cake was interesting (and very blue, thanks to a lot of food-coloring). However, the red cake was disgusting--I found the recipe in my cookbook for Red Waldorf cake, and it was called 'best loved', but I should have known that it would be bad since it required vinegar and sour milk :( However, it was very red, and it fit the need for a red cake, and we really can't eat five cakes anyway, so I might as well throw that one out. So, people came over last night and ate cake and watched the Olympics, and then a few more people came over today and watched the Olympics. Fun times! We still have some or most of all five cakes left, since they are very big and very dense, but that's okay--I'll just take a bunch of it to work tomorrow.

I've had so much fun watching the Olympics! I love having people over, and I love all the funny color commentary, and the silly things the announcers say, and the heartwarming athlete stories. Everything is just so great right now! Except for the fact that I'm sleeping five hours a night. That's not nearly enough.

'this is truly a race of pain'

Oh. My. God. I love the Olympics. However, it's wreaking havoc on my actual life--I've been sleeping five hours or so a night since getting back to California, because coverage on the West Coast lasts until midnight and I can't stand to miss any of it. Last night, I watched Olympics coverage until midnight, and then went to SFO to pick Walter up, and so didn't go to bed until almost three. Sad times...but great times!

So, the men's gymnastics individual all-around was one of the most exciting contests I've seen in recent memory, and was decided by the smallest margin ever. The women's 4x200m freestyle was also awesome, since they beat the longest-running record in swimming (17 years, set by a steroid-enhanced East German team). Now I'm watching extended coverage of the men's cycling time trial w/Walter, although we saw in primetime that Tyler Hamilton won (yay). But I really should go to bed instead of writing in this silly thing.

However, allow me to say one thing as a word of warning. I do not want anyone IMing me *anything* about the Olympics while I'm at work. I've been engaging in an extreme test of willpower by not checking the news or doing any surfing at all while at work, since even a quick glance at sports headlines can ruin any surprise while watching the tape-delayed primetime coverage. For instance, if I had known in advance that Paul Hamm won, it would have been so much less awesome to watch it.

If you do tell me anything, you will meet the same fate as Adit--he purposefully told me results for both the womens' and mens' team gymnastics, as well as for Michael Phelps last night, and it made it so much less wonderful to watch. So, he's blocked on AIM until the end of the Olympics. I appreciate everyone's understanding in this matter. If you're in northern California and want to watch with me, I'm watching every night from eight to midnight, and you are welcome to join me!

but it's just the price i pay...destiny is calling me

Well, I'm back in California...and was very relieved to discover that Olympics primetime coverage doesn't start until eight here, which means that I didn't miss anything! I didn't even miss synchronized diving, which has to be the stupidest sport ever. If you don't pick people who are the same height and weight (and for some reason some teams picked people who were several inches different), they're destined to spin, twist, and hit the water at different times. So what's the point? If you're too stupid to match the athletes to each other, then clearly the sport is a joke. Hmph.

I watched the almost-heartbreaking silver-medal finish of the US men's gymnastics team, which wasn't completely heart-breaking considering that it was the first medal of any color for the team in twenty years. I also watched the bronze-medal finish of Michael Phelps in the intense 200-meter freestyle. This whole Olympics thing is playing havoc with my typical avid devotion to the Google news page; it's now almost reflexive for me to check the news after I check my email, but if I check the news, then I'll most likely spoil things like swimming and gymnastics. That means that I can't look at the news on any day until midnight :( By the time I'm awake again in the morning, competition is already going fast and furious, so I'm pretty much out of the news loop for the next two weeks. Too bad.

Anyway, Claudia picked me up at the airport, which was lovely, and we had an amusing experience of going to and then leaving Marie Callendar's before the server brought our water, since we looked at the menu and then realized that neither of us had any interest in any of the food there. So we got take-out Chinese instead and watched some gymnastics. Now, though, I should sleep--it's going to be a busy four days at work, and all I really want is more vacation.

And, shout-out to Austria/Stanford--that winning combination got a silver in one of the swimming races (by Markus Rogan), marking the first swimming medal in like 92 years for Austria. Now if only they gave medals in CS, Loro could have its very own Austrian Olympian. I'm sure we also could have gotten the gold in the general insanity team competition. That would have been so much fun!

deutschland, deutschland, uber alles

In case you don't read the comments, here's something from Joanna:

At 4:11:04
AM, Anonymous said…
...And can we extend our Austria night to a generalGerman-Speaking-Countries Night, please? I am getting a giant German flag for Johann, and we can use it before I give it to him, and we can play German/Austrian music and you can put all your anti-Hitler conspiracy books out on display and we can eat wurst and swiss cheese, and not play mafia at all, and it'll be totally sweet. We'd have to find a way to include the governator too.Maybe watch some really bad movie with him in it.I am way
too excited.Over and out from Germany.

We're *definitely* doing this, so anyone who is interested in some good ol' Austrian/German fun should prepare themselves for some hot times this fall.

And now, I need to get ready; I'm leaving the house in an hour, and will be back in California tonight. That means that I will most likely miss part of the men's gymnastics final, as well as the huge showdown between Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps, and van der Hoogenband (or however you spell his name) in the men's 200m freestyle. Damn. I'll check in later!

dandy life

So, my class reunion was today. However, I was much more focused upon the Olympics. I woke up this morning around eleven, watched some swimming, and then drove into town for the parade at 1. Since my class had a reunion, we had a 'float' in the parade, which was really just a trailer pulled by a classmate's pickup. So, I rode on the float and caught up with the twenty or thirty people who shower up. That took about fifteen minutes, and then I met my parents, had lunch on the square, and speedily went home to watch women's volleyball. I ended up skipping what was technically the reunion because there wasn't really anything I had to say to most of the people who showed up--it was nice to talk to the people I talked to, and there were others I should have talked to or would have liked to have seen, but at the same time I *love* the Olympics and didn't want to miss men's gymnastics. So, I came home instead :) I watched the Olympics until five, napped for a couple of hours during the coverage break, and watched again from seven until eleven. I had fun watching the snippets of the men's bicycle road race, although the people I wanted to win didn't finish in the medals placements.

It will be good to get back to California for the television coverage, because we live about 70 miles from the NBC broadcast tower, and so we don't always have completely clear picture quality. And, we don't have cable, and so I can't catch the more obscure sports on the cable stations. But, I will be back in California on Monday night, and then nothing will be able to stop my insatiable lust for Olympic coverage. Well, perhaps my job will stop my insatiable lust--but I'll just have to get up early so that I can come home early to watch the primetime stuff. Yay!

Nothing else to report--one more full day at home, and then flying on Monday! Whee.

cat people

Finally--I was able to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies tonight! It was quite pleasant, despite the typical inanities uttered during the athletes' entrances. Commentators always try to come up with something to fill a couple of hours of parading by athletes from little-known countries, so they usually come up with the most tangential relationship between the US and whichever small, one-athlete country is occupying the cameras for thirty seconds. Sad, but amusing.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased to renew my two-week love affair with Bob Costas. And unfortunately, men's gymnastics starts tomorrow--which makes it very tempting to skip my class reunion. I think that I will go in tomorrow for the parade at one, since I should ride the float for my year; however, I suspect that I will skip the later impromptu gathering at the park, since Katie, Hannah and Elaina will not be there and I will almost certainly say all that I have to say on the float to the people who do attend. After all, the Summer Olympics happen every four years, and my class reunion happens every five, but the Olympics are far more exciting, energetic, and inspiring.

Also, it's freaking *cold* in Iowa; we've had near-record-low temperatures the past few days (it's only been in the sixties and seventies all week, and usually it's flirting with a hundred at this point). And my allergies are being as vocal as usual, so sitting outside seems unnecessary. But, my doctor gave me some powerful antibiotics that made my stomach hurt, but will hopefully clear up this cough.

I swear, I'm turning into an old person--discussing one's health and the weather/climate is a sure sign that I'm becoming quite advanced in age. Maybe it's time to start shopping for a cat? At least my cat will sit on my lap blanket and watch TV with me while I call my friends and discuss the most recent developments with my sinuses. Luckily, the cat will ensure that my sinuses will always be a source of discomfort, and so I will have health problems to discuss for years to come.

and i just can't look, it's killing me

Man, I'm sick. I hate being sick on my vacation. That lovely cough that I had three weeks ago has returned with a vengeance--I haven't lost my voice yet, but I've been coughing violently for the past couple of days. I finally broke down and decided to go to the doctor tomorrow. So, we'll see what he has to say. I'm hoping that it's nothing too serious and that I can get it cleared up with some heavy-duty drugs--however, my seventy-year-old doctor isn't allowed to write prescriptions right now because the state board of medicine determined that he'd been overprescribing pain-killers, so hopefully that won't be too much of an issue :)

I've been busy the past couple of days--yesterday, I had lunch with Katie and then went over to my sister's and had ice cream with my nieces and nephew. Today, I had lunch with Katie again, then spent a couple of hours lying around sick, and then I went to Lorena's for tea. It was great, since I hadn't seen her since Christmas; she's a great lady, and we had a three-hour conversation about all sorts of things. But, my vacation is rapidly drawing to a close :( Tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday, and then I fly back to California on Monday.

Happily, though, the Olympics start tomorrow! I can't wait. And all y'all in California had better be ready to watch the Olympics with me, or there will be hell to pay...

not exactly what i had in mind...

Well, I took another silly personality test, and the result to the 'Which Famous Leader Are You?' test returned Hitler, which I am not particularly pleased with. I will not include the lovely picture, but the text says "You are paranoid but killing all your enemies does help to relieve anxiety. You are Hitler. You tend to see threats everywhere and always focus on worst case scenarios.' Not exactly pleasant, eh? Try it for yourself--www.similarminds.com, and I took the 27-question Famous Leader quiz.

Anyway, I went to Des Moines today with my brother, which was fun. We checked out the new mall and went to two other malls in Des Moines, and I returned with a few books, a new CD (The Killers), a couple of DVDs, a new watch (pink!), and some other sundry stuff. Fun! Our parents met us in Des Moines and we played mini-golf, then went out for prime rib. Fun times--and even more fun because I don't have to be back at work for a whole week :) Yay for that--I'm tired and still vaguely sick from that awful cold I had a month ago, so hopefully I'll get some rest on this vacation...

we can be like they are

Today I read 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' by Haruki Murakami. I have extolled the virtues of Murakami before, and for those of you who have never read his work before, I advise you to run to the nearest bookstore and pick up one of his books. Specifically, I always recommend 'A Wild Sheep Chase' to first-timers, although 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland' is also a great book. The frustrating thing about 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland' is that the story is split into two parts, and the chapters alternate between the two worlds/realities. Towards the middle of the book, as things are moving toward the climax, I definitely found myself wanting to skip the alternate chapters so that I could find out the rest of the story more quickly. I found myself desiring this today even though I'd read the book three or four years ago and so had some recollection of what was going to happen. But, the book is great for its extremely unlikely situations, its thoroughly unremarkable (yet amazing) nameless protagonist, and its unabashed fascination with food. That's the other thing about Murakami--few of his characters have real names, and I recommend reading his books with a good sushi place nearby, because you're definitely going to want to eat during/after the books. He also makes rather frequent reference to Russian literature, which I found intriguing.

All in all, start with 'Wild Sheep Chase', 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland', or 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.' 'Wild Sheep Chase' is perhaps one of the most amusing books I've ever read, and the other two are very fun in a quieter sort of way. The protagonist in 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' spends much of his time at the bottom of a well, and there is a very long, almost novella-length, section in the middle about the Japanese in Mongolia in WWII. A word of advice, though--don't start with 'Norwegian Wood.' It's the most depressing book ever, and I just wanted to stay in bed for a week after I read it. All the others are good, though.

After I read the book, my parents, brother and I went in to town for dinner, and I had an awesome cheeseburger w/barbecue sauce. At $3.50, it was significantly cheaper (and just as good) as the overpriced stuff they serve at places like the Cheesecake Factory. Speaking of the Cheesecake Factory, it has finally invaded Iowa--a new mall opened in Des Moines last week, and it has a Cheesecake Factory, a P.F. Chang's, a WilliamsSonoma, an Abercrombie & Fitch, a J.Crew, a White HouseBlack Market, a Century 20 theatre, and all these other stores and restaurants that I never expected to see in the vast interior of our continent. I'm surprised, stunned, a little horrified, and of course curious. So, my brother and I are going up to Des Moines tomorrow to check it out. Our parents may meet us up there to play our traditional summer round of mini-golf, but we shall see. Apparently the place is absolutely packed all the time, which is sad because it's going to totally take out my previous favorite mall in Des Moines; they're pretty close together, so I see it going the same way of other dead and dying malls. Soon it will just be cellphone kiosks, Bath and Body Works, and elderly walkers, and no one will remember that it used to be the best mall in Des Moines. How sad. Of course, since I'm a fierce capitalist I wouldn't really want it any other way, but I'm still capable of a certain amount of nostalgia for things past. But hell, if they can kill off all the stores in my town, and make it so that we have to drive over an hour to buy clothes or appliances or anything else, then they might as well kill off my town with something that is worth going to. This is *way* better than a Walmart Supercenter, so I suppose I should be excited.

Oh, and our town celebration is this weekend, and apparently the carnies that we have always hired to bring their deathtrap rides to our town square have determined that our market is not big enough. So, they have gone to a different celebration this weekend, which means that we're stuck with an even dirtier, more unsafe excuse for 'entertainment.' If everyone in town survives the weekend, I will say that we were quite fortunate.

the salad chronicles

I discovered a new type of salad yesterday...this one is 'pea salad.' I didn't get the recipe, since I wasn't too fond of it, but I'm sure that it contained peas, mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip), bacon, and pecans. So, chalk up another victory for the Midwest for coming up with yet another salad that has nothing to do with lettuce. Yay!

The salad was one of the offerings from relatives at our family reunion yesterday. It was a beautiful day--it was surprisingly cool (under eighty) for August, and quite a few people came. We had barbecued pork, hamburgers, corn on the cob, baked beans, lots of salads and desserts, and of course homemade ice cream. Homemade ice cream! So tasty!

Anyway, other than eating, I've done very little since coming home. I don't really have any plans, either. The idea of taking a vacation where I actually do and see things is so foreign to me. I did go to New Orleans to see Katie in April, but even then we didn't really go out and *see* things--she was busy studying, I just wanted to relax, and so we confined ourselves to dinners, lunches, and a very nice day doing all that historical stuff with riverboats and the French Quarter. However, relaxing vacations are very very nice. Someday, though, perhaps I will have to start taking vacations where I go somewhere other than Iowa. I like it here, though, so I'm not planning on changing things up anytime soon.

In other news, I just read a CNN article about Koko the gorilla asking to see a dentist. I love news stories about 'talking' gorillas! I remember reading 'Koko's Kitten' when I was little, and so I was pleased to see that the file shot that they used of her was from 1985 and showed her holding her kitten. I had no idea she was still alive...so I'm glad that CNN had nothing better to do than talk about Koko's dental woes. You'll all be pleased to know that they gave her a full checkup (including tests by a Stanford cardiologists) and that she is in great health, other than the extracted tooth. You can read it all for yourself: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/08/08/koko.health.ap/index.html

heaven ain't close in a place like this

I flew into Des Moines this afternoon, after two uneventful flights. I slept through the first one and read the first 24 chapters of a romance novel during the second one (the flight from Chicago to Des Moines is about fifty minutes, not counting the time I spent reading on the tarmac while waiting to take off, so I was breezing through it). Then I got to drive home, since my mother was sleepy, and it was very difficult to stay within the 55 mph speed limit on the two-lane highways between Indianola and my town. You can go 65 during the fifteen or so miles between Des Moines and Indianola, but the other sixty miles are two-lane highways through gorgeous corn-filled countryside. Lots of trees, too, even though I know that no one believes that we aren't completely flat and boring.

Anyway, I got home, and we had steak and baked potatoes and cottage cheese--and I love cottage cheese, but I eat it the most when I'm at home because we have an Iowa dairy that makes the best cottage cheese and I am typically disappointed by anything I get in California. So I guess that this trip is all about nostalgia, and having things I can't have in California--we're having homemade ice cream tomorrow, and my mother's famous baked beans, and I'm sure I will have a wide variety of delightful things in the next ten days. But it's most delightful that I don't have to work during that span of time--it's truly a wonderful thing to think about. Now, if only we got cable here so that I could spend all of next weekend watching coverage of obscure Olympic sports on obscure cable channels. Instead, I'm relegated to NBC coverage of popular sports, replete with color commentary. However, I'm quite fond of gymnastics, swimming, diving, and track and field, as well as color commentary, so I'm looking forward to it.

Now, off to bed--my bed here has lovely pink and white striped sheets and a pink and white striped comforter, which are holdovers from around the age of sixteen. Perhaps tonight I shall dream of new bedding...

you blew me off and turned me on

I had a fun but hectic day at work today, and topped it off with 'The Village.' I highly recommend it--I won't say anything really about the plot, since I could easily spoil it, but I thought it was very well done, for the most part, and I enjoyed it immensely. If nothing else, it was very beautiful. Now, if only something could have been done about the half-dozen teenage girls who insisted on screaming as loudly as possible whenever anything remotely scary happened, it would have been truly lovely.

Two more days of work, and then I go back to Iowa on Friday! It should be lovely. My family is picking me up Friday night and we'll have dinner in Des Moines, possibly followed by a traditional round of mini-golf. We shall see. My father shaved off his beard today, and unveiled it at home--he apparently looks ten years younger. I'll believe that when I see it ;) Actually, I'm kinda sad because he won't be there most of the time that I am home because he has a job in New York that he can't put off. Sad times.

Saturday is the family reunion--it's my father's mother's side of the family, so they aren't really close, but close enough that it's always fun to see them. We always use the old-fashioned five-gallon ice cream freezer and make hand-cranked ice cream, and I usually play bocce ball with some of the cousins. We have it as this farm out in the middle of nowhere, a few miles from my house--the people who own it rent out the house and yard for parties or week-long visits, although most of the business goes to out-of-town hunters during the hunting seasons. It's a fun place to go, especially since it doesn't involve cleaning our house before and after :)

In other news, I've been looking at bedding again. I only actually have one set of queen-sized bedding, which truly isn't enough for someone with my obsessive tendencies towards bedding. So, we shall see if I make any drunken bedding purchases in the near future. The current object of my affection: http://secure.linensource.com/default.aspx?sid=cshcpf5533eamj45q1pxna55&page=product&sender
=search&uid=HAQ&CategoryID=HAQ

It's bookmarked, if that tells you anything. I'm worried that it will be too bright, not red enough, and therefore not far enough away from my current blue print bedding. However, it's between either this or red velvet/satin, and the latter seems a bit overblown and unnecessary. Thoughts?

soy un perdedor (i'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me)

Chalk up yet another win for Walter--after years of professing hatred for Beck, I am now addicted to 'Loser'. It's not the only song on my playlist--it's sharing space with such illustrious numbers as 'The Milkshake Song,' 'Somebody Told Me' by The Killers, and 'Don't Fear the Reaper' by Blue Oyster Cult. The last of those has been stuck in my head since my brother made me watch this old SNL skit in which Will Ferrell played the lost cowbell player of Blue Oyster Cult. Like much that Will Ferrell has done (such as Anchorman), he's best when he's in five-minute doses, and so the skit was hilarious.

The weekend was fun, but not nearly relaxing enough--comedy club on Friday night with some coworkers, shopping and errands on Saturday, 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle' this afternoon with a whole bunch of people, and dinner with Ritu, Renee, and Jack this evening. I was supposed to go to 'the club' last night in the city, but I just wasn't feeling it, and so I read a romance novel instead. Ritu and Renee commented on my more-avoidant-than-usual personality recently, and I don't really have much to say for that, other than that it's true. I haven't signed onto AIM at home for two months, I've barely written in my blog, I rarely talk to anyone other than Walter, Claudia, Zach, Adit, Ritu, and the few other people I've spent a lot of time with this summer, and I don't really feel like changing my ways. Maybe it's stress at work...maybe it's uncertainty about the future...or maybe it's that I've fallen into a comfortable routine this summer and am too lazy to break out of it. For all that living with Walter is like engaging in a microcosm Tragedy of the Commons (there are only two of us in the apartment, but we're in a full-fledged tragedy--for instance, last weekend we finally acknowleged that both of us had seen this dead bee carcass on the floor of the bathroom for over two weeks, and neither of us had made any move to pick it up), I have still found that this summer living experience is very comfortable despite the fact that it is temporary. We did have an amusing moment last night while watching a Discovery channel documentary of some crazy dude who killed his female roommate, and we were both clearly wondering whether we would end up killing each other, and so we switched to the Cartoon Network instead.

Anyway, I'm still alive, for those of you who check this occasionally and have been wondering where the hell I am. I'm going home on Friday for eleven days, which will be lovely, although I'm v. sad because my father will only be there on Friday and Saturday :( He will also be cleanshaven for the first time in my entire life, which will be very strange. Oh well. He's bidding on a project out here, which would be fantastic, so I hope he gets it. And now, time for bed so that I can get up early and start my week. Fun!