the chemicals between us

I realized at work today that I either a) can't stand the taste of tea in a paper cup, or b) can't stand organic, non-chemically-processed teas. Like everything else at work, the tea is all organic, certified, fair trade, etc....and to me it just doesn't seem quite as good. I guess I like my formaldahyde, or whatever they use.

Today is Joanna's birthday (yay!), and so I baked a cake and took it over to Lag at midnight. Several of us hung out there for almost two hours, which was v. fun, but now I'm extremely tired and basically screwed as far as work goes tomorrow. But, since I've been getting ten or eleven hours of sleep a night, I can surely pull things off tomorrow. It was great to see everyone again, and some of us are having dinner in Loro/Gavilan on Friday, which should be a blast. I can't wait to scare any hapless freshmen who happen to wander through our craziness.

Time is just flying by; and I have plans tomorrow night, and dinner Friday night, and the beach/watching 'Dodgeball' on Sunday, and so I'm keeping v. busy. Now that people are back at Stanford, I have endless excuses to hang out. However, it's always slightly embarrassing when I have to confess my dirty secret, which is that I graduated a year ago--like tonight, when one of Joanna's freshman dormmates stopped at the door and took a piece of cake, and he was like, 'where did you get the eggs?!' and I said, 'I graduated a year and a half ago.' Sadness. Well whatever, I don't want to grow up, and my tastes don't really veer towards wine tastings and bars and other things that mid-twenties people do, so I guess I'll stick with making cakes and playing mafia and gossipping about classes and relationships and engaging in crazy conversation. It's a way better use of my time--I'll have time for bars and wine tastings and mature activities when I move away from here and have to make new friends. Wheeeeee.

i want to take you far from the cynics in this town

I had dinner with Julie tonight...and I'm always pleasantly surprised by just how similar we really are. I mean, scarily similar...like the stories that we tell each other of our latest triumphs and tragedies contain eerie parallels. It was really good to see her, and I'm looking forward to seeing her more this quarter, and to reconnecting with the other people whom I lost touch with over the summer. We didn't spend much time reminiscing, but we did briefly discuss Sarrol the Barrel of Death, which has to be one of my all-time funniest/weirdest memories. Ah, those were the days--tied to Errol, wrestling Walter in the middle of the Loro lounge.

Oh, and for those of you who haven't seen the Loro lounge recently, you should go--I forgot to mention that they painted the wall behind the TV purple. Deep, dark purple...to match the purple chairs, and the nauseatingly zig-zagged carpet. It is nearly overwhelming. I can't imagine dorm wrestling (or much of anything else) taking place there. And I'm glad they waited until I wasn't on staff there--if I had to stand by that wall every week during house meeting, my reds and fuschias would have clashed horribly :)

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've been really tired lately, like I would just like to crawl in bed and stay there for the next month or three. Except I don't really want to stay in bed that long--I just wish that I could get ten or eleven hours of sleep a night without feeling like I was wasting my time.

If I go to bed now, I can get nine or ten hours of sleep tonight. Yay! So, I'm off. Oh, and I did feel the earthquake today, if you were curious, although it felt very minor from here. I can't imagine that it actually caused a delay in the Scott Peterson trial in Redwood City, since Redwood City was even farther away from the epicenter than Mountain View; the jurors must be bored out of their skulls if they noticed the vibrations in what is surely a seismically sound courthouse and asked for a delay of proceedings. And I must have been bored out of my skull to read that article. So now, bedtime!

blacking out the friction

I watched most of 'When Harry Met Sally' on AMC tonight. The bad thing about movies on TV is that the commercial breaks are sometimes almost as long as the segments of the movie. In this case, one commercial break was so long that I was able to go to the bathroom and make hot chocolate from scratch (sans microwave). Ridiculous. Anyway, I was in the wrong mood to watch a romantic comedy, since I've been feeling rather pragmatic lately and don't really need a lot of drivel about modern romances. Historical romances, on the other hand, are another story. However, the book that I started over the weekend and finished tonight was basically a disappointment; the story was too predictable (even for a romance novel), the ending was forced, and the writing wasn't particularly good. Ah, well, what did I expect?

I'm excited about the upcoming release of the extended version of 'The Return of the King'; however, it's coming out in December, which is too late for a marathon viewing during Thanksgiving. Can asked me yesterday if we were having Thanksgiving dinner at my house, and of course it's happening and I was already thinking about it, but I thought that September was a bit early for Thanksgiving invitations. But, if you're interested, keep it in mind that there will definitely be Thanksgiving festivities in my apartment, and feel free to contact me and invite yourself over if you are worried about being left out. I won't even make you play mafia with me; completely stuffing you with hearty Thanksgiving food is more than enough for me.

I really do have almost a compulsion to take care of people. I could never be a nurse, because I don't want to take care of people with spongebaths and bedpans. However, I do like feeding people, and making them comfortable, and befriending them. It's like I like taking care of peoples' hearts and souls. Except I have no desire to be a priest. So I guess taking care of peoples' hearts is the best description. Hearts and stomachs. It's therefore deliciously ironic that I have yet to find someone to mutually love; but, for some reason, I'm a little more at peace with that than I have been for the past few months. At the end of the day, if I were dating someone, I would have much less time for my friends. I have too many people whom I would miss if I were dating someone seriously, and I don't like doing things by half-measures, so I can't imagine that I would casually date someone for very long.

Not that it matters. I'm not looking, and I'm very good at sensing even the slightest hint of danger and freezing it out before it reaches the point where I would actually be asked out. Between my disinterest in actually pursuing someone and my absolute loathing of encouraging anyone's interest in me, I'd say I'm pretty much closed for business right now.

And hey, that's okay.

There are many interesting things about life that I have been missing during my occasional moping fits. I need to write my romance novel. I want to reconnect with my friends. I would like to figure out what I want from life. None of those things would happen if I were dating something. And if denying that I want a relationship isn't 'blacking out the friction,' I don't know what is :)

addendum

I don't think that last post got across how happy I am. Happy happy happy. I'm sure it's ephemeral (there's a GRE word for you), but for now, it feels really good.

killing and happiness (not necessarily in that order)

I had a great weekend, all in all, other than the food poisoning. The food poisoning caused me to sleep way too late, which means I missed the piano concert that I was going to with some of my coworkers :( I ended up spending the evening on campus--I had CPK (sorry renee) with Can Sar, Joanna, Michael B and Shedletsky, and then we went back to Lag and played mafia.

I'm seriously so happy right now. And it's not even really about the mafia--the game itself wasn't so good, because I was so obviously mafia. However, we played via 'conference call' on my cellphone's speakerphone with Jasmine in Boston, and that was very nice. It was an entertaining premise that worked surprisingly well.

But yeah, the night was fun, people got along with each other, and I think we all had a very good time. Yay. Now it's time for sleep--and the weekend is already over, which means I have to go to work tomorrow :( Oh, well, at least I haven't lost my job to my mafia addiction. That would be horribly ironic.

food poisoning and zombies

So I should be going to bed and nursing what seems to be a case of food poisoning, but I first want to say that you all *must* see 'Shaun of the Dead.' Trust me. Even if you no longer trust my taste in movies. Claudia, Marco and I saw it tonight (rather than going to Adit/Chris/Zach's party, which may have been rather badly done of us, but I was already feeling slightly ill and was not into the idea of dancing/drinking). We all absolutely loved it--hands down one of the funniest movies I've seen in recent memory. Go see it!

As for the food poisoning--I cooked a steak on my George Foreman grill for about four minutes so that it would be nice and raw inside, but I think it may have sat in my fridge too long. Or, my diet coke is poisonous. Hard to tell which one actually tried to kill me, but my stomach periodically feels like it's being shredded from the inside. It was almost exciting and appropriate while watching a zombie movie. But not exciting enough for me to wish to prolong it. So I shall go to bed now.

ride for ruin and the world's ending!

Tonight was a lot of fun; Adit, Claudia and Sri came over, and I made spaghetti and we watched 'The Return of the King.' It was a great time...since the movie is like four hours long, it offers plenty of time for commentary, contemplation, and enjoyment. Yay. And I like cooking, so I was very satisfied--it's very easy to heat up pasta sauce and cook pasta, but it's also very easy to mess up the pasta and have it turn out all awful. Since mine turned out okay, I was happy without having to expend much serious effort to get decent results. Fun times!

And can I just say that there are parts of the movie that just make me bubble with enthusiasm every time I see them. Like Theoden's 'inspirational' speeches. That's my favorite part, I think.

I'm looking forward to school starting again, since that means a lot of my friends will be back in the area. I'm also looking forward to playing mafia sometime. And I'm *really* looking forward to meeting Vishal's brother (unless this is made up, like his two wives and multiple children).

But mostly, I'm just looking forward to the weekend!

you seem so out of context

First off, let me say that I know that this will turn out exactly like my experience with the Loro staff: namely, that I will have already known Walter, and so will spend a lot of time building him up and talking about how awesome he is, and then all the people I told will be encouraged to discover him, and after they do that they will realize that he is much cooler than I am. And then I will be sad. But happy too, because I like Walter and he deserves to be recognized for his amazingness.

With that said, allow me to preface this some more by saying that the chances of Walter keeping this updated are slim, and I'm amazed that he said as much as he did in his first post. It was almost like a story. Amazing. But, please, go and worship at his altar: http://walterblog.blogspot.com. It is also linked from my links on the side, should you ever accidentally wind up here again instead of going directly to his site.

I heard that he likes blood sacrifices, if you feel so inclined.

and i am finally seeing why i was the one worth leaving

Claudia came over tonight and we hung out, talked, and watched 'The Fabulous Life of Hollywood It Girls' and 'The Surreal Life', both on VH1. I love watching the ridiculous ways in which rich people can spend their money, and everything on 'The Surreal Life' is just retarded. I'm glad Claudia was here, since it somehow justified the expenditure of precious, valuable time on something so stupid. If it's in the name of hanging out with my friends, I'll do just about anything, so this was *totally* worth it.

I had a relatively long day at work, or at least it felt like it, since I had an 8am meeting and I'm used to rolling in sometime after 9. Oh well, I suppose it's occasionally good for me. People are returning to campus this weekend, so that is exciting. I hope to have some good socialization/relaxation time this weekend.

It seems like life is moving so fast. I will go to bed in a few minutes, and when I wake up, I've just lost another seven hours. Well, I suppose that's not a good way to think about it--sleep is very necessary. Instead, I wasted four hours tonight watching VH1. But I was baking a cake, and then hanging out with Claudia, and that's definitely not a waste. However, who knows how long this life will last? And what am I supposed to accomplish before it is finished? Is life something that you accomplish? or is it something that you experience? I don't really like to be a passive bystander in things that I care about, and so I have difficulty believing that life is something that you just experience as it goes by. Rather, it's something that can, to some extent, be directed, and it must be accomplished in some way to provide maximum benefit to yourself and others. At the same time, I believe that a lot of things happen for a reason--I suppose that's the nature of hope, since if I didn't believe that things happened for a reason, I would be pretty pessimistic about my chances of figuring things out/finding love/having children/being happy/etc. So where does that leave me? With a pressing, suffocating belief that I should be *doing* something, accomplishing something, focusing on something with the ultimate aim of improving it/me/everyone, and simultaneously the self-destructive doubt about my chances of success.

It's bad enough when my overwhelming perfectionism paralyzes me from starting a project, but now it's paralyzing me from accomplishing *life*. That's awful! I have to do something, something, anything, just to get myself started.

And my grand beginning: bedtime!

the district sleeps alone tonight

I'm quite chagrined to realize that I am now on a Postal Service/Death Cab for Cutie kick, thanks to my recent obsession with the 'Garden State' soundtrack. Chalk this up to yet another example of something I hate turning into something I love; luckily it's not in the opposite score column, which is something I love turning into something I irrevocably lose. Thanks, Walter, for pointing out the horrible irony that I inevitably lose what I once loved and love what I once hated.

It's really not so bad as all that, it was just an amusing-in-a-catastrophic-kind-of-way conversation that I had with Walter a few weeks ago. Anyway. Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie. Good stuff. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that I'm thoroughly sick of all my music; after having my headphones plugged in nine hours a day for the past year, plus all the music I play in my car, plus the fact that I always had my music on for four years in my room in college...all that combined made it pretty much guaranteed that I would end up completely sick of all of my old music. I mean, I still love Counting Crows and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bush will always hold a special place in my heart...but I can't take it all day every day right now. All these highly-emotional, soft, high-pitched male vocals and lack of vibrant guitar are the perfect anecdote for my typically-angry, grunting tastes. It's hard to say how much longer this will last, but it's soothing right now, so we'll keep going with it.

I've also been on a domestic kick; last night I made steak (on my red George Foreman grill!) and a baked potato, and tonight I made french toast. Tasty. And I watched 'Love Actually' last night, and 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' tonight (thanks to Michael for getting me these movies for my birthday :) They're both great movies, although I think 'Love Actually' is maybe one of the greatest love movies ever. It's just heartbreakingly wonderful and painful all at the same time, as I think I mentioned when I saw it at Flicks last winter. Sigh.

Speaking of Flicks, I'm going to get a pass this quarter--there are a lot of movies I'd like to see again, starting with 'Dodgeball' at 7pm the first weekend. As for the rest of my life...well, I'm feeling antisocial this week, probably because I wasn't as productive last week as I should have been, and so I'm atoning for that. I also have some pretty big decisions to make about my life, and I feel like they need to happen soon because otherwise my life will definitely start to slip away from me. I'm not as depressed as I was about being 23, though--now it's just something that's accepted fact, rather than something to be afraid of. So, I've accepted that, but I'm not excited about waking up twenty years from now and realizing that I still don't have any idea what I want. So, things need to change. I just hope that I have the courage to follow through with whatever I decide, rather than just letting things slide because it's the path of least resistance. Well, I've surprised myself with the ability to affect massive change before (such as going to Stanford rather than Iowa State), so maybe I'll be able to pull something off.

I also use 'so' a lot as a connector. I like it.

the sound of settling

So, I've been rather lazy today to make up for all the running around I did Friday and Saturday. My talk to my prof's SoCo class went really well on Friday; it was nice to go back and remember my project and remember exactly how much I really did for it, and the amount that I did was evident in the slightly glazed expressions of the people in the class. They seemed interested in what I did, but considering that the entire focus of my project changed several times over the course of three years, it's no wonder that I had a hell of a lot of output besides my written-at-the-last-second honors thesis. That was a lot of fun. Friday night was a visit to Patrick's apartment, followed by Felicia's going-away party. Sad business, that...I feel like this is the first year where several people have moved away all at once, and between Walter, Felicia and Jasmine, things won't be quite the same around here :( Sniff, sniff.

Saturday, I had to go to the city for a barbecue in Crissy Field--the directions that I got were wrong, and so we ended up at the opposite end of Van Ness from where we wanted to be, which was a 45-minutes detour. Damn. It was unfortunate for everyone else that I was so late, since I had the plates :) But, whatever, it was a surprisingly lovely day in the marina area, so the afternoon was nice. Then I came back, took a nap, and made a corn casserole to take to a coworker's potluck dinner thing, which was fun. I topped it off by picking up Shedletsky, who had returned that afternoon, and taking him to IHOP for coffee and conversation. I'm looking forward to everyone else getting back as well...especially since online mafia was smashingly fun and I think that the 'group' is much more likely to hang out altogether than it was six months ago. Yay. I'd like to play online mafia again sometime soon, but I would also like to see people in person, even for something other than mafia (such as a beach bonfire or something). Too bad the Wachowski brothers aren't coming out with any movies this fall...

Today, I slept until noon, had lunch with Renee, Vidya, Sri, and Stephan, then came home and slept some more. I took Patrick's cooler back to him tonight, and ended up hanging out in Paloma with Tommy and Ariel and did some desultory helping-with-decorations until I realized that a) I have to get over my longing for being on staff/helping with orientation and b) I need to sleep since I have to work tomorrow. So, sleep is what I should be doing right now.

open up my eager eyes

I'm tired, but happy. It was a really strange day, or rather strange combination of strange things. I woke up early to open the mafia board, and then went straight to work for an 8am meeting. Mafia itself was crazy, due to a bunch of occurrences that are funny only if you know the game in our peculiar variations, and which I can't talk about because people who are still alive read this occasionally.

Even if it was only mafia, it would have been a fun day. But no...first, you can add to that the fantastic dinner I had tonight. It was my group's Q3 offsite, and we went to Left Bank (the santana row branch, not the Menlo Park branch). I had very tasty steak (with a roquefort/butter sauce), and a drink (champagne w/some peach schnapps in it, awesome), and appetizers, and desserts, and tea, and it was *great*. I love that place. I could have eaten a dozen oysters, though, and I only got one, so I'll have to go back at some point. We got into a heated political discussion at the end, made all the more heated when I very stupidly came out as a Republican rather than keeping my mouth shut like I normally do. Two years of being on staff taught me to keep my political views to myself, and I should have stuck to that policy, but I like a good argument sometimes, and I like it better when it's me vs. everyone, so that was great.

But no, the *strangest* thing of the day was that I took a break from work this afternoon, sauntered over to the cafe, and got to listen to a Q&A session with former president Jimmy Carter. So weird! To be able to take a break from work and go listen to a former president...awesome. Simply amazing.

Oh, and I found out that there are like four straight paragraphs on me in this article in the Stanford Report: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/september1/sophcollege-91.html

I talked to the dude a few weeks ago after my prof passed my name to him for his article, but I forgot all about it. However, my old manager came up to me today and said that he'd read the article. So, I checked it out--and was amused/slightly horrified to note that the magazine reported that I only intended to stay at work long enough to save money before grad school. Hahaha. They always say you shouldn't really tell people you are planning to exit until you have the exit strategy in place--and now, I have no strategy (since I don't know if I'm applying this year or next) and anyone under the sun can read that I am planning to leave work in the near- to mid-future. Ah, lovely.

Anyway, time for bed! Take care, my friends, and come back to school soon--I miss you.

we were meant to live for so much more

I had a busy day at work, and then had dinner at Fiesta del Mar with Claudia and Aditya. It was tasty, and as always very fun, since Adit can always enliven any get-together.

And the endless quest to figure out what I should do next year continues...but yeah that's all I really need to say about that.

when all is said and done and dead...does he love you the way that i do?

It was a good and bad weekend, all rolled up into one. Or rather, it was a good weekend, and a bad week preceding it. I was completely unproductive at work, partially due to circumstances beyond my control, and partially due to extreme heat/laziness/desire to hang out with Walter. Then, Walter did end up leaving on Thursday, and I was very very said because I only found out (and, well, he only found out) and hour or two before he had to leave for the airport, which is when the FedEx dude showed up with his visa. So I didn't really get to say goodbye, and since I'm a big fan of closure and definitive endings, that was really hard :( But now it feels like a new chapter of my life is beginning, if that makes any sense. I will stop myself before I get too melodramatic about this.

Friday, I went out with coworker's to celebrate someone else's birthday, and it was v. fun. I was surprised when I got to work on Friday morning and found they had decorated my cube for my birthday--streamers, signs, pictures, etc. I had decorated the other guy's cube the night before for his birthday, but did not expect that they would decorate mine in the morning. So, that was very nice. We had dinner at Max's Opera Cafe, and then we went to the BBC in Menlo Park--very fun, chill atmosphere, and I hung out with some of my favorite coworkers, and generally had a good time. I also got drunk really quickly, since people bought me drinks in addition to the drinks they bought for the birthday boy, so that was entertaining.

Saturday was my birthday/a day of national mourning, but there seemed to be less mourning than in previous years, so it didn't seem quite so awkward. I had lunch with Claudia, and then we went to Best Buy to browse through DVDs/microwaves, and the John met us. We had Italian sodas, hung out, and then had dinner at CPK. It wasn't an overwhelming crowd--many people were on staff retreat/out of town, but we did manage to guilt Zach into coming. So, that was entertaining--me, Claudia, Zach, Sri, Victor, Laura, John, John's girlfriend Jessica, and Jessica's friend Neil. Felicia showed up at the end, and we were supposed to go bowling, but no one really wanted to, so some of us ended up back at my place, where we watched 'Starsky and Hutch'. A low-key birthday, but better than the last two, so that was good.

Two exciting things:

1) Some of us are playing online mafia again, which makes me exceedingly happy, and hopeful that we can all hang out again this fall, either for mafia or for else fun things. It will be sad without Jasmine here :( but we're getting Joanna and Brendan back, and Can and Vishal will be back, and that will be nice. If you want to check out the mafia board, it's at http://www.quicktopic.com/27/H/VXP8u7iaTuf/p1000.1 - the theme is the Olympics! Yay!

2) I bought this hydroxy-peel masque stuff today, and I slathered it on a few minutes ago, and it's gotten all hard and crazy on my face. It's super-exciting--I tried peeling a little bit and it actually felt like peeling all my skin off, only without any pain. Isn't that awesome?! So I'm going to go peel now. Goodnight, everyone!

churning through sick lullabies

Man, I'm feeling rather whiny tonight. Walter is or isn't leaving tomorrow, depending on whether or not his visa comes. I'm turning 23 v. soon, and that is making me slightly crazy, since I don't want to have a birthday at all. I would prefer to just bury my head in the sand and pretend that it isn't coming. Birthdays just aren't exciting anymore. Mine used to be exciting, until a whole bunch of people died on it, thus ruining every subsequent birthday. And now I'm not turning 21, which signifies the ability to drink, or 22, which signifies the end of college and the beginning of independed adult life, but *23*, which signifies the age at which I used to think I would have it all at least somewhat figured out.

And instead, where am I? Working at a job that I am far too talented for, living in an apartment that is far too hot (okay, that's only this week), sleeping alone every night in my big new bed, and completely unsure about what to do next.

So, go away, birthday, I don't want you!

Now, off to say goodbye to Walter. Sadness.

kingdom of loathing

So, I have been purposefully avoiding playing video games with Walter all summer, partially because I only have one regular non-ddr controller for my Playstation, but mostly because I choose to be obstinate about silly things and this time chose to refuse to play with him. Sort of like a younger brother in that respect--I often choose to be my most obstinate, ill-tempered, and generally implacable/unbending with my brother. Sad times for him.

Anyway, that's not the point. Despite the fact that I refuse to play a game *with* Walter, I have absolutely no problem playing a game by myself even if Walter is in the room. So, he introduced me to www.kingdomofloathing.com. It's very entertaining in a sort of mindless way, and it's clear that it could take over a small but significant portion of one's life with just a bit of dedication. You choose a character, and then it's turn-based adventuring, involving puzzles, adventures, etc. Quite amusing, really. Give it a whirl if you have nothing better to do (or much better to do that you would prefer to ignore).

never betray the way you've always known it is

I'm so happy that it is a three-day weekend, since I definitely could use another day of relaxation. The past few days have been v. nice--Walter's going-away party on Friday, buying a bed (!) on Saturday, and dim sum and wandering in the city with Claudia and Emily today, followed by dinner and a screening of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' with Claudia, Walter, and Walter's brother George. That was hysterical.

So I'm quite exceedingly happy that I bought a bed, even though it was a shudderingly large amount of money to spend on something that I will hopefully be mostly oblivious to. However, it is lovely--it's big, and comfy, and not a mat on the floor, and so I am very happy. I picked it out yesterday afternoon and they delivered it yesterday afternoon at five! I went bedding shopping immediately afterwards, but I am very finicky about such things and could not find anything that I liked :( So I came home and read a book in bed until midnight, and then slept the glorious sleep of someone in a real bed. Ah, joy.

Today was very very fun as well. Claudia and Emily came over this morning, and then we drove to Millbrae for lunch at the remaining Hong Kong Flower Lounge. Very tasty, although slightly different because they bring everything around on carts instead of letting you order everything precisely as you want it. It's okay, though, since they can get away with it as long as they never leave me again. I am sad that they apparently don't serve the scallops with spicy sea salt or the tasty shrimp egg rolls, since we couldn't find them on the menu, but I was happy to see that they seemed to have imported all of the waiters and waitresses from the Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Palo Alto. It was funny to go into a restaurant and recognize all the staff from a different restauran.

After that, we drove into the city and parked near 16th and Valencia, and wandered around some of the shops in that area. Then we went to 18th and Sanchez, home of 'Samovar', this awesome tea house. they had all sorts of different tea types, all in their own individual pots, with lovely service. Claudia got an iced tea concoction, which made us very jealous because it was brutally hot, but I quite enjoyed my 'Ceylon Golden Tips' with milk and sugar. We stayed for a couple of hours--my tea pot had about six cups of tea in it, which was a little ridiculous. Claudia ordered a hot tea as well, and Emily got an iced chai, and then we all got food too--tea sandwiches for Emily, wild salmon tea toasts for me, and delectable-looking chocolate truffles for Claudia. Overall, I recommend the place very very highly--it was very relaxed, the decor was perfect, the teas were fantastic, and the service was unhurried so you didn't feel like they were trying to rush you out. I would like to go back sometime when the weather is a little colder and more conducive to hot tea :)

So, between the four cups of tea I had at brunch and the six cups that I had at Samovar, I was pretty full of tea by the time we got in the car to come home. It was a lovely day, though.

And now I am in my new bed, and all is right with the world. And I have tomorrow off! That means that I can sleep in and be happy :)

saving up my food stamps and burning down the trailer park

It's been a really really long week at work, what with other people being on vacation and me having far too much to do anyway. But, I thrive under extreme pressure, so that's okay.

In other news, Walter is moving to Scotland next Thursday, and we're having a party at Pizza My Heart tomorrow (Friday) night at 9pm. Pizza My Heart doesn't know it, but I suppose they'll figure it out :)

It's a three-day weekend, which I'm exceedingly excited about. I'm thinking about buying a real bed, but that seems to signify some sort of permanence with my surroundings, and that's a daunting proposition. But knowing me, I'll be too lazy to move, so I'd rather start sleeping on a bed now than wait until my mat is thoroughly sad and uncomfortable. So, we'll see.

Tuesday I went to a Giants game for my Q3 team offsite at work; it was fun, although I couldn't care less about baseball, and so I barely watched the game. Last night I worked practically the whole night, with a brief break for pizza w/Walter. And tonight--more work, but this time I watched 'Map Makers' on the History Channel and ate macaroni and hot dogs before working again. It felt simultaneously childish and dorky, but it was v. pleasant. Walter's going out of town, so I'd like to a) buy a bed, and then b) read a romance novel in my new bed. Even if the bed doesn't happen, the romance novel most definitely will.

I'm excited for everyone to get back to school. It has been very nice to have something of a break from Stanford this summer; this was the first time in a very long time that I didn't spend more than a few hours on campus over the course of several months. While I somewhat enjoy not going to campus all the time, I miss my friends who will still be on campus, and so I imagine I will go back at least occasionally during the year. I'm thinking about trying to scam some Sixth Man tickets, but that's still up in the air.

I'm really kinda depressed about turning 23--I know it's not really old at all, and even though I work for a young company, I'm still one of the youngest people there. However, when I was younger, I guess I just always assumed that I would meet the love of my life in college and that I would be engaged or practically engaged by now. That, obviously, has not happened. Clearly it's not panic-time yet, or anywhere near yet--but I would like to develop a little bit more optimism in that regard, since any optimism I had in that respect has been completely crushed.

Wow, that was depressing. On a good note, the rest of my summer has been exceedingly good and I'm looking forward to an exciting fall.
:) So, things are definitely way way more good than bad.