i want a girl with a mind like a diamond

Vidya requested a mention in my blog post tonight because she claimed that it's been forever since I mentioned her--and she threatened to kill me if I didn't comply. As many of you know, direct demands often make me stubborn and recalcitrant, and so I almost decided not to blog at all just to show her that she couldn't give me orders. However, not writing hurts me more than it hurts you (and definitely more than it hurts her), so I decided to cut my losses and give her the freaking shoutout that she requested. Are you happy, Vidya?

Today was a regular day at the office--except for lunch, when I snuck away to meet Claudia at the Old Pro in Palo Alto. We had tasty, meaty sandwiches, and it felt like I was cutting class or something, even though we are most assuredly allowed to go off-campus for lunch. It doesn't make a whole lot of *sense* to go off-campus for lunch, since we get free lunches at work without even having to burn any precious gasoline to get there, but sometimes it's nice to get away. And, it's definitely nice to have onion rings, which aren't usually found in the kitchens of all of the organic-loving, non-fried-food chefs at work. After lunch, I made a quick stop at the art store around the corner from the Old Pro and bought some picture frames. I have tons of pictures from India (and Europe) that merit display, but I want my room to feel somewhat adult and so I can't just tape the pictures to the wall like I did in college. Also, since I now have my red velvet bedspread on my bed, my room is starting to verge on 'adult' in the porn sense, so pictures of innocent India-related activities should help to sober up the velvet just a little bit.

After work, I came home and unpacked the rest of my boxes. There's still stuff strewn all over the place, but I unwrapped everything and figured out what things were and what I need to do to put it all in order. A couple of things are missing, but they were pretty minor, so I'm not too upset--and how can I be upset when I clearly have more stuff than I know what to do with already?

I have a conference call at eight a.m. tomorrow--the fact that I have three early or late conference calls this week should indicate that I'm getting back to some semblance of 'normal'. I'd prefer not to get back to the level of 'normal' that I was at in Hyderabad, since the work (and conversations about it) never really stopped, but because I'm a workaholic with strong streaks of both perfectionism and masochism, it's inevitable that I'll end up overworked and stressed again within the next three months. I'm just trying to rein in my natural tendencies until after Christmas, so that I can celebrate the holidays without stressing about work. The best way to accomplish this in the ultra-short-term, it's clear, is for me to go to sleep!

if you ask me, turn up the bass

I don't have much time to update because I'm desperately tired--all sorts of sun and wind tends to do that to me. I had a great weekend, though. Yesterday, I had brunch with my roommates at Hobees, and then spent most of the being genuinely industrious--I cleared up most of the stuff that I had previously unpacked from my suitcases, dragged some books up from storage, unloaded the box of books that I had shipped back, and organized my bookshelves. Unsurprising that my first organizational task was my books, no? But since I have about twelve shelves of them, they're not a quick or easy task to begin with. I didn't do much of anything last night, much to the chagrin of the healthy twenty-four-year-old inside of me. Today, I had planned a last-minute barbecue at Half Moon Bay and invited a lot of people, but because of the last-minute nature of the barbecue and the usual misery of Northern California beaches, I wasn't expecting a lot of attendees. The funny thing was that for the first two hours, no one showed up, which means that Claudia and I got some great bonding done over an amusing fire-starting experience and some extremely tasty hamburgers. Tammy and Timmy showed up around three-thirty (Timmy's real name is Peder, but Adit introduced him to me as Timmy Timer, and so I have trouble remembering what his real name is--and if Tammy and Timmy are around each other, it's so much more pleasant to say 'Timmy and Tammy' than 'Peder and Tammy'). The four of us hung out until five, cowering under the predatory glares of the numerous birds and making fun of the people who were swimming in the frigid Northern Pacific. The day actually started out as warm or warmer than any other day I've ever spent at Half Moon Bay--the sun was actually warm, and the wind was only mildly irritating rather than bitingly cold. As soon as Tammy/Timmy showed up, clouds formed on the horizon and the wind picked up another fifteen miles/hour, which made us all lose feeling in our appendages, but it was still a blast.

Despire the utter lack of attendance (or perhaps because of it), I had a great day, and Claudia and I intend to put our leftovers to good use by freezing them and then cooking them up at the beach next weekend. Yay.

After we got back to Menlo Park, I talked briefly to my parents, and then we went to Stanford Theatre to see 'Black Narcissus'. Stanford Theatre only shows old movies; and despite its name, it's not on campus, but instead is on University Ave. It has been restored to a lovely example of the golden age of theatregoing; they even have this dude who plays the organ before the film, and he and the organ descend into a pit beneath the stage as the movie starts, to well-mannered applause from the well-mannered patrons. Most of the people in the theatre probably saw these movies when they were released--'Black Narcissus' was released in 1947, and so was in glorious, mouthwatering Technicolor.

'Black Narcissus' has had a surprising effect on me for the past six years, given that I hadn't seen it until now; Claude and Emily saw it during my freshman year, and their impressions of it worked their way into my daily life. The most obvious of these is that we frequently call Claudia 'Clodagh', after Sister Clodagh in the movie. I really liked the movie, and the opportunity to see where all of this stuff in our collective memory came from; most of all, I liked the chance to see the lead actor in outfits that amounted to a pair of hotpants and a feathered hat [this is the second time in three days that I saw an actor in hotpants, since I caught an episode of 'Magnum P.I.' on tv and he was wearing ridiculously short shorts]. The lead actor was also forced to ride a pony at several key points in the movie, which was absolutely ridiculous, since if he put his legs down to their full length, he could stand flatfooted on the ground. And best of all, the last shot of him consisted of him being drenched by the monsoon as he watched the woman he loved ride away on another small pony. Hot!

Okay, I definitely need to sleep--goodnight!

throw away your television

I truly have a horrifying amount of personal possessions. This problem was brought sharply into focus today when my shipment from India arrived--and the bill of lading stated that the weight of the shipment was 326 pounds. I shudder to think how much that must have cost. This is yet another example of how having free storage/shipping has resulted in an explosion of property--from the summer after sophomore year 'til the summer after senior year, I had virtually unlimited, free staff storage on campus, which means that I never had to throw anything out.

Now, I have boxes stacked on boxes, with multiple rubbermaid tubs to protect clothes from high school that I no longer wear (since I'm trying to look all professional at work), and more shoes than will fit on my fully-expanded double shoerack even though I only wear my Adidas and my hot-pink Kangaroos. I have dozens of books that I've never gotten around to reading, a giant stuffed catfish that I have perhaps matured beyond, a megasized supersoaker, an antfarm that I never set up (but it was a gift, so how could I possible get rid of it?), a whole box full of grass skirts and plastic leis from junior year in-house draw, and another box full of costume objects that are rather unnecessary. Then we move to the kitchen, where I have casserole dishes, two bundt pans (most people don't even have one!), a pizza stone, a waffle iron, coffee and espresso machines, a george foreman grill, the biggest microwave I could buy (which I like to call by its given name, the 'genius sensor'), and a whole bunch of red Kitchenaid utensils, bowls, and cooking implements because everything *has* to be 'matching matching', as the Hyderabadi tailors would say. And then I don't even know what's in the storeroom downstairs--and none of that list includes the contents of the six boxes that arrive at my door today.

I have a serious disease that needs to be stopped, or else I will turn into everyone else in my entire family and have entire rooms devoted to storing things that have faded into the distant reaches of my memory (or, as in my younger brother's case, I'll have to buy a whole warehouse in preparation for a lifetime of major acquisitions). I've moved five times since I graduated from college, not counting the six months that I spent in India--and there are things that have stayed in the same boxes during all of those moves, only to be schlepped from one storage closet to another. If I'm going to accommodate and extra 326 pounds of belongings in my already-overcrowded physical and psychological space, some of the old baggage needs to go.

After that rant, you may think that I'm completely spent, but I will still give you a quick run-down. My boxes came today, and so I had to wait for them before going to work--this led to me strolling in around one, just in time to grab a deliciously-fresh salad from the cafe. Eating steak and salad is the perfect antidote to six months of slow poisoning via chicken-and-rice overdose. When I came home, Claude, Terry and I went out for sushi (another great antidote to the aforementioned poisoning), and then stopped at the Creamery because Terry wanted ice cream. I just finished reading a romance novel, which I realize will earn me much condemnation since I should be writing my own, not reading the works of others. You'll have to give me a break--I realize it's been a year since I started writing, but I need to get my life together before I can devote a lot of energy to imagining the overwrought, dramatically-romantic problems of others.

Now it's time to sleep, and to dream of which bedspread I will grace my bed with tomorrow. Goodnight!

victory is ours once we strike the source

I worked from home today because I had a doctor's appointment in Menlo Park in the afternoon, and so it didn't really make sense to go all the way to work, come back for the appointment, and then drive back to work again. There's nothing like working from home to make one feel rather unproductive, and so I'm excited about going into the office tomorrow (and that's not even meant to be as facetious as it sounds!). Later, I met Vidya for some weird fun--we went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. It has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on the West Coast (and I think anywhere outside of Egypt or the British Museum), which is really strange since it's in the middle of nowhere in San Jose, which is a city that is not known for its culture. After, we had dinner at an Italian place that we found on The Alameda--the food was v. tasty, and encouraged me to share all of my secrets with Vidya. Not that I *have* secrets, mind you, but since I normally prefer avoid all serious discussions entirely, the food must have had a potent effect on me.

Since I worked from home and the only people I saw were my doctor, the doctor's receptionist, and Vidya, I have nothing exciting to share. The only thing I will say is that the Egyptians totally rocked, and I remain as much of a dork about them as I was in elementary school. I even remembered that the soul was called the 'ka', which is a rather useless piece of trivia, and so I found the museum quite exciting. On that note, it's time for bed!

you can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my love

I just got back from seeing 'Goodnight and Good Luck' with Vidya (congratulations to her for making it into my blog, since she only reads it for mentions of her own name), Claude, Sri, Adit, and Zach. For those of you not in the know, it's the movie about Edward R. Murrow's tide-turning coverage on the McCarthy hearings. It was v. good--an opinion that might be expected of someone who is fascinated by pinkos, people who fought against pinkos, and people who supported precious civil liberties despite the fight against said pinkos. It was also perhaps too intellectual to serve as my first movie outing in the first world--I'm used to theatres that are overcrowded, have poorly-timed intermissions, allow people to talk loudly on their cellphones, and do nothing about their burgeoning rat populations. I recommend it despite its intellectualness.

Last night was v. fun--I rather unexpectedly got a call on Sunday from Heather, who used to work in the convenience store with me in high school. She and her husband were in Palo Alto to take their youngest daughter to see some doctors at Stanford Hospital. Since they were in town for several days, I took them to a tasty Mexican restaurant last night, where we caught up on all the goings-on in our hometown. It was really nice (if a little surreal) to see someone from my hometown--the last person I saw from home was Lea in August, and before that it was when my parents visited in April. We had a great time, and I'm glad they looked me up.

I've been home from India/Sri Lanka for two weeks...and it feels like I never left. More to the point, it seems like India was some sort of weird product of my fevered imagination. By the time Christmas rolls around, I will probably be so reimmersed in my standard life that all of my Indian experience will be a vague and distant memory. Of course, if the marks from all of the mosquito bites on my legs don't fade by then, I'll still have about fifty visible reminders of my time in Sri Lanka :) Before I turn too contemplative, I think I'll go to sleep.

brand new colony

Unbeknownst to her, the waitress at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge made a serious tactical error. Last week, during my first brunch there in over six months, she told us that a new Chinese restaurant had opened in Palo Alto in the same building that was once occupied by the PA branch of the Flower Lounge. She said that we should go and try it for her, because it was too expensive for her, and she had heard from others that it wasn't as good as the Flower Lounge. We could not understand why she would tell us this, although it was amusing that she told us about it because it meant that she knew that we come up from Palo Alto, which means that she remembers us from the glory days of the PA branch--and it closed eighteen months ago.

So, progress to today, when the four of us decided to try the new place in Palo Alto. It is significantly closer to us than Millbrae is, which is a huge bonus. It's obvious that the place hasn't achieved the Flower Lounge's popularity; if we had gotten there at almost noon on a Sunday, we would have had to wait an hour for a table, but this restaurant was half-empty (or half-full, if you prefer, which I don't). The decor was a huge upgrade from the old Flower Lounge, and the place just felt fancier and more upscale. This served to put a slight damper on our usual loud, obnoxious conversation. Another upside was that the Cokes were a) served in larger glasses and b) actually tasted like Coke, which is something that the Flower Lounge usually struggles with. The major downside, though, was that while all of the dishes were adequate, none of them approached the delectable tastes and textures of the Flower Lounge (or Opium Lounge, as we prefer to call it, because massive amounts of addictive drugs must be added to the food--it's the only way to explain why we've driven half an hour each way every week for over a year to eat there).

It was during this brunch, however, that the Flower Lounge lost us. Why, you may ask? The new place certainly didn't win us, and we may never eat there again. However, we realized that we could just as easily explore other types of brunches/lunches on the weekends, rather than always having dim sum--there's a world of options, especially in the Bay Area. We could just as easily have tapas, or steak and eggs, or crepes, or tasty Thai food, or Indian buffets (Shedletsky's idea, not mine)--these brunches are just as much about seeing each other as they are about eating delicious shrimp families. We will still go to the Flower Lounge, but we will start pursuing other options as well, in what is being billed as a new phase of our friendship.

After brunch, I cleaned my bathroom, then started to unpack (finally). Unfortunately, I lost interest in unpacking after I'd taken everything out of my suitcases, but before I had put anything away, which means that my room is a complete disaster. Instead of packing, I lured Claudia into a field trip to Crate and Barrel, where I bought a pie plate and a new set of canisters. The canisters have been coveted for over a year--I bought two v. cheap canisters at Ikea when I was first setting up my kitchen, and I've hated them ever since. Now I am happy. It also means that I can unpack the kilo of tea that I bought in Sri Lanka, and put part of it in a cool airtight container to preserve its delicate flavors. Yay.

After spending some time drooling in the store of my dreams, I came home and whipped up a Greek salad--yes, I have succumbed to eating vegetables. Shocking. Since these vegetables were drenched in olive oil and mixed with lots of feta cheese, I don't feel so traitorous about it. Claude and I also split an entire baguette, which we dipped in the leftover olive oil/vinegar/garlic dressing...mmmmmm. After all that domestic bliss, it was too late to call my parents, and so I watched TV instead. It's funny that the time difference between here and Iowa is almost harder to deal with than the time difference between India and Iowa. In India, I could call them anytime between around 5pm my time and whenever I went to bed; here, I can call them earlier in the day (when I'm not awake), or during dinnertime for them, or during dinnertime for me, and my window closes around eight pm. So sad! Rather than dwelling on all this guilt, though, I'm going to go to bed.

paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me--just say you never met me

I apologize for not writing over the past two days; I've been forcing myself to stay awake all day in an effort to clear the last remnants of jetlag, and that means that I've been ready to fall asleep v. early. At least, that's my excuse for Thursday--I was at work the entire day, then had a v. enjoyable dinner with Julie, then watched a little TV before crashing around ten. Julie and I ate in FloMo, which was a bit bizarre--since I graduated two and a half years ago, I shouldn't ever be stepping foot into a Stanford dining hall, but I find myself being lured back with alarming frequency. They had just the same weird 'Chinese' food, french fries, and strangely-addicting tapioca pudding, so I was quite satisfied. I also love hanging out with Julie, so all in all it was a fun night.

Yesterday, I had dinner at a taqueria in Redwood City with Claude, Zach, Terry, Sri, and Adit. It was great to see Sri and Zach, and I was maliciously pleased that, in my attempts to make last-minute plans on a Friday night, six of the seven people I invited were able to come, which means that they were just as lame as I was. Around 10:30, I went over to Shedletsky's because I had been suckered into playing mafia; Doug is using a large pool of his former freshmen to serve as warm-body replacements for all the people who have been driven away by the drama that is rampant in the mafia group, and so we had much larger games than I had gotten used to. Despite the fact that I pretend to be appalled about playing mafia, I had a fun time--it's not something that I'm as into as I used to be, but I still enjoy it. Patrick also showed up, which was completely unexpected and v. nice.

Today, I woke up at noon, watched some stuff on the Food Network, ate lunch, and watched three episodes of 'Lost'--I only have three episodes left in the first season! Then I spent awhile primping for Shedletksy/Tammy/Claudia's 'surprise #2'. I was expecting dinner at someplace other than Lucky Dhaba (home of the last disastrous surprise)--and it exceeded expectations by being a surprise party for me in Shedletsky's apartment, replete with steak, Hypnotic, and Hostess cupcakes (that were strangely purple because of a tie-in with 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'). I just got back, and I'm going to sleep because I'm too tired to go out with Claudia and Tammy again.

I wish that I had more exciting events to report, but I'm currently fresh out of stories and I'm practically falling asleep on my keyboard. Perhaps you'll get more out of me tomorrow--until then, goodnight!

i love the sound of you walking away

I think that I hit the nadir of laziness today; the only reason I was at work was to have lunch with some people for Joann's birthday, and I left soon thereafter. I went to Target to pick up some plastic drawers so that I could organize my closet, but I didn't find any that I wanted. Then I came home, and I intended to unpack, but instead I sprawled out on my bed and ended up napping for two hours. After that, I successfully roused myself and met some other coworkers at the Olive Garden for a going-away dinner for someone who was visiting here from the Hyderabad office. I'm hoping that someday my life will reach the point where I don't have to attend going-away dinners every three weeks, since they're getting a little old.

Dinner at the Olive Garden was fun--almost everyone had been in Hyderabad at some point while I was there, and it was good to catch up with them. I also didn't realize how much I like salad until I went someplace that doesn't have it--yet another addition to the long list of things that I once hated and now absolutely adore. I would never, ever have chosen salad over pasta before, but I did tonight, and it was lovely. There are still some things in my life that I doubt I will ever love (asparagus, ironing, and bats, for example), but salad can be scratched off my hate list. It was also clear that the rest of the former expats (now repats, I suppose) missed salad as well, since almost everyone ordered salad rather than pasta. Fascinating, eh?

Tomorrow I have to be at work at eight a.m. for a conference call, and then I have dinner plans in the evening, so I may be forced to stay awake all day. Shocking! I know it's good for me and that I have to do it if I'm ever going to get over the jetlag, but it's so much nicer to sleep whenever I want. And, if I'm not over jetlag, people are much more sympathetic towards me. I will eventually exhaust that sympathy, though, so I suppose I should start staying awake during the day. Lame. Right now it's nighttime, though, so I can legitimately go to bed!

the sound of settling

True to hypochondriac form, I'm constantly wondering if I'm coming down with malaria. Yes, I have 'malaise', and headaches, and general nausea, but it's not really any different than what I usually feel when I'm stressed and lacking a sense of purpose (since I have nothing to do at work and don't want to confront the domestic tasks awaiting me at home). However, since I have the fading marks of scores of mosquito bites on my legs, it's much more thrilling to imagine that I'm coming down with a dread tropical disease than it is to admit that I'm probably just vaguely depressed and unsettled by the transition between two vastly different worlds.

I really intended to get a lot done today, but I failed. On the bright side, I didn't take any naps this afternoon, which is impressive since I awoke involuntarily at six a.m. If I'm lucky, I'll start getting over the jetlag--I've been home a week, so it should theoretically improve in the near future. In order to help the process, though, I should really go to bed!

precious, precious burritos

Today was Halloween, and I celebrated it in my typical style--misanthropically, by going to work, coming home early, and taking a nap rather than going to the Castro or other Halloween parties like other people my age. Claudia rescued me slightly from my misanthrope ways when she got home from work, and we went to La Costena for my first bona fide burrito since my return to the States a week ago. Mmmm. I love burritos...their guacamole-filled goodness warms me to my very core.

I do miss Indian television. The American shows that they air are, for the most part, good (with the exception of the completely-inexplicable 'Zoe', which starred Selma Blair and was on for a few episodes on UPN or WB or something)--and when you tire of American shows and outdated American movies like 'Rocky III', you can watch all sorts of music videos on VH1. Alternatively, you can watch Hindi or Telugu music videos, which involve male and female posses in crazy pseudosexual dance-offs. This contrasts sharply with American television, which seems to consist exclusively of reality shows and/or 'Law and Order' reruns. I am just longing for the day when 'Law and Order' becomes a reality show--that will be the day that American television truly reaches its artistic zenith.

Tomorrow is the first of November--and then there are only two months until the end of the year! By then I should know what I'm doing next at work, and I hope that it's exciting or at least motivating--I'm having difficult motivating myself to do anything right now. Granted, it's difficult when I want to go to bed at noon, and I've had a headache since I got back from Sri Lanka, but this little trend needs to stop soon. At the very least I need to unpack and do laundry. Inexplicably, my bed isn't made when I get home from work, and the pile of dirty clothes in my bathroom is just sitting there, rather than running away and returning two days later, cleaned, folded, pressed, and waiting for me in my closet. I need to regain control of all this before I end up living in true squalor. There isn't time for this now, though, so goodnight!

my wonton is better than yours

I wasn't able to sleep until six a.m., which made getting up at 9:30 to go to dim sum a little painful. Dim sum, as always, was well worth it--Tammy, Shedletsky, Claudia, and I had a v. fun, v. leisurely brunch, replete with all the favorites (har gar/shrimp dumplings, egg custard buns, shrimp in bean curd, deep fried shrimp w/mayo, pork buns, etc.). We had a long discussion of various issues facing us in the near- to mid-future, leading to Tammy declaring that she was going to have to take matters into her own hands and become my life coach. This is extremely ironic, since I'm already her life coach, and I don't think that such things can be reciprocal. Also, Tammy/Shed/Claude expressed annoyance that the staff at the restaurant only seem to notice them when I'm with them; they've gone several times while I was gone, and always gotten mediocre tables and complete apathy from the waiters, but I showed up and we got a great table near the second-floor windows, and one of the women came over and had a five-minute conversation with me/us about a new dim sum restaurant that has opened in Palo Alto. That made the whole experience sweeter, if not more ridiculous.

I don't think we're going to play a second round of the Shrimp or Feet game; Shedletsky often refuses to try whatever we end up with, and since there isn't a prize of any kind, there is no incentive to keep eating tripe or pigs' feet. I'm sad, but I'm also pleased that I will be able to eat tasty dim sum for the next year without worrying about whether I'll have room to eat whatever nasty stuff shows up on the cart of sadness.

When Claude and I got home, we both succumbed to the shrimp coma and took naps for a couple of hours. I went out tonight and bought the first season of 'Lost', but I have yet to finish it off; hopefully I'll find time to watch this week. I did some desultory tv-watching and internet-surfing, and now I should try to sleep. I've had a queasy-feeling headache ever since I got back, probably due to jetlag, and I'm hoping that it will go away soon. Goodnight, everyone!

jetlag is my enemy

I woke up at seven a.m., decided this was silly, and went back to bed for what I thought would be an hour or so. Instead, I slept uninterrupted until nearly five p.m. I have no idea how that happened--I went to bed before two a.m. last night, which means that I slept for fifteen hours. Even better, it's the end of daylight savings time tonight, and so the clock is very unfairly changing yet again.

Anyway, welcome to my pseudo-new blog; I can't promise that I will post every single night, like I tried to do in Hyderabad, but I will do my best. I've been home less than a week, but I need to start figuring out what the next step is--I'm excited to take on different projects at work, and I should definitely unpack and put my life back in order at home. To encourage this, I baked chocolate chip chewies tonight, which should earn at least a little bit of love from my roommates (who suffered the same chocolate chip chewy drought as I did, although mine was exacerbated by the vast quantities of Indian food served in the cafeteria at work). I also read part of a romance novel, and so the combination of those two activities indicates that I am almost fully reacclimated to my American life.

i love my broken sideview mirror

So I haven't posted on this blog since May, although I've been posting like crazy on the Hyderabad blog. I just wanted to say that although the title of the previous post, 'return of the summer friend', may still hold true, my life has gotten much more enjoyable since that point. I've become really great friends with quite a few people here, and I'm going to miss them quite a bit when I leave. I hope that I can control my usual tendency to implode my friendships, since I'd like to keep in touch and see them in non-work contexts when we are all back in California. We shall see, shan't we? I'm only posting this because it now makes me sad/amused that a few months ago, I was sure that nothing crazy or fun would happen because my coworkers were too grown up. Either I was wrong about them, or my tendency toward insanity rubbed off on them--but either way, you can't pretend that the scavenger hunt or the trip to Hampi was anything but awesomely outrageous.

I don't know what's going to become of this blog when I come back from India; maybe I should start an entirely new one, but this one has a significant amount of my past on it. We shall see. Feel free to suggest new blog names--but don't expect more posts in this one until I get back to the States.

the return of the summer friend

I had a stunning realization tonight as I was taking out my contacts--I'm making summer friends! It was quite appropriate, since taking my contacts out was almost like having the scales fall from my eyes. India is the perfect place for summer friends--it's blistering hot outside, all the expats are living together in apartments (which is almost like living in dorms), we have a very isolated community that does not communicate with members outside the expat group or the Hyderabad office, and we do most things together. It has all the classic ingredients for summer friends, since we're being brought together by a unique experience in an isolated location, in a way that has never happened before and will never happen again.

For those of you who don't know what summer friends are, I shall explain one more time--they're those friends you make during a brief but intense experience, such as summer camp, that are so close to you at the time but drift away almost immediately after everyone leaves the camp and has a chance to interact with the outside world again. It doesn't diminish the enjoyment that you can have with your summer friends during the summer; but as soon as fall comes, the bloom withers, so to speak, and everyone returns to their previous selves.

I had a really fun time at dinner tonight; it was just me, Heather and Lauren, and we had a really good, relaxed conversation. Just like almost every other expat here, I really liked and admired both of them in Mountain View, but we never spent any time together outside of work. Now, thrust into an unfamiliar country, with little to do outside of work, we're becoming friends. However, having steeled myself for the eventual cruel death of summer friendships, I can enjoy getting to know the people here without feeling that awful uncertainty about whether or not the friendship will continue when we're not in the same location. I mean, to be quite honest, my current group of friends back home is enough to scare off all but the most tenacious of summer friends...and the tenacious summer friends usually aren't summer friends anymore by the time they meet the rest of my circle.

So, we shall see. I'm slowly prepping them to accept my insanity, since I feel kinda dead inside because I don't have any outlet for my imagination. The best way to prep is to work my flair for the absurd into the conversation. For instance, apparently the apartment where dinner is served (also the apartment where Heather and Lauren live) has a mouse problem. This is surprising, since the entire freaking thing seems to be made out of marble, but whatever. So Shankar, one of the houseboys or whatever, saw one and leapt up like a cat to try to catch it. He failed, but I had just been telling them about how once our cat back home got stuck under the house and ended up being found, covered in cobwebs, behind the little door in the bathroom through which the pipes are accessed. When one of them said that Shankar was like a cat, I said that I could now picture Shankar being found in the bathroom covered in cobwebs. It was not my best imagining, not by any means (see: Pyro/Gyro, Dec. '03 - present), but it's setting the background for the day that I finally flip out and turn completely weird on them.

It needs to happen soon, because I feel like my personality is dying. I'm too nice to people 98% of the time, and usually I use my caustic, sarcastic comments the other 2% of the time as a safety valve...but I'm not getting that safety valve here. It'll be great if my brain rewires itself to avoid the pain of knowing that I'm not as fun and creative as normal, and then I come back to California with a self-performed lobotomy. Alternatively, I may just grow up too much while I'm here, although I sincerely hope not.

FYI I've posted a lot on the Hyderabad blog, you should check it out. Goodnight everyone!

merman!

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1373992.html?menu=news.quirkies

He doesn't sound as hot as Zoolander, but I'm still ecstatic. Trust the Russians to come up with some crazy shit.

i hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record

It's really late (1:42am) here, and I should go to bed soon, but I just wanted to say that it's hard to be someplace where I can't be as crazy as I have gotten used to being. Perhaps I'll reach that comfort level at some point in the near future...or perhaps I'll just snap and reach it regardless of my coworkers' ability to handle it...but let's just say that at this moment in time, I don't see myself developing such a strong relationship with anyone here that I can be brought to tears (of laughter) over the thought of the loch ness monster being able to animate a body of water so that he can use it as a vehicle to transport himself to the US and kill Tammy. If that didn't make any sense to you, don't worry, it apparently didn't make sense to anyone I was talking to the first time I brought it up either. Ah well, perhaps that's just as well.

But still, it's not like I'm having to bite my tongue to keep this stuff in; it just doesn't even start to grow, because there isn't fertile soil for such imaginings, and so they're all being stunted for lack of coconspirators. Sometimes I do think of random things and smile, but I'm kind of more shy than people think I am, and so it will be awhile before I feel really comfortable with my coworkers. And it will be way, way beyond comfortable before I'll tell them about Pyro and Gyro, or Thai prostitutes and blowguns, or any of the other myriad things that have formed the fabric of my life.

I will share one thing with all y'all, however. Today, I was looking out the window of the car (having a driver is weird, I'll write about it more at another time), and I saw a billboard with the Greek letter mu on it. Now, if we were to write out the pronunciation of 'mu' in English, it would be 'myu'...but on the billboard, it was written 'mju'. I thought that this was hysterical, because Vidya often says 'jou' and 'jes' instead of 'you' and 'yes' in IM conversations (although she actually pronounces them w/a j when the fancy strikes her in speaking as well). However, even writing it now for a bunch of people who don't know the in-reference behind it, it sounds lame--and I figured that the driver (Fazil...still no Habib) would appreciate it even less. But I thought it was funny, dammit! And I will go to my grave thinking it, and a million other things, were funny, even if no one else gets or wants to get the joke.

But if being a grownup means that you end up spending all your time with people who don't encourage ridiculousness, I want to stay young forever. Alternatively, I'll make friends with people who are increasingly younger than me, so that by the time I'm in my forties I can be some weirdo taking community college classes w/the sole goal of meeting students in their early twenties. Too bad it's not the 1920s and I can't form a brilliant literary salon in Paris, attracting scores of bright young things to discuss any manner of scandalous, artistically dubious subjects.

Growing old and the end of all fun for me will apparently be marked by Hitler, in the form of all my friends' marriages, invading my salon and getting an endless series of wedding pictures taken in front of the Eiffel Tower. Now there's an entertaining image...the tyranny of adulthood and sobriety clamping down on my fun salon, isolating the individual and destroying the community in the method of all great totalitarian states, with the guise of 'improving' life through discipline, rigor, and the gilded safety net cage of marriage...and at the end I can take all the wedding pictures, recolor them, and turn them into one of those composite pictures where all the small pictures form one large picture...and the large picture can be Hitler in Paris. Ha!

Okay, I feel slightly better--I may be boring for the next six months, but my imagination will still be there. Maybe it will even flower more prolifically when I get back, like grapevines after a severe pruning.

Oh, and I've been writing like crazy in the Hyderabad blog, so all promises about letting you know here are out the window; if you're too lazy to check it, that's your loss.

let's make a deal

I've heard from a couple of people that they believe that checking two blogs is too time-consuming, when they could just check one. Please be assured that I feel your pain. However, the reason that the other blog exists is because I want to be able to tell my coworkers about my travels, but I do not want all of them to see my particularly ridiculous side. So, this blog will probably get a helluva lot weirder, since I won't have any outlet for my strange ramblings for the next six months.

To make it easier for you, though (since this is really all about you), here's the deal...whenever I post in the India blog, I'll endeavor to let you know about it here. Not that that's a guarantee that I'll always remember, but I shall try. In turn, I'm imploring any of you who blog to blog more frequently, and any of you who don't blog to start one up. I'm going to feel woefully disconnected from the goings-on in my friends' lives, and blogs help to maintain some semblance of contact.

In the meantime, if you want to read about Singapore, I posted my thoughts and a couple of pictures. I'll be in Hyderabad in seven hours!

announcements ('administrivia', if you prefer)

Two announcements:

1) I updated the links to the side, removing people who aren't updating their blog and changing links for people whose blogs have moved. If you aren't on there and would like to be, or are on there and would like to be removed, please let me know.

2) I've started a new blog for India! The reason: I will want to share things about travels, experiences, etc. with coworkers, but may not want them to have access to my more personal thoughts when I return. This seems to be the best compromise. So, virtually everything I write will probably go to:

http://saradoesindia.blogspot.com

Yay for new blogs!

I leave in three days!!

the taste of silence

For those of you who wished to know, after two days and two trips to the city, I now have a new American passport and a business visa for six months in India. I leave in five days!

the killer in me is the killer in you

Never fear, gentle readers, I will be a much more prolific blogger when I am in India, mostly because I will a) be seeing cool new things, and b) will have no friends to amuse and distract me. I leave for India a week for tonight!

Or, I won't leave for India a week from tonight, if I can't get a new passport in time. I somehow managed to lose mine between April 4, when I used it while making a flight reservation, and last week, when I started searching for it in earnest. It got to the point yesterday where I realized I was compulsively searching places I'd already searched, so I started putting stickers on everything I looked through. The result: a room covered in gold stars, and no passport. So, I have an appointment at the San Francisco Passport Agency tomorrow at nine a.m. to beg them to give me a new passport. I have to have it in the next two days, because I then have to stand in another line at the Indian Consulate to get a visa. The Indian Consulate is closed on Friday, so I either have to get it Wednesday, Thursday, or Monday (the day of my flight). The passport office won't let you in until fifteen minutes before your appointment, and they won't let you in if you are more than fifteen minutes late. The Consulate only accepts visa applications from 9:30 to noon, and only gives you back your passport between 4:30 and 5:15. So, the next few days will be an entertaining attempt to meet relatively small time windows within two vast, creaking bureaucracies that will likely rival the DMV in their ability to frustrate and annoy. Yay.

In other news, we had our housewarming party Saturday night, although it was basically just my going-away party by another name, since I wouldn't invite people to my own going-away party. Actually, that's not true, I have no shame and I've been inviting people to going-away movies, barbecues, dinners, and activities for almost a month now. All the key people showed up, which amounted to forty or fifty people, and so the party was a smashing success. I think the two coworkers who showed up were amused, especially when Tammy told them we'd slept together two nights earlier and I refused to acknowledge it. And Vidya (she who ctrl-f's to find her own name in my blog, rather than reading it like someone who cared about me) asked them to define their position in my heart, which seemed awkward, but Durand was up to the challenge and said that the first tear I shed as my plane pulls away from the gate will be for him. Vidya appreciated that, I think.

I didn't have a lot of time to talk to anyone in particular, and I had to say the first of what will be a slew of goodbyes (to kids who won't be here next weekend and so aren't coming to Loro Special Dinner). Nevertheless, it was great, and memories like these will be very precious to me while I'm in India (how's that for sappy). I'm especially pleased that I *have* memories from Saturday, since we went through a lot of alcohol...the combined forces of the party finished off a whole bottle of mint julep (which is whiskey with some sugar and mint, so not really a 'mixed' drink), a bottle of kamikaze shots, a stock-pot full of sangria, a case of beer and a case of Smirnoff Ice. Pretty shocking, considering a lot of the people who showed up don't drink, or won't have more than one.

Saturday morning we finished the first round of the Shrimp or Feet game; I won, although it was rather anticlimactic because Claudia needed two points to win, and what she got was only worth a point (and was decent...sesame balls), so I won by default. However, an amusing thing happened--we've been joking for months that one of the head waiters has a crush on me, and that I have a crush on him, and that the rest of the group could whore me out for recipes/special dishes like the pan-fried scallops that we used to get in Palo Alto. Well, Saturday morning we got to sit upstairs by the windows, and we hadn't been upstairs for about a month. So the waiter comes over and says 'you finally got to come upstairs! you can request to have a table upstairs if you want'. The thing that was weird about this, like always, is that he made eye contact only with me; he never talks to anyone else in the group, even though we are always together.

Tammy, Shedletsky and Claudia finally convinced me that it was now or never, so the next time he was nearby, I flagged him down and asked if he remembered the pan fried scallops that they served in Palo Alto (he used to work there before that branch closed), and he said yes and that we could order them off the special menu. Yessssss!!! They are the best thing ever; we call them bouncy scallops because they bounce if you accidentally drop them off your chopsticks, and they're scallops stuffed with shrimp, pan-fried, and covered in spicy sea salt. Mmmmmmm. They're also $16 for 8 scallops, so we didn't order them because we were already full, but we're going to go back next weekend for scallops and play some Tetris Attack on SuperNintendo afterwards. Awesome, simply awesome.

I also had dinner w/Claudia's mom on Sunday night, and dinner w/Claudia and Terry on Friday night. Tonight, some of my coworkers took me to dinner at Cascal's in Mountain View (tapas), and then I filled out my passport application.

I'm really annoyed about this whole passport thing; I'm usually pretty organized, and I was thinking that maybe I should get a masters in some sort of logistical science and then coordinate massive relief efforts (like the efforts currently underway to stop the Marburg outbreak in Angola, sounds like they could use all the help they can get), but then I lost my freaking passport. I understand that this does not prevent me from getting a new passport and going to Angola, but it's so embarrassing, and I hate not being in control, especially of things like this. Especially since it'll probably turn up as soon as I walk in the door tomorrow night after spending all day at the passport office. Oh well, my life wouldn't be my life if absurd things didn't constantly happen to me. I feel like I could write my memoirs and have them taken as a complete joke by anyone who read them. And really, would I want it any other way? I may have a different answer for that if I can't get a passport in time, but for now I feel pretty satisfied with the ridiculous twists and turns my life takes.

maybe we should reevaluate our decision-making paradigm

The month of fun is rolling steadily towards its abrupt conclusion. My parents' visit was awesome; Monday, they came to work and got a tour/lunch, then we went out and got my camcorder (a Sony HC-42, yay, time to make overly-dramatic documentaries of my time in India), then my mom helped me pack up the stuff that I'm leaving here so that it won't be in the way. We went to Outback Steakhouse w/Terry and Claudia, which was great (and reminds that I have a small bit of prime rib still in the fridge that I should eat tomorrow). Tuesday, I took them to breakfast (at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae!!) before dropping them off at the airport. It was sad to see them go, since I had fun with them, but hopefully they'll come to India while I'm there. Then I went to work, and after work I saw 'Sahara' w/Zach, Terry, Ritu, and Maneesh.

I actually really liked 'Sahara', and even more surprisingly, Zach liked it too. Ritu and Maneesh were laughing hysterically as well, and I think Terry enjoyed it (although she wasn't quite as hysterical as the rest of us at certain points). I don't understand why it's getting such mixed reviews; it's not a masterpiece by any means, but it is very entertaining, it doesn't have pretentions of being more than it is, Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn (the surprisingly-effective, scene-stealing sidekick) work really well together...and let's face it, Matthew McConaughey is amazingly, ridiculously hot. I normally don't go for blondes, or for Texans, but he's gorgeous--and they played it up as much as possible, since he wore lots of sleeveless shirts, and his first appearance in the movie was of him emerging from the sea, wet and glistening, to rescue Penelope Cruz from some dudes who were trying to kill her.

Basically, people are complaining that there were too many unexplained coincidences in the plot--but who cares? The dialogue was pretty entertaining, the main guy characters were hilarious (like two overgrown boys--they just looked so *excited* when things exploded), and I felt like I had a good two hours of escape from reality. It served its purpose--although Zach said I failed, since I managed to pick a good movie instead of the crap I normally drag him to (think 'Chronicles of Riddick', since he was the person I drank with at that movie).

So 'Sahara' = thumbs up. Don't get too excited about it, but it was definitely worth seeing.

Wednesday, I worked for 12 or 13 hours. That sucked, but I had tons to do, and it was the only night I didn't have plans.

Today, I went to work, then had CPK with Renee. It was really good to see her--it's been several months since I saw her last (we think the last time we saw each other was when we saw 'Life Aquatic', so it must have been January). She had some entertaining stories, and it was good to catch up before she graduates/I leave. Then, I picked up Tom and Greg, and we went bowling, and then stopped at Pizza My Heart. So, I didn't get home until almost one, which is pretty late for me, and I should go to bed.

Revised social calendar:

Friday: packing
Saturday: finish 'Shrimp or Feet', housewarming party
Sunday: maybe hang out with Tom and Greg, packing
Monday: farewell dinner w/coworkers
Tuesday: maybe hang out w/Angela
Wednesday: get visa in city, lunch w/Allie, dinner w/John
Thursday: maybe finish 'Pride and Prejudice'/tea party w/Vidya and Ritu
Friday: Loro Special Dinner, hang out with Zach/Adit/Claudia
Saturday/Sunday: pizza/tequila/waffles/movies/etc.
Monday: airport party around 9 or 10pm, leave for India at 1:20am on Tuesday

Not much time at all! But I'm so excited...I'm ready for some new adventures.

memories are films about ghosts

My parents are here this weekend, so I'm taking a brief moment of downtime in the month of fun. Actually, it's still v. fun, and I'm so happy that they came out to visit, but it's a different kind of fun (involving less alcohol and slightly more sleep). They got in yesterday, we hung out and had pizza, and this morning we had dim sum. We haven't finished the game yet, but I wanted my parents to see the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, which was entertaining. Then we went shopping for camcorders (I didn't get one, but I'll procure one tomorrow), then bought luggage, then had dinner at Celia's with Claudia, and then they went back to the hotel. My roommates and I watched some History Channel (showing tonight: 'High Hitler', which was about the possibility that Hitler was a meth addict). Good times!

My parents are leaving Tuesday morning, so they're coming to work to have lunch with me, and I'm taking the rest of the day off to buy my camcorder, do some preliminary packing (since my mom offered to help out), etc. Then I'll have breakfast w/them on Tuesday before taking them to the airport...and the month of fun enters its last, desperate days. On the slate:

Tuesday night: 'Sahara'
Wednesday night: I can't remember, I feel like something's happening
Thursday night: bowling
Friday night: Loro special dinner? checking w/Allie...if not, clubbing
Saturday: final round of the Shrimp or Feet Game
Saturday night: housewarming party
Sunday: probably packing
Monday: open
Tuesday: open
Wednesday: getting my visa in the city, dinner w/John
Thursday: open
Friday: alternate date for Loro special dinner, if not, clubbing
Saturday/Sunday: last weekend of fun (tequila, pizza, waffles, 'Return of the King', massive packing, etc.
Monday night, 9pm: go to the airport and have airport pizza if possible
Tuesday morning, 1:20am: leave for India!!!

Sheesh...no time left at all!!

you're everybody's satellite...i wish that you were mine

I'm leaving for India on April 26!! That's so close to right now. I got my ticket confirmed yesterday, and promptly felt slightly ill because that is so close to now and I have so much to do before that happens.

So today I had a ton of meetings at work, and ended up talking for about 8.5 hours overall, which was simply ridiculous, and my jaw hurt as a result. Then, I hurried home, and John, Adit, and Zach came over for dinner. Claudia made this amazing eggplant parmesan, and an asparagus pasta, and bruschetta, and I made strawberry shortcake. Vidya also came over, which was entertaining, although she accused me of being cold towards her because I was busy all day and then was abrupt when she showed up. I like how I can never share what I do with my friends with 'normal' people; for instance, after dinner, the five of us (Vidya disappeared right after the shortcake) sat in the living room and Adit played us midi variations of popular songs that he found on the internet. This does not sound fun, but it really was. I'm trying to pack in as much fun and memories as I can before I succumb to India, and this was a nice evening to add to my collection.

Yesterday I had dinner with Waxman at Haus Mitt, and it was nice to catch up with him--hopefully it will happen again in a year or two :) Tomorrow I have a lot of work to do, as well as on Friday, and then I may hang out w/Zach and Adit Friday night. Saturday, my parents arrive! Yay for the grownup Wamplers, they're highly entertaining. They're staying until Tuesday, so this weekend will have to be relatively sedate.

I'm so excited about going to India, but it's looming rather dangerously now; buying the tickets made it more official (and more scary). I only have 2.5 weeks in the office here before I leave! Three weeks from now, I'll be hanging out in the Hyderabad office. Un-freaking-believable.

always...and never

Crazy weekend. It started on Friday, with dinner at Bella Luna w/Terry and Claudia to (belatedly) celebrate Terry's getting hired and all of us moving in together. The food was great, and the wine was very nice, and I think we all had a very enjoyable (if a little too grown-up-feeling) evening.

Saturday morning, Claudia, Ayla and I took Terry to the airport to go to the East Coast with her sister and aunt for a week. Then, we headed to Half Moon Bay, where I had a barbecue to kick off the month of fun before I leave for India. The barbecue was great--I grilled a lot of meat (steak, chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs), and I ate steak with a knife/my bare hands straight off the grill, which probably horrified some but was so amazingly tasty that it was worth it. The day was as perfect as it could have been; it was a little windy and chilly, just like Northern California beaches always are, but the sun was shining, it didn't rain, and the waves were gorgeous. Almost all of my favorite people were there--some of the mafia kids (with whom I got to play 'Cooked or Dirty' again), some of my freshmen from Loro my senior year (I had a blast watching them terrorize children with their death-kite--they managed to clothesline a kid, which was hysterical), some of my friends from freshman year (well, actually just John and Adit, with the important, but much later, additions of Sri and Vidya), a few people from Mirlo (Shedletsky, Tammy, and Emma, as well as Peter, whom I haven't seen for at least two and a half years, but I invited him on a whim and was v. happy that he came), and some other people whom I'm probably forgetting. It was a fantastic, memorable day, and I'm glad that it happened before I go to India and several of these people graduate and move away.

I didn't get home from the beach until after seven, and I napped for a little bit. John dropped by for a quick visit, and then Tammy and Shedletsky came over. We'd intended to spend the night on the beach, but it was too cold; so instead we watched some Animal Planet until about two, and went to Denny's. We were so lucky that the time changed last night, since it was an hour less that we had to sit around and wait for the dim sum place to open. So we sat at Denny's until after 5am, drove to Millbrae, picked up some refreshments at Safeway and some magazines at Walgreens, and had second breakfast at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae. It's across the street from the dim sum place, and we always made fun of it because we can see it through the window and it looked like it had seen better days. However, it's open 24hours, and the food is surprisingly very tasty; everything we got was great. Around eight a.m. we realized that we were incapable of sitting there another two hours waiting for dim sum to open; so we parked my car half a block from the dim sum place and tried to sleep.

For those of you who have been in my car, you'll realize that a small 2-door Pontiac is not conducive to restful slumber. Claudia didn't sleep at all, although Tammy, Shedletsky and I each managed to pass out for awhile. We woke up at ten, only to discover that the place doesn't open until 10:30. However, we were all very glad that we woke up early, because we had just happened to park on the street where all the workers at the restaurant apparently park--and as they all arrived to work over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, they walked by us, much to our chagrin. We're sure several of them saw us, but judging by how quickly the place filled up, we probably looked like we were just waiting for them to open. Thank goodness they probably couldn't guess that we had actually slept there for two hours after staying up all night to get our much-needed shrimp fix.

Dim sum was tasty; we didn't play the game, since we only have Claudia's turn left before the end of the round and it didn't seem fair to make her play on a mostly-full stomach, since this was our third breakfast in seven hours. We drove home, and I promptly slept for about four hours. I had preexisting plans to see 'Sin City' with a coworker tonight, and luckily I was able to drag myself out of bed and get to the theatre. I really liked the movie, despite the fact that the plot was pretty loose, because the graphics were great and some of the characters were interesting. I also really like Clive Owen, for whatever reason; he's menacing, but he's also trying to protect what he believes in, and that's hot. I apologize again for encouraging a viewing of 'King Arthur' last summer, but I do like Clive Owen, and I can't regret it too much.

Next on the list for the month of fun--my parents are coming next weekend! I've also got a couple of people I want to have dinner with this week. Expect a screening of 'Sahara' in the near future, for those of you who are lucky enough to be on my movie list. India is only three weeks away!!

i love the history channel!

Claudia and I saw a truly awful sight tonight; we watched the end of an episode of 'The Conquerors' on the history channel, in this case about William the Conqueror, who as we all know conquered Britain in 1066. However, what we *didn't* know is that William the Conqueror fell heavily on his saddle pommel, which caused his intestines to rupture. He experienced internal bleeding, which led to infection, and his intestines started to fill with pus. Apparently, he spent about two weeks in agony as his intestines rotted inside of him, before finally dying in Caen, Normandy, at the age of 60.

All that is well and good, if painful, but it turns out that during the funeral, his body had swollen up from the rotting so much that when the priests tried to fit his body in the sarcophagus, it exploded. The stench was so unbearable that it sent the mourners running for the exits. Isn't the disgusting? Even worse is that the history channel, in true reenactment glory, had little splatters of 'pus' appear on the screen, and then start to run down the screen as they described the stench and the awfulness of what happened. Ew. Claudia and I could barely speak from shock, and we're not normally the squeamish type. Thank you, history channel! I love you!

Anyway, I worked a lot today, which was fantastic. Yesterday, I had a bunch of my coworkers over for a pot luck, which was also great. Plans for the rest of the week include dinner with my team at work tomorrow night, dinner in Sausalito w/my roommates on Friday, a barbecue at the beach on Saturday, dim sum on Sunday, seeing 'Sin City' w/a coworker and Claude on Sunday, and then starting the next week. And my parents are coming next weekend! It's quite the hectic time between now and when I leave for India (around the 25th of April), and I'm making the most of it.

But right now, 'making the most of it' means watching 'The Family Guy'. Yay!

they stuck me in a box in the ground (pt. 9)

The title of this post comes from one of the more memorable songs played by the Deathray Davies when they opened for Louis XIV at Slim's in San Francisco last Thursday. The Deathray Davies are a six-man band from Texas, distinguished from other bands by the presence of a bandmember whose sole goal is apparently to look retarded and shake either a tambourine or a pair of maracas. They occasionally set him loose on a xylophone, which he proceeds to beat into submission with little regard for melody. This is not to discount his prodigious talents in any way; he can keep a beat on both quarter notes and eighth notes, and he can drink a beer while playing, which is more than the drummer can say for himself. All in all, a worthy effort--however, since I had a headache before I even went to the show and my tetanus-injected arm throbbed every time someone brushed against it, I didn't have much patience for the opening act.

Adit somehow convinced me, Claudia, Ritu and Stephanie to see Louis XIV with him on Thursday night. I'm glad that I went, although I shouldn't have (I'd thrown up when I woke up Thursday morning, I think from a reaction to one of the shots I got, and I felt sick all day, and ended up throwing up again and staying home from work on Friday). Louis XIV wasn't at all what I expected; the lyrics were far raunchier than I was prepared for, and I guess I should have guessed that they would look like eyeliner-covered glam rockers, but I hadn't really thought much about them before I showed up at the club. However, I really liked their set, and I will probably buy their album; in addition to 'Finding Out True Love is Blind', which is getting a lot of airtime on the radio (and which I downloaded from the iTunes music store late Thursday night), I really liked 'Dominique' and several other pieces.

After the concert, we went to a diner and hung out, and so I didn't get home until almost two. As mentioned above, I woke up sick on Friday (and no, there was absolutely no alcohol involved, unless Adit spiked my coke at the club, but I'm sure he didn't) and so stayed home. Saturday, I had a nice brunch w/Terry at the Cheesecake Factory, then cleaned up a bit, then had dinner at home with Terry and her siblings before they went to church. I worked on my romance novel a bit last night, but I'm having trouble w/the next scene and so haven't published it to my other blog. I also drank a lot of tea; I bought loose-leaf tea on Saturday, which gives me an excuse to use the teapot I procured several weeks ago.

Today, I woke up late, watched some VH1 with Claudia, and then Ritu and Vidya came over to watch 'Pride and Prejudice.' (note: Vidya apparently only reads my blog so that she can hit Ctrl-F and search for her own name, so I'll oblige her: vidya vidya vidya vidya vidya). We turned the screening into a tea party; Claudia made really tasty cucumber sandwiches, and I made tea in a real teapot w/sugar cubes and everything, and I also made cookies and deviled eggs. Yummy! So we watched about three hours of 'Pride and Prejudice', and still have some left over so that we can have another tea party at a later date to finish it. I also hemmed two pairs of pants, drank some more tea, watched the last half of 'Steel Magnolias' on TV, and now I'm thinking that I should sleep.

Expect massive amounts of fun in the v. near future!

The Search for John the Baptist

John the Baptist...or meaningless grafitti? 

So the picture above is of this archaeologist who believes that he has found the cave that John the Baptist lived in in the wilderness outside of Jerusalem. The reason I know this is because Claudia and I watched 'Snatched' last night, and then afterwards got sucked into the History Channel. We watched the end of some documentary on the Shroud of Turin (it's Easter weekend, so there was a lot of Christian programming), then an hour of 'The Last Days of World War II' (basic premise: the show is new every week and covers this week sixty years ago; it's like 'Best Week Ever', only about the war. This week was the fall of Iwo Jima, and Eisenhower's decision to let Stalin take Berlin). After that, this show came on called 'The Search for John the Baptist.' I intended to go to bed immediately, until it became clear that the archaeologist believed that he had found John the Baptist's cave based primarily on the drawing shown above.

Now, any child with a stick could make that drawing; in fact, that's what most of my drawings look like even when I'm trying my best. To me, it looks like any ol' stick figure...but to the archaeologist, it is incontrovertible proof of the cave's provenance. He says that the upraised hands were symbolic of baptism, and that the figure's robes resemble John the Baptist's traditional outfit. I don't really see any distinctive outfit other than that normally worn by stick figures, but okay. The only other stuff on the walls were a bunch of indentations that the camera kept focusing on, although I could never tell what they were supposed to signify, and three very rough cross-shaped things that the archaeologist said was a clear representation of Jesus' crucifixion.

In his defense, he did get a bunch of slave labor from some archaeology students over a spring break, and they dug to the bottom of the cave and found lots of pottery remnants from several periods in history, including 1st century AD. That does signify that the cave was in use by a variety of people. However, the archaeologist believed that the cave was used for religious services related to John the Baptist, and a helpful computer simulation was provided of some priest standing in the middle of the cave using the 'illustrations' on the wall to illuminate John the Baptist's role in Christ's life. If this were true, couldn't they have, at some point in the millennium between the crucifixion and when the cave was abandoned during the onslaught of the Crusaders, found a freaking artist who could do better than one stick figure and three crosses? There is no writing on the walls and no other illustrations. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn someday that the stick figure was actually made possible by a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Okay, I've said enough. I should go to bed!

 
This is just here so that I can link my profile to it... 

oh, my, starry-eyed surprise

I feel silly for getting addicted to a song because of a commercial, but the Diet Coke commercial featuring Paul Oakenfold's 'Starry Eyed Surprise' has me surprisingly hooked. I love it! And it is most definitely better than the retarded Burger King commercial w/the Hootie and the Blowfish dude singing some ridiculous song about the Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich, while technicolor people do stupid things in the background. I told Claude and Terry that we should have a party before we leave in which we reenact that commerical, but that was promptly quashed.

I worked a lot today (it was painful to be in the office by nine, since I didn't even get back to California until after eleven last night), then came home and did a load of laundry, ate some chicken pot pie, and watched Terry watching the Stanford/Utah women's basketball game. She's quite impassioned about basketball, and so I had a bit of mild fun teasing her during the game. The game was never particularly close, or I wouldn't have taken my life into my own hands by interrupting her :)

I meant to finish chapter six of my romance novel tonight, but I got caught up in the TV instead, and I also spent a considerable amount of time coordinating my calendar w/Terry and Claudia so that we could set the dates for the major fun things that need to happen before I leave. Expect housewarming parties, beach barbecues, and Loro special dinner to come your way in the next five weeks!

I'm really quite chipper, considering that I'm packing up to leave for a third-world country. I'm just excited to have some adventure again; nothing particularly insane had happened to me for awhile, so I was definitely due. I have to get my shots and my malaria pills tomorrow, and perhaps the pain will make this all seem a bit more real and sobering. For the next few weeks, my mantra will have to be 'work harder, play harder'--I have tons to do at work to get ready to transition, and I have even more to do at home. Between packing up all my stuff for the trip, putting away my clothes and souvenirs so they don't get dirty while I'm gone, settling all the change-of-country things like insurance, visas, doctors, and dentists, and buying clothes that may be comfortable in the 100+ degree heat, I could fill the next month with work and errands alone--but I have massive plans for fun, and I want to do as much of it as humanly possible. Let's see how much work and fun I can pack into every hour between now and my departure!

productivity!

Iowa State lost today, 92-65, to a North Carolina team that seems poised to go all the way. It was sad to watch; while most of the ISU kids are freshmen or sophomores and so have a great chance to build an excellent team over the next couple of years, they kinda got spanked today, and it was Jared Homan's last game as a senior, so that was a little rough. But, I got steak for breakfast before we left for Des Moines, and then we checked my bag early and went to my aunt's house to watch the ISU game, which means that I watched the bloodbath right before I got on the plane.

For those of you who have been waiting patiently for my romance novel, however, take heart--since I read the books I took home with me while I was in Iowa, I had nothing better to do than write some of my own novel on the plane. I wrote Chapter Five and part of Chapter Six; happy reading!

devastated demon deacons

More NCAA basketball tonight; the game between West Virginia and Wake Forest was fantastic, going into double overtime before West Virginia finally came out on top. I didn't see that much of the actual game, because my area of the country was shown the Kentucky/Cincinnati game, but I saw the last five minutes of regulation, as well as both overtimes, which seemed to last for an eternity. I was sort of cheering for West Virginia, since they were the underdogs (and who doesn't cheer for the underdog when there is no clear allegiance to either team?) but I've always loved the name of Wake Forest, and I also love that their team name is the Demon Deacons. I just think that's great; so much better than a Hawkeye (Iowa) or a Golden Gopher (Minnesota) or a freaking tree (...).

I didn't do much of anything today; I was retarded last night and started reading the romance novel I brought home with me, and of course I stayed up until four a.m. to finish it, which means that I didn't get enough sleep last night and now I have nothing to read on the plane. Sadness. However, the romance novel was probably the best romance novel I've ever read, dialogue-wise; it's another Georgette Heyer, called The Grand Sophy, and it's one of those classic ones where the girl comes into a dysfunctional family and saves it from itself by reordering everyones' lives, simultaneously comes into contact with a very headstrong, domineering male with whom she bickers constantly, and ends up marrying said domineering male when they realize they're a perfect match (hmm, I know a girl who's domineering and desires to reorder everyones' lives for the better; I think I know what kind of dude she should be looking for).

I think I'll order a whole bunch of Georgette Heyers to take to India with me, since I can read at least five of them on the plane ride alone, but it's a shame I have nothing to read tomorrow on the flight back. Maybe I have a book left on my already-scavenged bookshelves upstairs that can hold my interest for the trip back to California. I'll be home Sunday night late, and then I'll have a whole week to start to put my affairs into order before spring break ends and my last amazing month of ridiculous fun can begin. Yippee!

Any 'Napoleon Dynamite' fans out there will be pleased to note that my mother used the word 'flippin' tonight, in reference to an uncomfortable article of clothing. I was quite amused. My grandmother, as well as Aunt Becky and her boyfriend, came for dinner tonight; we had a v. traditional midwestern dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes (aka potatoes au gratin), baked beans, asparagus, and five-cup salad (made w/marshmallows, pineapple, mandarin oranges, coconut, and I think sour cream? a cup of each of five different things, I can't remember the details...I just know that despite its name, the salad does not contain any lettuce or other vegetables, which is what a midwestern salad is). My grandmother also got someone to bake a small white cake, frosted w/yellow and white flowers to mimic my parents' wedding cake, and my mother dug out the knife and server that they used at the wedding to cut the cake, and also had napkins leftover from the reception that were printed w/their names. Now, does that explain my packrat tendencies or what? To still have enough napkins from your wedding that you could use seven on your 25th anniversary and still have a whole bag stashed away in your cabinet for future use is a clear sign of an obsessive compulsive, and I've inherited it from both sides in spades. Yay.

My aunt showed up this afternoon with a red sticker on her forehead in honor of my move to India, and she and her boyfriend gave me a whole package of red stickers so that I would 'fit in' when I moved there. I only mention this because Aunt Becky said that her boyfriend occasionally checks my blog and would love it if he got a shout-out. So, Brian, here is your name immortalized in print :) I hope you're happy.

the lure of the east

[disclaimer: if you work with me, please do not say anything about this in the office; it will be announced officially on Thursday]

Dear friends,

For the past week or so, I have harbored a secret that has become increasingly hard to maintain. However, I only have a certain amount of time left to me on the sunny shores of California, and so I wanted to share with everyone as soon as I had let my family know about a recent abrupt change to my life. I told most of my family after coming back to Iowa, and so now I can make it official for the rest of you:

I am moving to India.

That's right, I'm moving to India. This is quite the shock, I'm sure, since I a) love beef, b) hate vegetables, c) have a stomach that does not respond well to curry, d) just moved into a new apartment, etc., etc. However, I found out last week that I might have the chance to work in the office in India for six months, and it was made official on Tuesday. Things are moving v. fast; I think I'm projected to leave around May 1, although I haven't finalized the dates or booked my flights yet. I'm probably going to stay at least six months (i.e. through October), so my intentions of grilling all summer in California are very much out the window. However, this is going to be a much hotter, more intense experience than Coachella, for example--average temperatures in May are 104 degrees Fahrenheit, with an average humidity of 70-80 percent.

It also means that Scotland is out, which makes me v. sad, but I'm so excited about the chance to go to India. I'll be in Hyderabad, which is in the middle of south India, working in our office there and living in a company-sponsored apartment. Hopefully I shall get to travel, since there is a multitude of places in India and around Asia that I would like to visit.

Anyway, this is why I intend to have the most insane, amusing, fun-filled six weeks in recent memory; you can think of it as though I have a terminal illness called 'India', and I have to live each day like there's no tomorrow until I go. So, expect some fun plans in the near future! I'll be back Sunday night, and then the planning can begin in earnest.

For those of you who are curious, I'm not abandoning Claudia and Terry; I'm leaving all my stuff in the apartment and paying rent so that I can move back in as soon as I return. This means that you are still welcome to come over and watch TV, although you'll probably find it in your best interests to befriend at least one of my roommates. I will also blog religiously, and will hopefully post lots of pictures to keep all y'all informed of my exploits. I'm so happy that I'm going on a new, grand adventure; it's the best of both worlds, since I get to have a crazy new experience and yet still come home to all my friends and my apartment and everything when I'm done. So yeah, I'm excited...watch this space for more updates as the time of departure approaches. My first adventure is getting all my shots and malaria pills on Tuesday...I can't wait!!

In other news, Iowa State beat Minnesota in the NCAA tournament today; I had fun watching the game with my mom, and she was v. happy that they won. I think they'll have a great team next year, since with the exception of their biggest player, all of their main players are freshmen or sophomores. This slightly mitigates the disaster they experienced in 2001, when they became only the fourth 2-seed to ever lose the first-round game against a 15-seed (ISU vs. Hampton College; I watched the end of it in Stern latenight, and apparently made a spectacle of myself, since most people were cheering for the underdog, of course). So, that was great too; all in all, my trip home thus far has been wonderful. It was completely fortuitous that I came home this weekend; I got my tickets a month ago, long before I knew about India, but it was nice that I was able to tell all of my relatives in person.

Happy spring break, for those of you still in school!

we'll float on, good news is on the way

I slept until noon today, which was absolutely wonderful. My mother made me kraft mac and cheese and hot dogs for lunch, which is a great meal for watching the first day of the ncaa tournament. I watched basketball the rest of the afternoon, had a nice long chat with Emily on the phone, and then had dinner (roast beef and potatoes, very midwestern). I followed dinner with more basketball, watched the news, and then surfed the net for awhile before writing in my blog. All in all, a v. unproductive day...I'm glad that I'm in a period of enforced idleness, since I can't clean my room or do work or run errands or anything else while I'm here.

I'm sad that I'm not going to Coachella this year, but that's the way things go; the main acts are Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails, and I'm not a fan of either (and have already seen Coldplay in concert, in a live show that I found to be one of the least enjoyable of my entire life, although I had fun with the group I went with, right up until the point when Adit started elbowing his way through the crowd and ran away with all our stuff, and we had to tackle him with a blanket to prevent open mob warfare from trying to kill him...but that was years ago, and we're all so much more mature now). And anyway, I had such a great time last year that it's hard to believe that this year would be better, unless the bands were equally/more enjoyable; also, since we learned from last time, we wouldn't have fun dying in the sun or relaxing in the freezer section of a supermarket, and that means we'd have more conventional, more boring fun instead.

But, I may try to go to Vegas in April, and I have a multitude of fun, entertaining plans in the works to make the next month or so the best month ever. More details later--but if you're excited about beach barbecues, screenings of terrible movies, Loro special dinner, outlet shopping, tequila, the long-awaited housewarming party, a tea party, or even just some good ol' VH1, let me know and I'll keep you informed. I haven't gone on a spurt of planning a whole bunch of activities in a long time, and it's time to immerse myself in the social whirl. Oh, and maybe I'll write my romance novel too. But that's a topic for another day.

'it's more fun than converting virgins!'

Surprise! I'm in Iowa. I got on a plane last night shortly after writing my most recent post, and flew into Dallas around 6am CST this morning. I got into Des Moines around 10am, and my brother picked me up. We got home around noon, and we very much surprised my parents, who were luckily both home. Also luckily, my father had decided not to buy last-minute tickets to San Diego, so he will actually be home this weekend. Yay! I came home to surprise my parents for their 25th anniversary next week, and since my brother's home on spring break, it's a perfect little mini-vacation.

The quote in the title bar, by the way, is my father's opinion on the joys of introducing Russians to peanut butter. I had mentioned how I wanted to go on the trans-Siberian railroad someday, and he said that the 24-hour train ride he took east of Moscow once was one of the most interesting/entertaining things he's done, and watching people try to eat peanut butter when they'd never had it before was apparently vastly amusing.

So I got home, and we went out to lunch at the local tavern, which isn't much to look at (it's in the back of the American Legion building), but serves great, v. cheap food (my parents and brother all got the lunch special--hot beef sandwich w/mashed potatoes, chocolate cake, and tea/coffee--for $4, while I got a cheeseburger and cheeseballs for less than $5). It definitely isn't as scary for me as dim sum, but I could see where the ambience might scare off some of my more sophisticated friends. I took a nap in the afternoon, we had dinner, and sat around the table discussing things as we usually do. It's nice to be home, albeit briefly, since I'm flying back to California on Sunday.

Anyway, I should go to bed...the time change always wreaks havoc, since I don't want to wake up here until noon, and by then I've already wasted half the day. So, it's off to bed with me!

it takes my pain away

I got my new glasses today! They are dark and rectangular, and more stylish than is my wont, but I like them. The only problem is that they are very small, and so I'm a little disoriented when I look around in them; I can see really well through the lenses, but all around them is the problem. However, I really like them, so I'm trying to break them in.

Anyway, I'm watching 'Sex and the City' with Terry and Claudia, which is v. relaxing if not v. productive. I have tons of work to do, but it's not happening; I'm trying to remember the importance of taking breaks on occasion. So, time to put the computer away, stare straight through the center of my glasses, and try not to have my eyes fall out :)

my shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

Wheeeeee. I've gone out for meals endlessly the past few days. Tonight, I had dinner with Tammy, Shedletsky and Claudia at Tamarine in Palo Alto; it felt very grown up, since we had dinner late (we got there just before they stopped seating at nine p.m.), I was wearing my 'professional' clothes (pinstriped pants and a subtle light pink sweater), we were able to successfully keep our laughter soft despite repeated references to sex, drugs, and the grunting noise made by the sherpa in Zoolander during the orgy scene, and the food was more expensive than I usually partake in on a Monday night (we had prawns, scallops, chicken skewers, and this surprisingly great soup w/wontons and coconut milk). Then, I went over to Ritu's for awhile, since I haven't seen her for ages.

So, the weekend. Friday night I had In-n-Out with Claudia, then watched basketball w/Terry and two of her v. amusing former residents. Saturday, I got my oil changed and my tires rotated (yay for industriousness), then had a late lunch with John, and then went out to dinner for Tammy's birthday (Gordon Biersch, mmm), and then ditched Tammy (badly done on our part, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing) to get ice cream w/Claude, Shedletsky and Michael at the Creamery. It was great fun because we realized we looked like we were on a v. mismatched double date (Claude and I were both wearing skirts/cute shoes, and the boys were wearing the traditional techie uniform). Also, I got to share an ice cream sundae w/Michael, and so there were numerous dirty references to cherries, and to hooking up, and to things that happened on the Loro ski trip (not that I hooked up with anyone on the ski trip, and that's especially important to point out to my dear parents, who read this religiously).

Then, we came back to my apartment, and I got to take Shedletsky's orange-mocha-frappucino-cherry, and by that I mean show him 'Zoolander' for the first time. It's fantastic to watch the movie w/someone who hasn't seen it, which is increasinly hard since I think just about all of my friends have seen it at least five times. Sunday, the dim sum club played the game, and we sat at dim sum from around 11 to 2:30. It was my turn, and I lucked out w/a scallop dumpling that I actually really liked. I sat around for a bit when we got home, went to Borders w/Claude and picked up two new romance novels (one of which I stayed up late and finished last night), then had a birthday dinner for Angela at a Thai place in Mountain View.

So as you can see, I'm quite the social butterfly. I intend to have an awesome April--beach trips, lots of dim sum, a housewarming party, Loro special dinner, etc., etc. Yay for socializing!

And for those of you who read romance novels and/or Jane Austen, I highly recommend Georgette Heyer's 'The Masqueraders'. She basically started the Regency genre, writing from the 1920s to the 1970s. This particular book involves two siblings who are swept up into their father's intrigues and so, to survive, switch sexes; so, Robin becomes Kate, and Prudence becomes Peter. It's so great, because they of course become friends with people whom they end up falling in love with, and then it's a huge mystery how it will all play out. Their father is fantastic--completely conniving, and so overbearingly confident in his own genius that he's just hysterical. There is no sex, for those of you who read romance novels for that, but the story is amusing and her dialogue is *fantastic*. You know that they have to be good, since Harlequin has started republishing most of her books, and romance novels typically don't have a 90-year lifespan.

Okay, time for bed!

like indecision to call you and hear your voice of treason...will you come home and stop this pain tonight?

I'm freaking exhausted. I stayed home sick from work yesterday, since I felt like vomiting (and by that I mean that I was nauseous, not just that I felt like doing some vomiting--that sounds like I 'felt like shopping' or something). But even though I was sick, I still worked from 11:30am to 11:30pm, with a couple of breaks to eat some oatmeal, make an eye doctor's appointment, etc. It was nice to work in my pajamas, though, so it wasn't all bad. Then I had to be at work at eight this morning for a conference call--but I rebelled and came home at six, and I took a bubble bath and read a few chapters of a romance novel. That was v. relaxing. Then, Claudia and I went to Mountain View and had coffee/cake with Vidya at Books, Inc.; the cake that Vidya got really sucked, so we left and got Verde milk tea instead. Vidya and Claudia got toast, which amused me for some reason. And now, me and my roommates are watching the Daily Show, and I think I'm going to go to bed. However, Jon Stewart just said 'piz-eace in the mid-iz-east', which I thought was funny.

Anyway, despite my exhaustion, life's good. I had fun seeing Vidya, and I love my apartment. I went to the eye doctor today (which means I probably looked like I was on drugs at work, since I came back from a long lunch w/chalupas from Taco Bell and completely blown pupils), and I ordered a new pair of glasses that I should get next week. I'm excited by that, since I never wear my glasses because I got them in high school and don't really like them; they also give me a headache because the prescription is old. So maybe I will look smart and intellectual with my new glasses, which will make David love me...er, I mean, I'm not that shallow [for those of you not in the know; David is one of the top people at the dim sum restaurant--and I want to seduce him into making us the pan-fried scallops with spicy sea salt that they used to have at the Palo Alto branch].

Hmm, I think I sound rather self-absorbed lately, mainly because I have nothing exciting to share, and so I end up talking about the minutiae of my life. I always talk about minutiae, but it feels stupider right now because there are much larger things that I'm not writing about. Anyway, goodnight! Good luck with deadweek, for those of you who are in it; and happy birthday to Tammy!

you go to sleep dreaming how you would be a different kind if you thought you could...but you come awake the way you are instead

I've been going crazy with zee shopping lately; ever since my review, in which I was encouraged to dress for a leadership position if that's what I want (and who knows what I want, I certainly don't), I have given myself carte blanche to buy obscene amounts of clothing. However, I have been very good in the sense that I haven't bought any shoes (oh yeah, I lied, a got a pair of sedate but still shiny gold sandals on Tuesday, but they were a great buy). Today, I went to Valley Fair, and came back w/two skirts, a pair of tan pants w/pink pinstripes, a sweater, and seven shirts. I only intended to buy five shirts, but then I found a skirt at Banana Republic that was cute but also...*blue*. Which is very difficult, since I don't wear blue and found myself at a loss as to how I would insert a blue skirt into my wardrobe. The answer, obviously, was to buy two blue shirts (one navy, one a brighter sky blue) to go with the skirt so that I can wear it twice in two seemingly completely different outfits. I am pleased that the answer didn't involve me putting the skirt back on the rack, because I like it despite its blueness.

So unless I miscalculate, after my week-long shopping spree, I now have five new pairs of pants, four new skirts, and several new tops. Yay. And I'm spent! I'm done shopping for awhile now, since I really don't like shopping all that much (although I would like a couple more pairs of shoes, since my extensive shoe collection tends more toward the sneakers-and-flip-flops side of the spectrum, rather than the high-heels-and-ballet-flats side that my new purchases require). Shoe shopping, however, is something I am always willing to do, so that will still happen in the near- to mid-future. And with all these purchases, I can now go at least two weeks at a time without wearing the same pants/skirts twice, and still look dressy (aka 'professional'). That makes me happy.

In other news, the weekend was pretty uneventful. I intended to start writing again tonight (after realizing that I was watching VH1's 'The Fabulous Lives of Hollywood's It Girls' for about the tenth time, and shutting it off in disgust), but then Claudia got home and I got distracted. However, I did read a book on Regency London on Friday night (I'm lame), which was nice. I also had tasty dim sum, and saw Ritu, although neither of those activities were as fun as they could have been since it felt too early to be awake, and the sunniness of the day was not exactly matched by the sunniness of anyone I saw. But, Terry went w/me when I took Ritu to the airport, and we hung out at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae while waiting for Claude and the gang to show up for dim sum--and Peter's Cafe was surprisingly good, despite the fact that we make fun of it nearly every time we drive past it on the way to dim sum. It's open twenty-four hours, they made a great mocha, and the french toast that Terry and I split was really really good. So, someday in the future the dim sum group may have to go there at four a.m. and hang out for a few hours until dim sum opens.

I need to figure out what I'm doing with my life, but I continue to put it off. Nothing like procrastinating like crazy--my room still isn't clean, I should have seen an eye doctor and a dentist several months ago, I've calculated my taxes but haven't bothered to file them, and the list of important things left undone goes on and on and on. To my credit, I did do laundry last night, which was key since I was about to run out of underwear--I'm not above digging a shirt out of the laundry pile if I know I didn't sweat in it the first time I wore it, and I'll sometimes wear jeans eight or ten times before I wash them, but I insist on clean underwear, so they're the limiting reagent in my wardrobe.

Wow, I've talked a lot about clothes tonight. I'm turning into such a girl. Yes, I know, I wear pink, and my femaleness is pretty obvious, but I typically don't talk about clothes all the time. Really, I'm just rambling, but at least I'm rambling about something fun rather than something depressing. So anyway, time for bed!

smile like you mean it

Work has been hectic, to say the least, and I have about ten hours of stuff to do this weekend that I would prefer to forget about. For those of you whom I've not been in contact with, I apologize; I'm so tired when I get home from work that I don't want to do *anything*.

In addition, I got my performance review for last quarter at the end of last week, and one of the suggestions for improvement was to dress up more so that I could assert myself as more of a leader. To this end, I went shopping on both Monday and Tuesday night so that I would have more 'business casual' clothes to wear to work. So, I now own pinstriped pants, and a cream-colored wool skirt, and a pretty pink sweater that is a sedate shade of pink, rather than a blinding shade of pink, and a pair of peach pants that would be capris on a normal girl but instead fit me just right without requiring annoying hemming. I have also been blow-drying my hair, and applying my makeup in a subtle and professional manner. However, today it was raining, I played DDR with Claude in the morning and so was running late, and then we were both drying our hair at the same time and so blew a fuse. Because of all those annoyances, I wore sneakers and jeans to work--and I did feel more slovenly than I had all week, so maybe dressing up is a good thing. So, more shopping this weekend? Perhaps--although doing laundry is also key, so that I can wear all of the clothes that I already have.

So, last Saturday, I bought an awesome couch and loveseat after eating dim sum; they were delivered on Tuesday, and I am in love. They are overstuffed, and covered in sage-green microfiber (so it feels like suede)--I'm not a fan of sage green, but it really works in the beige-and-cream color scheme of the apartment, and the couches are super-comfy. Yay for new furniture! The place is starting to look like it might possibly be inhabited by grownups, someday.

Sunday was Claude's birthday party, which wasn't the most exciting birthday party known to man, but it was still very entertaining. I had to work late on Monday, and then go shopping, and I also shopped Tuesday night. Wednesday night, I had to stay late at work again, then hung out with Tammy. Yesterday, I had Shari, Greg and Julie over for dinner; we made fajitas, and Claudia pressed the leftover chocolate fondue on them, and a good time was had by all. I really just like dinner parties, and I don't care who I'm feeding as long as I have the opportunity to do it, so I will have to plan more such gatherings in the future. Today, I worked, came home, ate a peanut butter and jelly sammich, and then read 'Regency London' while doing some desultory watching of the History Channel. The book wasn't entirely useful for my needs, since it spent much more time on architecture than it did on society, but it was still interesting.

Tomorrow, I'm taking Ritu to the airport, then hanging out someplace around South San Francisco/Millbrae while waiting for the kids to drive up and have dim sum with me. Then, perhaps we're going shopping for a bed frame for Claudia...and then I will be working furiously in an attempt to finish my work so that I can enjoy Sunday.

I feel like I'm retarded when it comes to my job; at the end of the day, I never expected that I'd end up in business, and I would still like to be a novelist, but despite all that I seem to be ridiculously ambitious while I'm employed, to the point that I'm changing my entire wardrobe just to ensure that my level of responsibility continues to increase. And yet, if that happens, I'll just have even more work to do, which seems ridiculous. Ah well, c'est la vie, and I have a passion for the role that I have despite the fact that I'm not enamored with corporate culture in general.

So, I'm tired, overworked, I think I'm getting sick, I haven't written anything in my romance novel, my room is a complete wreck, I need to clean my bathroom, and I have about five loads of laundry sitting in my closet. And yet, the fact that I'm always so strapped for time is, I think, a good thing--it keeps me from dwelling on those-things-which-must-not-be-named, and it ensures that I seize the small amusements where I can, rather than moping because something grand and adventurous is not occurring. Someday I would like to return to grand and adventurous (or at least moody and 'artistic'), but for now I'm happy where I am.