'you know, in some cultures, they only eat vomit. i've never been there, but i read about it....in a book!'

Bleh. No time to blog, but I wanted to fulfill my parents' desire to know that I'm alive. I was at work from 9-6:30 today, then came home, started working almost immediately, and have worked until right now (12:02am). While I was working, I started off by watching 'Dodgeball', just for background noise. After that, I downloaded this song by the Sugar Hill Gang; the song is featured in the scene where White Goodman shows up at what's-her-name's door to ask her out on a date, only to drive away behind Me'chele on his tiny Vespa. I listened to that for like half an hour, and then I watched the first half of 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. This was in direct reaction to Tammy's rather inconsiderate blog post. She may think that 'The Lord of the Rings' is lame, but I shall persevere. More importantly, I've watched them enough that they serve as perfect background--I don't need to watch the whole thing to know what's going on, but it can always provide a good three-minute break when a key scene comes on.

Anyway, you've already gotten too much out of me tonight, since I have to be at the office at seven. Goodnight!

uggs and eyeshadow can't solve everything

I'm a tired camper, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better. I was at work from 9-7:30 today, met Claude and Terry at a cafe (where I did some more work over a sandwich and a lemon tart), then came home and worked for another 2.5 hours while watching 'Eurotrip'. Tomorrow it's more of the same, except I have to go to some stupid roller-skating activity at work. Ugh. If there's anything I hate more than meaningless group bonding, it's meaningless group bonding whilst roller-skating.

I may not skate, though, given my insurance woes--if there's anything I would hate worse than the aforementioned things, it would be having to pay the entire cost of setting my broken arm. However, a broken arm could be pretty hot--I could request magenta plaster to match my awesome new magenta Uggs. I broke down and ordered them from zappos.com last week; my old knock-off Uggs, which I actually got in Australia about seven years ago, are falling apart. I tried on some Uggs at Nordstrom to get the right fit, but they didn't have any colors that I liked--and while I should have ordered the more subdued 'sand' Uggs, I decided to go with shocking pink instead. I am so satisfied, too; I wore them last night, and had vowed not to wear them to work, but my willpower failed me, and so I paired them with a pink sweater and jeans today. I didn't have any important meetings, so it didn't matter, and my feet are nice and cosy.

Also, I finally got the eyeshadows that I had ordered a few weeks ago; they mysteriously spent over a week in a Fedex warehouse in New Jersey, but they finally make the trip across country, and now they are lovingly stored in my bathroom. They're these awesome cream eyeshadows that go on really smooth and then turn to powder, so I'm quite excited.

Despite my recent string of internet purchases (I have a camera case in the mail to my parents', two memory cards and a Great Britain travel guide from Amazon, and a cute sweatshirt from the company that runs my corporation's souvenir store), nothing can make up for the fact that I'm not going to get enough sleep for the next few days. But now that I've satisfied my parents' demands for frequent blog entries, I can go to bed!

i never meant to be so bad to you

I got a really intense massage this afternoon. On the whole, I think the woman did a good job, but my neck now hurts in a different way than it did before she put a ball under my neck and started pressing on my forehead. Also, I felt a little creeped out when she leaned over and whispered, 'You know you won't be able to go back to work after this.' I know that she meant it to be soothing and relaxing, but I'm rather tense in general, and I'm especially tense when someone is pressing on my face while I'm lying on a table, sans clothes, with only a sheet and a door protecting my modesty from the coworkers strolling through the busy hallway beyond the massage room. The idea of having a massage room at work is strange in general, although I do like getting reduced-price massages, and so I indulge occasionally. But, the woman had no reason to sound quite so creepy--the situation is already creepy enough, what with the mood lighting, the world music, the fake waterfall, and the sounds of people working outside.

Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Actually, that's a lie. My mother called to tell me that she'd gotten a notice, dated a month ago but victim to the chaos that is my current mailing system, that I'd been removed from all of my health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance, effective February 1. This means that I've been running around doing dangerous things like ice skating, driving, and eating in on-campus dining halls for six weeks, and if any of those things had felled me, I would have been forced to pay the whole bill. Shocking! I think I got the whole thing sorted out--it was a mechanical glitch caused by my homeless state. Now, I'm getting some sweet international insurance that, while it does not really cover anything extra in life, does provide for 'transport of mortal remains'. As I told my dear friend Vidya (who is getting rather demanding for a mention in the ol' blog), I may still have to pay for some medical procedures, but at least I can die for free!

I'm really tired, and it's time to get a grip on my self-destructive behavior. Not that I'm in any danger of actually hurting myself...but tonight I ate a burrito from my favorite taqueria in Mountain View, followed by a whole bowl of leftover chow mein, so now I just feel kinda icky. I'm tempted to stay up late and watch some mindless, soul-stealing television, but I'm going to save myself from myself and go to bed instead. Goodnight!

you've dreamed a thousand dreams...none seem to stick in your mind

I need to stop watching the Food Network. I've spent a significant amount of the evening watching various cooking shows and competitions, and now all I want to do is open up a bed and breakfast and cook all sorts of delectable things for customers who, in my dreams, will be gracious and grateful rather than demanding and obnoxious.

Speaking of dreams, I have dozens of them, stretching away into a fathomless void where they all float about, periodically to be reexamined before being cast away to darkness again. Every day, I seem to 'discover' what I'm meant to do with my life, only to realize the next day that I want something else, or forget a dream entirely because of the pressures of modern life. Tonight, I remembered the stunning, earthshaking revelation that I had in a rainstorm at Fatehpur Sikri. As you, dear reader, may remember, Fatehpur Sikri is a ruined citadel near Agra, India, built by a Mughal emperor and abandoned after his death due to an extreme water shortage. As I sat under an archway, avoiding the rain and the endless stream of annoying tour-guides, I contemplated a gorgeous city that was doomed from the start by the arrogance and poor planning of the ruling class. All civilizations eventually end, whether by falling to the barbarians howling in the wilderness or by facing a long, slow decline into obscurity. Then, I began to wonder if this fate will be met by America in my lifetime.

While I don't think that America will actually cease to exist before I do, at this point it seems inevitable that the lifestyle of the Plains and the American West will fade away. There will probably always be pockets of people living in the interior of our continent; and I hope that people will gradually realize the insanity of living expensively on the coasts when there is so much space and freedom (cheap at twice the price) between the Appalachians and the Rockies. But, towns like my hometown are dying; family businesses have been replaced by dollar stores, and the inducements for me to return are limited to a) family and b) cheap land.

So, while I was sitting in a hot, rain-soaked courtyard halfway around the world, I felt that my destiny was to travel around America, documenting the lives of small towns before they disappeared forever. I felt this so strongly that I was almost moved to tears (which is quite the feat for me, since tears are rather rare in my world). Then, I promptly forgot about it and moved on with my life.

Am I destined to undertake this project? Or will I follow one of the other myriad dreams that have floated through my mind over the years? Going to Ireland will put off any decisions in an enjoyable, satisfactory way, but someday I will have to choose a dream (or dreams) and follow them. Here's a partial list; if I'm still aimlessly blogging in a year without doing anything to follow any of them, please hit me.

The List:
1) Travel around small-town America and write witty, incisive travelogues/documentaries
2) Write a series of romance novels
3) Write the Great American Novel
4) Move to Kyrgyzstan or some other Central Asian country
5) Seek employment with the Foreign Service
6) Learn Russian, French, and German
7) Plan and host the party of the century


This is all a fight against the 'sensible' things that I could do with my time (and likely be wildly successful at):

The Anti-List
1) Get an English Ph.D.
2) Get a joint law/business degree and go into international consulting
3) Get a business degree and re-enter corporate America
4) Snare a man and raise some adorable kids

Regardless of which options I choose to pursue, it's clear that my interests lie in the realm of literature--but I'm afraid that I won't be successful and that I won't be able to feed myself. Mostly, though, I'm afraid that if it doesn't work out, I'll have to admit that it was all just a dream, and that seems like a devastating turn of events.

Based on the movie I saw today, though, I don't want to risk living with my parents for more than a few transitional weeks at a time. I saw 'Failure to Launch', which was unfortunate since a) I went alone and b) the movie was terrible. I just wanted to see a movie and didn't particularly care that none of my friends wanted to go, but I was unduly punished by having to see extended shots of Terry Bradshaw's naked ass. Why couldn't Matthew McConaughey do the nude scene? Instead, they gave the nude scene to an aging sportscaster. Alas. Matthew McConaughey was still hot, but his character was a little obnoxious, and I've decided that I really dislike Sarah Jessica Parker. I don't think she's pretty or fresh enough to be a romantic comedy lead, and her voice is one of the most annoying things I've heard in a really long time. I will likely change that judgment after I've listened to my brother's country music on the way home, but for now, Sarah Jessica Parker's voice is the worst thing to pass through my tympanic membranes in quite awhile.

Okay, all of this is a moot point for now, and it's time for me to go to bed. After my father told me that I should post every day, I shall endeavor to post more often in the future. You can probably expect a post every day while I'm in Ireland, but my life in California is sufficiently boring to make blogging seem pointless. However, I apologize for my hiatus, and will attempt to be more diligent in the future.

but she'll bring out the best and the worst you can be

I'm so tired! For maximum effect, please imagine that I said that in the same tone used by Mugatu in 'Zoolander', right after he throws a hot beverage in his assistant's face and screams, 'Are you not aware that I get farty and bloated with a foamy latte?!'

Ah, Zoolander. Those were the days. Days when all of my time was consumed by a) watching Zoolander, b) planning random dorm activities like 'foods that come in a tube', and c) spending five hours a day in the Loro dining hall. Now, my life is a sad and dull reflection of its former self. Perhaps I am just feeling angsty because I have so many early-morning conference calls; they've gotten incrementally worse every morning this week, to the point that I now have a call at seven a.m. tomorrow. Brutal! So, even though it's only 9:30pm, I think I'm going to go to bed now--I could really use eight or eight-and-a-half hours of deep, deep relaxation.

As for the recap of today--I spent a lot of time in the office, but it was mitigated by lunch with Claudia. I love being able to feed her without expending any effort myself; the most I had to do was sign her in and walk with her to the main cafeteria. That's hospitality at its finest, let me tell ya. Since I hadn't seen her since Sunday, there wasn't really a lot to catch up on, but it felt like it had been awhile, so lunch was fun. Then, I had dinner with John in Palo Alto; we inadvertently recreated one of the dates that we filmed way back in the day when we were trying to be television producers, since we had dinner at Krung Siam and dessert at an ice cream place that took over from the previous ice cream place that had stood in that location. It was great to see him, and I'm glad that I'm being mostly successful in my attempts to reconnect with friends before I leave again.

Of course, hanging out in the places where we filmed the dating show was a little melancholy-inducing, since that part of my life is definitely behind me. I am highly unlikely to ever produce a tv show again (although presumably if I do try again, it will be orders of magnitude more successful), nor do I have the time or the energy to stay up until four a.m. every night like I did in college, reading, hanging out, laughing, and generally enjoying life. I still enjoy life, and I still read/hang out/laugh, but it all happens much earlier in the day. The fact that almost all of my days end by midnight now, and begin by eight or nine a.m., feels so impossibly grown up, and life just doesn't seem like it's as much fun when it all happens in the daytime. When I'm travelling, it's different--you want daylight to illuminate your new worlds. At home, though, night is best, since it ensures that all of the 'normal' people go to bed and leave room for the crazy portion of the population to have more intense fun. Now I've become one of the 'normal' people (at least, normal for me), and it makes me sad.

In other news, I forgot to pee after having sex the other night, and now I have a kidney infection. Actually, that's a complete and utter lie. But, my brother mentioned this in reference to the blog of someone he knows, and then said that he would never ever want to read that on my blog. I thought I would oblige him by throwing it into my post :) And on that note, it's time for bed!

is someone getting the best of you?

I am quite hopeful that I will wake up tomorrow morning in time to shower before work, since that definitely wasn't the case today. Multiple early-morning conference calls in a row are bad news bears. Tomorrow starts at 7:30, which means I need to go to bed now if I have any hope of making it in time.

Today wasn't all bad; after work, I had dinner with Tom and Greg at Slav, which was v. nice even though the food left a lot to be desired. I've never had manicotti stuffed with sweet potatoes, and I sincerely hope that I never taste that particular combination again. I love hanging out with those boys, though, so I'm glad I went despite the mediocre dinner. Our discussions were repeatedly interrupted because they are too popular for their own good, which meant that people kept coming over to talk to them, inciting my jealousy just a wee bit. Greg unfortunately had to work, but Tom and I went to the CoHo, only to discover that it was packed, and so we ended up at the Treehouse instead. It's too bad that dinner was filling despite its mediocrity; I'd been craving nachos earlier in the day, and I totally would have gotten Treehouse nachos (which were my sole sustenance when I was on campus after my sophomore year), but I didn't think I could handle the whole plate without upsetting the work that my stomach was doing to neutralize the manicotti.

The search for meaning in my life continues; I don't think I'm any closer to my goal than I was a few weeks ago, but I feel a pressing urgency to resolve everything that is probably fueled by a) continued proofs of mortality in the form of death/illness running rampant through my friends and family, and b) my fast-approaching departure for Dublin. I think that I need to avoid making friends in Dublin so that I have more time to contemplate and create--once I made friends in India, all contemplation and creativity went completely out the window. But, there's something to be said for living an awesome life in the moment, even though that will probably prevent me from accomplishing something grander. The fight between living for the moment and living for a greater legacy is nowhere close to being resolved, although I know which of those paths I want to take even if I don't have the willpower to accomplish it. Tonight, though, the most important exercise of willpower may come by going to bed before midnight. Goodnight!

the disco hotspots hold no charm for you

I've had Indian food twice in the past 24 hours. Not only that, but I've had lentils--which, if you've ever heard me go off about lentils, may surprise you. However, in Indian cuisine, lentils are called 'dal'; and 'dal makhni' sounds similar enough to 'murgh makhni' (my favorite stuff) that I can almost convince myself that I'm not eating butter-covered dirt. Mmm.

Anyway, tonight I went out with Subz (known more formerly as Lauren), and we attempted to reclaim our Indian past by finding some tasty South Asian cuisine. We tried this restaurant called 'Southern Spice' in Mountain View. Let me tell you, it was the perfect place to go for our reclamation mission--the decor had the same weird mishmash of Christmas lights and Ganeshes that most Indian buildings seemed to have, and the restaurant was strangely empty. The music was also appropriately annoying. However, the place gradually added customers as the night progressed (we did get there absurdly early, since it was our excuse to leave the office), and the food was awesome. I'm always pleased when the clientele match the food being served, since it indicates that the menu items are authentically prepared; I feel the same joy at seeing Mexicans at Pedro's, or at seeing v. elderly white people at Marie Callendar's. Anyway, we went veg because Subz doesn't eat meat, which explains why I ate dirt instead. You know a restaurant is good if I think the food is tasty even without the added benefit of once-living flesh. Also, hanging out with Subz was awesome, and the dinner was a great way to start the week.

Last night, Vidya and Tammy came over to watch the Academy Awards. It was supposed to be a slightly larger tea party, but Claudia and Terry both cancelled due to illness; I was going to bake and cook, but I cancelled that due to illness as well, so Vidya and I ordered a pizza. Tammy showed up much later, and she wanted Indian food, so we ordered some takeout after the Oscars were over. We were going to rent 'Crash' to see what all the fuss was about, but neither of us could find our Blockbuster cards--so we watched the first half of 'The Return of the King' instead. You have no idea how happy it makes me that I watched part of it with Tammy--she makes fun of me all the time by claiming that I watch the Lord of the Rings movies all the time (okay, possibly valid, although I haven't seen any of them in at least six weeks). She also likes to bring up my lust for Aragorn (also valid) and the fact that I lust after the fictional character, rather than the actor (but come on, Aragorn vs. Viggo Mortenson? No contest!) So, of course, I was quite amenable to watching 'Return of the King' with her--but since it's like ten hours long, she's going to have to come over later this week to finish it.

Saturday night, I went out for dinner in honor of Lisa's birthday; she'd flown up from LA with her fiance, and went to dinner with me, Claudia, Terry, Terry's sisters, and a couple of her former residents. Lisa's getting married next year, and Terry will be the maid of honor, so I had quite a bit of fun making fun of that. I tried to blame all of my loopiness on overingestion of DayQuil, but it was clearly just my normally-effervescent personality going haywire, as usual. Since that was the first time in two days that I'd left the house or seen anyone, it was v. exciting.

Now, it's back to the grind at work--I panicked slightly when I realized today that I only have fourteen work days left in the Mountain View office. Where has the time gone?! Oh well, soon this will all be over and I will be in the verdant emerald land across the sea. Or, alternatively, in a depressing apartment block in the middle of a dreary Socialist spring. Either way, it's going to rock my socks off.

there will be time to murder and create

I stayed home sick today, nursing a cold that does not compare to the miserable fever-and-cough that I had last summer in India. However, while I may be several steps farther removed from death than I was in August, I am still rather unhappy; the combination of DayQuil and tea helps my cold but destroys my sleep patterns, leading me to question whether my headache is the result of sinus congestion or the fact that I slept so fitfully last night. Anyway, I spent the day napping, reading, and watching movies. I watched both 'The Wedding Crashers' and 'Anchorman', since I was in the mood for comedy. I still think that 'Anchorman' is, on the whole, unwatchable, but there are several key scenes that go a long way towards making it an okay film. I was slightly disappointed with 'The Wedding Crashers'. I missed it when it came out last summer, and I finally got around to watching it on DVD tonight. I thought that the plot, especially in the latter third, meandered too much, and I wished that Owen Wilson had displayed more of his natural comedic brilliance. While I'm sure I will watch it again, I don't think that it has any classic lines that will replay endlessly in my consciousness, unlike 'Zoolander' or 'Dodgeball'.

Four weeks from tomorrow, I will be flying to Dublin! Since my brother's coming out the weekend before that to participate in the Great Wampler Roadtrip (an exciting name for what promises to be a v. boring 1800-mile drive across the dreary end-of-winter American West), I only have three weeks left in California. It's so strange that I'm saying that again; when I got back from India, I didn't think that I would be leaving the Bay Area again so soon. But, going to Ireland is an amazing opportunity, and while I will miss my friends here tremendously, I think that I have explored California (at least, the Bay Area) as much as I will ever care to.

I'm super tired, and I should at least try to sleep--wish me luck! I shall post again soon, my friends.

lux aeterna

Alas, the illness that I feared yesterday has sprung on me full-force today. I awoke for my 7am conference call, but I took it in my pajamas at my kitchen table. I went to work afterwards, but I only stayed until around 2pm, when I came home and took a nap. Unfortunately for my illness (but fortunately for my mental health), I had long-standing plans for dinner with Julie, and I couldn't break them because I had already cancelled on her once and didn't feel like I could do it again. So, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which I have decided to hate with all the passion I can muster. We chose that place because I really just wanted soup, and since the Cheesecake Factory has everything, it seemed like a safe bet. In fact, their menu is about twenty pages long, and it's so thick and so ultra-glossy that they actually place advertisements for other companies' products on half of the pages. Given the density of their menu, I was shocked (shocked!) to discover that the *only* soup they carry is their 'soup of the day'. And today's soup? Lentil soup with bacon. Ew!! I despise lentils, but the idea of lentils and bacon seems immoral--lentils are a staple of Indian vegetarian cuisine, while bacon most certainly is not. Also, given how much I adore bacon, the combination of bacon and lentils seems like truffles and Franzia, or saffron and Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, or $25/pound tete du moine cheese and Saltines...or shrimp and feet, when you get right down to it, although I may actually prefer pigs' feet to lentils. That's a tough choice, though...and if you add in the petrified eggs that came with the pigs' feet at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, I may have to choose the lentils instead, as much as the thought brings tears to my eyes.

Anyway, the Cheesecake Factory was annoying, and Julie and I have vowed never to go back. For all you inquiring minds out there, I chose a club sandwich instead, which was okay; but I prefer Quiznos, since it's twice as tasty at half the price. Now I'm sitting in my apartment, drinking some tea and hoping that I feel better so that I can go to work tomorrow. The best way to ensure that is probably by seeking out my bed, so I think that's what I shall do. Goodnight!

they pass right through you like a ghost

Alas, I think that I am getting sick. I can probably blame most of my friends for this, since almost everyone I've hung out with in the past week has had varying degrees of illness. My throat has that weird, scratchy feeling that always precedes plague-like misery, and my nose is unexpectedly runny. To combat illness, I made myself some soup; but, since I didn't have a recipe for chicken noodle soup, I made vegetarian chili instead. The chili was very tasty, but the downside was that I added several hot peppers--and now the pepper residue is clinging to my left hand and I can't fully remove it no matter how hard I scrub. The area around my left thumb's cuticle is actually slightly burned and very sensitive; I didn't realize that the pain was caused by the peppers until I licked the sore area on my thumb (gross, I know) and set my tongue on fire. Luckily the pain and burning are subsiding, and hopefully they'll vanish altogether before my concern is demanded by my impending illness.

While my soup was simmering, I watched part of 'The Royal Tenenbaums', and I finished the movie rather than working. I don't know why I love that movie so much; it really has nothing to do with my life, since my family was rather functional, but I think that the whole movie is rather depressingly hysterical. 'Depressingly hysterical' seemed to be the right mood for the evening, so I'm glad that I watched it again. Then I did a few last-minute things for work that had to be done before tomorrow, and now I'm going to bed. I have a conference call at 7am that I hope I can wake up for, and too much stuff to do at the office, so we'll see whether and how I make it through the day. Yay.

the most she will do is throw shadows at you

There are times when life is grand, albeit boring; and there are times when life throws curveballs, and all you can do is go along with it and hope for the best. The past couple of weeks have fallen firmly into the latter category. Since last Tuesday, I have found out about one v. serious diabetic/heart disease issue, one case of cancer, and one v. rare and serious allergic reaction to an antibiotic, and I have attended one funeral. I would suggest taking care of yourself if you are part of my friends-and-family group, especially for the next couple of weeks, since I've seen a huge spike in issues over the past two weeks and wouldn't want anyone else subjected to them.

I'm really tired tonight; I had meetings from 7-11am today, and conference calls from 7:30-9 tonight, as well as some work to do. But, to relax, I watched 'Sahara'. It's still an awesome movie, even if I was watching a copy that someone gave me from Sri Lanka--I am v. tempted to buy an American copy, since I want the DVD to be hugely successful so that they will make another movie. Alas, my buying power probably isn't that strong, but we shall see.

The desire to find the next step is taking on a strange and desperate flavor of urgency, since mortality always looms...but I'm no closer than I was last night. Ideas, anyone? I'll make a deal...you think about what I should do with my future, and I'll get some sleep so that I can implement your ideas as quickly as possible. Goodnight!

i can't see the thief that lives inside of your head

I slept in today, because this was the only morning this week in which I neglected to get scheduled for a seven a.m. conference call. Ugh. Anyway, I spent the day at the office, periodically expressing dismay at the cascading sheets of rain hitting my window, and drinking too much coffee to comfort myself during a particularly dreary California day. I left the office around six to have dinner with Can Sar, which was tasty, and then I came home to do a bit of work in preparation for my conference calls tomorrow.

So, all of my grand plans to reconnect with my friends, formed in the face of the overwhelming proofs of mortality that I've witnessed recently, are running into huge barriers due to my rapidly-increasing workload. But, those barriers don't compare to the huge time-drain that was the Olympics, so maybe things will even out. Tomorrow may be brutal (conference calls from 7-11am, and newly scheduled meetings from 7:30-9pm as well), but at least I won't stay up until five watching repeated Olympics coverage. Perhaps there is hope for me after all. But, it's very hard to self-motivate when the weather is raging outside, and when all I want to do is see a few friends before locking myself away in a room to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Life is apparently too short to psend inactive, as much as I love to sit and do nothing. I'm hoping that something in Ireland (preferably a leprechaun) will come out and hit me over the head with my destiny, but given that it hasn't happened yet, maybe I'm supposed to take things into my own hands. Now, though, it's time for bed!

you were open and now you are closed

The Olympics are over. I am devastated. Actually, that's an exaggeration, since there are benefits to the end of the Olympics--for instance, I can catch up on all the work that I needed to do over the past two weeks, have dinner with all the friends I blew off, and get ready for my upcoming move to Ireland. It seems like a lifetime ago that I watched the opening ceremonies at the Old Pro sportsbar. A lot has happened in those sixteen days--I got an apartment, I went to New York, I celebrated Claudia's birthday, and I watched at least seventy hours of Olympics coverage. Here are my highlights:

1) Apolo Anton Ohno's performance in the 500m final. This made up for his entirely-expected defeats at the hands of the brutally-talented South Koreans. He led the race from start to finish, and no one can ever dispute any passes or on-ice shenanigans as a result. He looked so incredibly thrilled with his win, as might be expected from someone who sacrificed four years of his life to live in the Olympic training center and practice constantly. The bronze in the 5000m relay a couple of hours later was just icing on the cake.

2) The incredibly angry Italian ice dancer. During the second of three (wholly-repellant) nights of ice dancing, an Italian dancer dropped his partner, dashing their hopes for gold. She was visibly furious with him; they stood on the ice for almost a minute before finally saluting the judges, and she spent that awkward interlude glaring at him with all the fury of a woman betrayed. Dick Button was shocked (shocked!) at this display, since pairs and ice dancers never seem to show how angry they are at each other while on the ice. Instead, this woman glared for awhile, performed a cursory bow to the judges, and then didn't speak to her partner again until after their last performance. They even warmed up separately on the final night, which seemed to guarantee failure, but their final program was okay. She forgave him at the end of the third program and he immediately broke down in tears, probably because he no longer had to be concerned that she was taking out a contract on his life.

3) Joey Cheek trying not to cry during his gold medal ceremony. He's adorable, and I hope he comes to Stanford, even though he's a bit old for the undergrad experience. 'Nuff said about that.

4) The Olympics commercials. Some of them were awful (United, for example, tried to turn a regular 2d-animated businessman into King Arthur, with no success). Some of them were ironic (Nike's 'Join Bode' campaign; the 'Bode on Winning' commercial always seemed to play right after he bombed another race). But some entered that grand hall of fame in my mind where all fantastic commercials live. Three especially stood out: 1) the beer commercial (I think Michelob?) where a guy hard-tackles a girl during a game of touch football and shouts 'you were open and now you are closed!'; 2) the Coca-Cola bobsled commercial in which four guys pretend to bobsled on a loveseat while four other guys chant around them (I can't figure out the whole sequence, but I think they start out by saying 'Bananas! Sledding! Four! One more!'); 3) the Volkswagon 'fast' commercials, where the evil little 'fast' convinces guys to do dumb things (like when an ugly guy tells his inexplicably-attractive girlfriend that he 'can't hear the sound of the engine over all [her] yakking', since his fast likes the windows down). All three of those commercials have impacted my life in strange and wondrous ways, and you should expect to hear me reference my fast for months to come.

5) 'Pass the torch, so to speak'. One of the local SF commentators said tonight that the closing ceremonies were a time for the host city to 'pass the torch, so to speak' to the next host city. Was it really necessary for her to say 'so to speak'? In fact, if there is ever a time in the modern world where a torch is actually passed, isn't it at the Olympics? Didn't this phrase originate from the Olympics? I just thought this was entertaining, probably because I had just watched way too much of Ricky Martin's closing ceremonies performance and needed a quick injection of humor to make me feel better.

6) Tammy. I've seen Tammy every day for two weeks, except for the Wednesday night that I spent in NYC. It's been great fun, and I was rather sad that she left today and took her blanket, her magazines, and her coursework with her rather than leaving some of it here. We're going to have to rent a house or something for the next Olympics so that we can take vacation and watch them together.

7) Dick Button. The best thing about the games was his commentary. It's too bad he's 77--I would love nothing more than to hear commentary from him forever, but that seems unlikely at best. But, he gets a personal medal for being consistently entertaining, even if his commentary does absolutely nothing to illuminate the technical aspects of the sport for me.

Goodbye, Torino! I enjoyed the Olympics, even if I wish that NBC had spent more time on esoteric sports and less time on hyped-up pseudo-controversy, and even if Tammy and I were the only Americans to watch them regularly. 2008 can only be more exciting.

save my life i'm going down for the last time

Getting up was difficult this morning, but I did make it to work for a meeting that I couldn't miss. I left around 5:30, stopped at the grocery store, and then met Claudia and Terry at my apartment. The three of us went to Marie Callendar's, which has tasty food despite an average clientele age of 67. In fact, we were the only people our age in the entire place. How sad is that? Then we came back to my place, and Tammy came over. I think that our Olympics fanaticism may have scared Claudia and Terry away, since they left together--actually, I think Claudia left because she was sick, and Terry probably didn't want to be left to face our insanity alone. Tammy and I then watched all of tonight's Olympic coverage, including the v. lame figure skating champions' gala. Chad Hedrick got the silver in the mens' 10,000m speed skating. I should have been happy for him since he's American, but I just think he's obnoxious. The best part of tonight was that he told the press that he'd discovered that a screw was loose on one of his skate blades, and he speculated that this kept his skate from performing at its peak potential by at least 20%, but that he 'wasn't going to make excuses' for his bronze finish in the 1500m. The fact that he said he wasn't going to make excuses even though he was the one who told the press about the skate was hilarious and aggravating at the same time. But the best part was when Dan Jansen demonstrated what Chad Hedrick was saying with a real skate, showing how an improperly tightened screw would affect the blade. Then, he showed a still frame from the supposedly-bad race and a still frame from the race that Chad Hedrick won, and demonstrated with the special drawing pen that the skates were performing identically in the two races. Chad Hedrick totally got told on that issue! Meanwhile, Shani Davis doesn't seem to be talking to the press at all, but they did show footage of him cheering for Chad during the entire 10,000m. End result of these Olympics--I think Chad Hedrick is a tool, NBC makes huge stories out of absolutely nothing, and Shani Davis is awesome.

Okay, I'm too exhausted to write more; it's time for bed!

ah, as the heart grows older, it will come to such sights colder

On Tuesday afternoon, I got a call from Ratul (henceforth referred to as Rat), asking if I had time to swing by campus after work. When I arrived, they told me that Errol had been struck by a car and killed while crossing a street in New York on Saturday night. Obviously, as with any accidental death, this came as a complete shock. I hadn't seen Errol for a couple of years, since he had stopped out of Stanford during his sophomore year, but I loved him while he was at Stanford and I had always hoped that he would come back at some point. He was one of the frosh in Loro when I was an RA there, and he was a unique and vital part of what made Loro as insane and awesome as it was. While I made tons of friends in Loro, and remain close with many of them to this day, there was something about Errol that made me love him despite the fact that he was, in many ways, not exactly a model resident.

I think a lot of people who didn't know him just thought he was kind of a joke; he didn't fit the traditional Stanford mold because he didn't study or seem to care about classes, and he spent most of his time drinking, playing video games, and hanging out with his friends. There were times when I wanted to wring his neck over something he'd done (such as burning a hole in the front seat of my new car with a cigarette that he had refused to put out)...but there were more times when I was impressed with his generosity and his caring nature. He just made life around him more fun, and I'll miss that about him.

Several of us flew out to New York for the funeral; I left Wednesday morning and met Julie, Greg, Rat, Sara, and Shari, who had left California late Tuesday night. Consequently, I missed the afternoon wake, but I got there in time for dinner with the kids and for the evening visitation. We picked up Walter on Wednesday night, and then all of us (except Julie, who had to leave New York early Thursday morning) went to the funeral and the pre-cremation service this morning.

Having been gone from California a grand total of 37 hours, twelve of which were spent on cross-country flights, I can say that this was the most condensed, intense 37 hours in recent memory. His death was absolutely tragic, in the 'it doesn't make any sense' kind of way that early deaths always are. He had been dealing with some major issues for the past year or two, but it looked like he was getting back on track, and he had been tossing around the idea of coming back to Stanford. Instead, just as the light was appearing at the end of the tunnel, the more final light appeared and swept him away forever.

I think the hardest part of this was that he was a twin; his brother Travis (who had also stopped out from Stanford and was planning to come back this fall) appeared to be holding up well, but it's clear that his life has been drastically changed. He delivered the only words from the family at the funeral, in the form of a letter from Travis to Errol, as well as a poem that Errol had written. For me personally, I was able to hold it together pretty well in most respects, but thinking about Travis makes me cry. I think I feel more empathy about the twin issue because my grandfather was a twin. At least in Granddad's case, he had lived a long and full life before passing away, but it still left an unfillable void in his brother's heart. The priest at Errol's funeral summed it up perfectly; he said that he had expected to officiate at Errol's wedding, not his funeral. Now, there are so many steps in life that Travis will have to navigate alone for the first time.

For some strange reason, the past couple of days have restored my faith in humanity even though they have broken my heart. We stayed with Rat's cousins in Brooklyn, who were extremely generous--they loaned us a car, they let seven of us sleep over with almost no warning, and perhaps most importantly they helped us to relax after the emotionally-taxing visitation. Errol's mother, despite her obvious grief, was so kind to all of us; I think it meant a lot to her that so many people from Stanford came. All of Errol's family were nice too, and it definitely helped to see people coming together through this loss.

Still, despite the positives, it will take a long time to get over seeing Errol in a casket, hearing the poem he wrote about maturity and impending life experiences, and looking at pictures of him as a child with an apparently-long life ahead of him. He was the first friend my age who has died; and I think for all of us who went, this was the first funeral we've attended where our families weren't present. Friends aren't supposed to die at 21. Friends get older with you, and it doesn't feel like people my age should be able to die like this. I know that it's logically ridiculous to think that people in their twenties are impervious to death, but until it happens, it's easier to pretend. I can't pretend anymore.

That's perhaps the hardest lesson of adulthood--every 'maturing' experience is a time when you have to stop pretending. Whether it's that you stop pretending that you're going to go back to school, or you stop pretending that you have no responsibilities, or you stop pretending that you will never die, there are key checkpoints where reality sets in. You never see them coming, either, until they blindside you and force you to open your eyes. It's still possible to live in a world full of imagination and vibrancy and creativity--but the nature of that vibrancy changes as the possibilities of your world age and become darker. Awakened to the dangers of the world, you discover that every beautiful thing carries with it its own death, a death that you couldn't see when you were a child, a death that is as inevitable as it is irrevocable. Every marriage, every birth, every act of creation will perish; whether that leads to bitterness or to a greater appreciation for the complexities of life is your responsibility.

In this case, Errol's death has made me remember how important friends are, how easy it is to take for granted that they will always be there, how I've been lulled into a false sense of security regarding friendship that I had already lost with my family when Granddad died. Hopefully this will make me a better and more attentive friend, rather than a scared, antisocial loner who can't face the dark side of creation.

I'm going to close with my favorite poem (channeling Walter's dad, who apparently also likes Gerard Manley Hopkins):

'Spring and fall (to a young child)'
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

I HATE CNN

I never should have opened up cnn.com. I've been reading CNN instead of my usual New York Times online because nytimes has a nasty habit of showing pictures of gold medal winners for the day's events well before they've been televised in America, but CNN has typically kept all Olympic-related content off the main page. So today I open the page, and they broke with tradition by giving the results of the men's 1500m speed skating race on the front page. Grrr. I've been looking forward to that race for days! It features, as you may know, Shani Davis, Chad Hedrick, Joey Cheek, and Derek Parra, and has been hyped incessantly by NBC (almost as hyped as that stupid-looking show 'Conviction', which I will never ever watch). Now my day is ruined. And I'm compounding the sin of reading the news at work by blogging about it from work--but if I'm fired for it, so be it, I'm too angry to care.

And if I get fired, I could then watch Olympics coverage live, which would solve the whole problem. Awesome! Now, back to work, and maybe my rage will sustain me through several hours of painful work on Excel spreadsheets...

i'll have a slice of your mother

I managed to wake up at ten this morning, despite the fact that I stayed up until four a.m. watching the Olympics and playing Nintendo. I was v. lazy in the morning, then did some desultory shopping (fueled mostly by my desire for orange chicken at Panda Express) before coming back to my apartment in time for primetime Olympics coverage. Tammy came over, of course, and so we've amused ourselves by criticizing the ice dancers' costumes while we both attempted to do the work we should have done this weekend.

Some highlights from today's coverage (since I feel that I can't spoil it for anyone, unless I have unknown fans in Hawaii and Alaska who are on a longer tape delay than the west coast is):

1) Bode Miller failed to medal again. He's 0/4 for the races that he's already skiied, and he only has one more race to go in the Olympics. Given that he only spent eleven minutes of his hour-long inspection time on the course, and looked like he wasn't conditioned well enough to complete the race well, it appears that he isn't taking the whole thing very seriously. I noticed that the announcers have stopped saying 'that's just Bode being Bode'; if he doesn't medal in his fifth race, I wonder what that will do to his sponsorship. I can't imagine that Nike is pleased right now...but that's what they get for sponsoring someone who doesn't even wear their shoes in competition.

2) Some Ukrainian chick wore tasselled pasties in the ice dance competition. It was frightening. Tracy Wilson (the only commentator who actually seems to care about ice dance, since she was an ice dancer back in the day) said that there's some rule that costumes must be athletic in nature, even if they are designed to evoke the style of the program. I've never seen an 'athletic' costume that contained pasties, but maybe I'm watching the wrong programs. I'm sure I could find something on pay-per-view where the Ukrainian ice dancer would fit right in.

3) Dick Button still rocks. He was giving out personal medals right and left tonight, when he wasn't saying that he was bored and that the programs were terrible. When Dick Button says something is bad, it's really bad--usually he's very warm and forgiving.

In other news, I'm v. mad at NBC. They showed about five minutes of men's aerial qualifiers--and almost all of them were the Americans, even though most of them didn't qualify for the final. So, we saw a bunch of sub-par jumps (and even sub-par, they're still amazing, since the athletes twist while free-falling 50 feet, and then have to stick the landing completely--I don't understand how they don't break their legs doing this, since that's like jumping off a five-story building). We only saw a couple of people who actually advanced to the final. And then, we saw about sixteen ice dance finals, even though it was clear that only four or five of them had a shot at a medal, and even though is program is four excruciating minutes. It's a good thing they ended when they did, or else I might have stabbed my eyes out with the handle of my teaspoon. Now they're done for another four years, though, and tomorrow promises to be great--women's figure skating, the crazy 1500m speed skating race with four American gold medalists competing in the same event, women's aerials, etc., etc. Yay!

Now it's time for bed, since I have a conference call at 7:30am. Ugh. Goodnight!

that looks like the biggest powder puff i've ever seen in the world

I think that the Dick Button medal for personal excellence in commentary should go to Dick Button. He's a huge fan of saying that skaters have gotten their own personal medal for whatever they've done, whether it's getting up after falling badly, or landing the first throw quad salchow in the Olympics despite having a bad overall performance (and a weird, scary relationship involving a seemingly-possessive male and a v. passive female). So now I'm a huge fan of giving the Dick Button medal to all of the athletes (or friends) who I think deserve it. Like I said, Dick Button gets a medal for commentary; he was the only thing that enlivened an otherwise-excruciating session of ice dancing, except for half a dozen amusing falls in a discipline that should be easily error-free. The title of my post is a quote from Dick Button, regarding some chick's poofy, feathered skirt; my favorite Dick Button quote came during the men's competition, when he said that one skater's velvet, betassled costume was a 'distant cousin to [Dick Button's] dining room curtains'. Since Dick Button won his last medal in 1952 (54 years ago), it's amazing that he's still able to commentate, even if his commentary is usually in the weird middle ground between inane and idiot-savant.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to award a Dick Button medal to NBC. Back when they bid for and won the right to broadcast the Olympics, they were the top-rated network and could afford to spend a billion dollars on the rights. Now, they're the last network, and the company that once held the rights (CBS) is now far ahead of NBC in overall ratings. The fact that the Olympics are getting trounced by 'American Idol' really saddens me. It apparently saddens NBC too, which doesn't surprise me, since I saw a headline that said that NBC was going to give away free advertising to the Olympics sponsors because they're getting so much less traffic than they had been promised. That explains why NBC is trying to make controversies out of nothing, such as the 'feud' between Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis. The more I think about it, the more I've decided that Chad Hedrick is kind of a dick; reports indicate that Shani Davis wasn't asked to participate in the team event until the week before (long after he had planned his training regimen). And Chad kept saying that he wasn't going to beg Shani to skate with *him*, not with the team--which proves to me that Chad cared more about keeping his own goal of five gold medals alive than he did about getting a team gold. And if Shani was tired for the race last night after the team event, it would have given Chad more of an even playing field with him as well. Anyway, I was really pleased to see that Shani wasn't quite as obnoxious and idiotic in his interview tonight as he was in his interview last night, even if it's too late to save his reputation with most of the ten Americans who are currently watching the Olympics.

I would like to withhold the Dick Button medal from all ice dancers, except for the ones who wiped out after tripping on their own feet. But why, why do all the women look like 80s-style strippers? They've cut away as much bodice as possible, their hair is completely teased out, and everything is covered in sparkles and feathers. Don't get me wrong, I love sparkles and feathers, but most of those costumes are hideous at best and immoral at worst. I say immoral only because many of the moves require the guy to put his hand somewhere v. close to the woman's crotch, and the lack of covering leaves little to the imagination. Ugh. If the women were prettier and the guys looked less sleazy, it might be okay. Personally, though, I think it's crap that NBC showed so much ice dance tonight. A couple of major ski events were postponed due to snow, and so NBC filled the block in tonight's five hours of programming by adding ice dance. Where's the curling? Where's more cross country? Where's the biathlon? Then again, NBC's probably asking, 'Where are the viewers?' So if they know that ice dancing brings in more people than it loses, I guess they have a good idea going there. I'm still devastated though.

It's four a.m. and luckily I don't have to go to work today; so now I'm going to go to bed, and try to get up in a few hours to run some errands and do some work. Tomorrow night's coverage should be slightly better--and if nothing else, humanity will get the Dick Button medal for making it through another Olympic ice dancing competition. Let's not count our chickens before they hatch, though; if I were God and had the power to flood the earth, I might conveniently forget my promise not to do it again if I spent too much time watching ice dance. If anthropologists in the future document our Olympic Games and research ice dancing, they will come to the same conclusion that I have--when bastardized ballroom dancing on ice qualifies as a legitimate career choice, the West has once again reached the level of decadence attained by ancient Rome. America may still be too puritanical to allow men to have young male companions, and we may not get to wear the cool laurel wreaths, but what we lack in homoeroticism, we make up for with sparkles and Spandex. Hot! If the apocalypse doesn't come tomorrow, the Olympics are going to rock.

what if you threw an olympics and no one came?

I've been watching the Olympics nonstop since they opened last Friday, which should explain my unusual silence over the past week. First, a recap: I remained in a state of anger that I would call 'high simmer' until Tuesday, when I played and won the corporate game and secured myself an apartment until I leave for Dublin. Now that I've moved into a place of my own, I am much, much happier. The rest of my time has been filled with the Olympics--I've watched all primetime coverage, and will continue this trend until the Olympics end next Sunday. Until I got my apartment, I was going to campus to watch with Tammy; now that I have the apartment, she's been coming over here.

I still love the Olympics, but the past week has been rather frustrating and disappointing. NBC and all of the major sponsors put too many eggs in a few small baskets (Bode Miller, Michelle Kwan, and Apolo Anton Ohno), when the great performances were turned in by unpublicized athletes (Ted Ligety and Joey Cheek). Tonight was great, though, when Bode Miller wiped out on the Super-G--and his performance was immediately followed by a Nike commercial entitled 'Bode on Happiness'. Ha! My opinions thus far:

1) I still love Apolo Anton Ohno, but there's no way he's going to beat out any Koreans for the gold. They have an *amazing* program, and they're all clearly much powerful than the rest of the world since they're able to pass on the outside of the shorttrack--which means that they're skating a longer distance than other skaters, and at higher speeds to boot. Insane! The Korean women almost swept the medals in the women's 1000-meters, but one of them got disqualified (v. sketchily), so China got a bronze. Yippee.

2) I think the Shani Davis thing has gotten blown out of proportion, and NBC is being rather negligent by not explaining anything about his situation. After he won the gold in the men's 1000-meter long track speed skating, he gave an extremely awkward interview in which he clearly didn't want to be talking to the reporter. From that, it seemed like he was a bastard with a chip on his shoulder, on top of the fact that he didn't skate the team relay earlier in the week. But, it's annoying that NBC is focusing so much attention on the 'controversy' over whether he skated the team event--we weren't going to win that event anyway (see: Korea), while Shani Davis obviously had a great chance at the 1000-meters. Regardless, whether he should have skated the team event or not, NBC devoted so much time to covering Chad Hedrick's annoyance over Shani Davis's refusal to skate that by the time Shani won his individual medal, he was already disliked by a sizeable number of casual viewers. NBC's handling of the situation has now tainted Hedrick's gold (since they only ask him about Shani, not his own races), and also Shani's win. I hate when the media makes up controversies by not explaining how things work and what the background is (see: the Cheney accident and how shooting quail with a shotgun is fundamentally different and more accident-prone than capping someone in the head with a pistol).

3) The Lindsey Jacobellis story was amazing and ridiculous and sad all at the same time. She's the snowboarder who was so far ahead in the snowboard cross event that she tried to grab her snowboard off of a jump just like she would have done in halfpipe--but this threw her off balance and caused her to fall, giving the girl behind her the opportunity to win gold. Lindsey won silver, which clearly wasn't enough since it was her fault she lost the gold. NBC lost no time in turning this into a morality piece for the 21st century--if I ever get to the Olympics (which is doubtful), I'll be sure not to grab a Method air near the end of a race. But since the only sport I could possibly participate in is typing, I don't think Method airs would be a problem.

4) Don't bake five cakes without confirming who's coming. So I made my five Olympic Rings cakes today because I was so excited that I have an apartment. I did everything you're not supposed to do as a hostess--gave only 36 hours notice on a holiday weekend, did not ask for RSVPs, did not offer dinner, and based the whole event around watching tv. Unsurprisingly, only Claude, Tammy, and Oniel showed up. Oniel also picked up the Indian food we'd ordered--surprisingly, I was really craving Indian food again. I never thought I would, but apparently butter chicken is now lodged deep within my soul. Anyway, if you're in the bay area and want cake tomorrow, please come over--there's more than enough cake for you!

I'm falling asleep while writing this, so it's time for bed--I shall endeavor to write more in the future.

pictures came and broke your heart

I think that if I were prone to nervous breakdowns, I might have had one today. Being homeless is v. stressful. I would say that I'm typically pretty optimistic, and things have a strange way of working out for me. But, I pay for that luck with an absurd ability to wind up in situations that I've joked about for months or years. I realized that I was in another of those situations today when the crisis of where to watch the Olympics tonight was resolved by deciding to crash the tv room at the Stanford women's center. I've made fun of the women's center and everyone involved in it for several years. Suddenly, though, I find myself actively making plans to watch the primetime Olympic coverage there tonight, and potentially sleep on one of the couches there rather than drive to Terry or Claudia's apartments.

This was all funny at the moment, but I almost started crying when I realized what that would entail. So, my pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and I now have a reservation for the rest of the weekend at a hotel. I think the major problem is that I require about nine hours of sleep, but the people I've been staying with require about seven, and so I'm just really tired. Also, I think I'm getting sick, and I freaked out when I realized that I have no home to stay home sick in. So, I'm still going to watch the Olympics tonight at the women's center with Tammy--but tomorrow, I'm going to sleep in, have a laid-back brunch with Vidya, and then spend the rest of the day taking a bubble bath, painting my toenails, perhaps drinking champagne, and watching the Olympics. This will also give me the chance to look presentable on Monday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Yay.

Anyway, other than the constant high levels of stress and my residual anger over the fact that it's not my fault that I'm homeless, life is pretty good. I watched the opening ceremonies last night with Tammy, Shedletsky, Claude and Vidya in the Old Pro sports bar. Luckily we scored an upstairs room where we could turn all the tvs to the Olympics and turn the volume up really high, since the downstairs had turned into a big drinkfest by nine p.m. I was pretty impressed with the opening, other than the completely superfluous and ridiculous segment with Yoko Ono and Peter Gabriel. Ugh. I had dim sum w/Tammy and Shedletsky this morning, and then spent a couple of hours on campus wishing Greg a happy birthday, which was fun.

I'm sitting in my office at 6pm on a Saturday, since I had to come to the office if I wanted to check my email...or if I wanted clean clothes for tomorrow. Lame. I think I'm going shopping tomorrow to boost my supplies. Also, the hotel-thing is good because I'm out of conditioner and almost out of shampoo, so I can replenish for the week with the little travel-sized toiletries. What a bonus!

Okay, I need to go before the battery on my computer dies--I only have one outlet in range of my desk, which I usually use for my monitor and my laptop's docking station, but it's really hot in my office (especially on weekends, when they apparently turn off the a/c), so I had to unplug the docking station and plug in my fan, and now my laptop's about to quit. Sigh. If only they would use the money they save on a/c to either find me an apartment or send me to Ireland, I'd be a happy camper. Or rather, I would no longer be camping. Or something.

one look from you and i would fall from grace

Run, don't walk, to see 'The Matador'. I wasn't expecting much, and perhaps I should keep your expectations low as well. But, Pierce Brosnan was surprisingly effective as a washed-up hitman (bye-bye Bond), and Greg Kinnear was great as a sort-of boring Everyman caught in a strange situation. The movie was full of colorful characters and moments that turned out to be hilarious throw-away gags rather than vital pieces of plot. Pierce Brosnan's character was also as offensive and ridiculous as anyone I've had the pleasure of watching recently, with such memorable lines as 'She looked like a Bangkok whore on a Sunday morning after the Navy left town'. Yay. Zach and Claude are also v. fun to watch movies with, so we had a great time. I also have 'In the Heat of the Moment' by Asia stuck in my head, so I was forced to download it, and now I want to make myself of a mix of all those terrible New Wave songs from the 80s. I used to have one that I now presume is with my brother, but I could make an even better mix if I gave it the old college try. So, we'll see what happens.

In other news, I'm not going to Ireland until the beginning of April due to a particularly nasty snarl of situations at work. I'm not going to blog anything more about it, other than to say that it's rather frustrating that I'm now homeless and that this homeless situation won't end anytime soon. However, hopefully something will work out. I'm also pretty portable now--I showed up at Terry's tonight with my small rolling carry-on suitcase, a basket with all of my bath supplies, and my laptop, all perfectly contained and ready to go. I just have to plan ahead every couple of days and grab clothes from my office, since everything clean lives there while everything dirty resides in my trunk, waiting for a trip to the laundromat. Anyway, if you want to hear more details, you'll have to email me--I'm much too cautious to discuss anything on my blog.

I'm more than happy to use my blog to discuss 'In the Heat of the Moment', though, and I'd love to discuss it with you as well, so feel free to ask me about it if you wish. At this point, though, I should go to bed--and by bed I mean Terry's pull-out sofa. Awesome. At least I'm not sleeping in my car; I'll just have to make sure that I stay on good terms with my friends so that I don't reach that point.

zen and the art of meteos

I made a huge mistake yesterday--I bought 'Meteos'. It's a Nintendo DS game that reminds me strongly of 'Tetris Attack', although all blocks are moved vertically rather than horizontally. Also, since the Nintendo DS has a touch-screen, the blocks are dragged by your stylus, rather than flipped using the traditional controls. It is every bit as addictive as my previous forays into similar puzzle games (think 'Snood', 'Tetris Attack', 'Bejeweled', and the original 'Tetris'). The music alone is addictive, but the fact that it is full of intense rearranging can lead to hours of mind-clearing fun. I don't think that 'Meteos' can be considered a true meditative tool, but considering that my meditative toolbox consists of a) romance novels, b) fast drives through the foothills, c) the 'New York Times' online, and d) marathons of 'America's Next Top Model', 'Meteos' is a pretty solid contender for top spot in the toolbox. Apparently, I can seamlessly switch back and forth between the antithetical pariah-groups formed by romantics and gamers without causing my brain to implode, so I might as well embrace 'Meteos' and such classics as 'Gentle Rogue' and 'Brave the Wild Wind' with equal fervor.

I'm staying at Terry's place this weekend, but I'm currently wrapping some stuff up at the office before heading back there. Last night, I had an amazing dinner at Left Bank; the steak and fries, with wine, oysters, and a delicious molten chocolate cake, more than made up for the subpar pasta that I had at the Olive Garden on Thursday. The company, however, was pretty much tied; Thursday was with Claude, Vidya, Adit, Sri, and Stephan, while Friday was with Claude, Tammy, and Terry. Those groups are both equally insane, so the classiness of Left Bank was perhaps wasted on us, but both evenings were fun. Now, I'm going to go relax for the rest of the day--and by 'relax' I of course mean 'meditate', and by 'meditate' I of course mean 'play Meteos'. Yay.

Six days until the Olympics!!

friendship--the anti-drug

For this year's ski trip, I would like to write a brief, completely sober blog post. I think I've outgrown alcohol. Or perhaps my body has been scared off for awhile after the infamous New Years Eve incident. In an amusing side-note, when I was cleaning my bathroom last night before moving out, I think that I cut my pinkie on the same shard of plastic that I dug out of my foot; that was my fault for leaving the plastic on my vanity as a souvenir. Stupid!

Anyway, ski trip is fun, although I haven't done anything; I took the last bus up here, played my Nintendo DS/slept most of the way, and then met up with Jane, Joann, Lizzie, and Melissa for a v. late lunch. We went to a candle-making store and made candles, which was really fun. Unfortunately, it didn't involve any candle dipping; instead, you get to cut up various colored blocks of wax and put them into a mold, which is then bonded together with white wax and cooled. It was entertaining to take out aggression with the wax-breaking process while gossiping with my friends...and even better, my candle turned out really well, which pleased me. Dinner was tasty, the 80s cover band that we always bring to the party was as good as ever, and hanging out with the girls plus Jay has been great. Now, though, I'm tired, and looking forward to sleeping in a real, real bed for a night.

I will say, despite my sober status, that friends are still the bombdiggitysss. I love you all :)

money talks...i want to buy you

It's been a rather brutal week, and I am now officially homeless. I'm sorry that I didn't blog over the weekend, but we disconnected the internet on Saturday, which was a bit like chopping off my own hand, but I somehow survived it.

The weekend was v. up-and-down. Friday was uneventful, but I did some desultory packing. Saturday, I packed/organized all day and we got the carpets cleaned; then, Saturday night, Tammy, Claudia and I met Shedletsky and Joanna in the city for opening night of 'Swan Lake'. I'd never been to a ballet before, and I really enjoyed it, although I was in danger of dozing off during one of the pastoral interludes. The orchestra made some major errors involving the horn section, which was unfortunate, but the lead dancers were amazing--even with my lack of knowledge, I could recognize that their performances were outstanding. I'm really happy that Tammy organized this endeavor, and I wish I was going to be here to partake of more cultural outings in the future.

So the ballet was an up, but then it took almost an hour to get out of the city, which was a down. Then we stopped at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae (across from the Hong Kong Flower Lounge), where I had steak and eggs, which was a definite up again. But Shedletsky didn't show, so that was kind of a down. In retaliation, the three of us decided to go to dim sum without him on Sunday (actually, it was out of a need to feed our raging addiction to shrimp families)--which started out as an up, 'til we realized that it was Chinese New Year and it took forever to get seated and for our food to arrive. But, it was all tasty, and even though the waiter spilled some of my Diet Coke on me when he brought it, the overall experience was an up.

Now, though, after packing about fifty-five boxes of stuff and cleaning the whole apartment, I just wish that I could be settled someplace, but I can't. Tonight I'm staying with Terry, where I will probably remain for the rest of the week, except for tomorrow night when I'm in Tahoe for a ski trip. After six days of sleeping on the floor, I'm quite excited about her pull-out sofa, and even more excited about the hotel bed tomorrow.

Also, I am probably the only homeless person who decided to celebrate their newly-homeless status by buying a Gameboy--Terry and I vacated the apartment and had dinner at Baja Fresh tonight, which left me just enough time to run to Fry's and get a Nintendo DS and an old-school copy of Super Mario 3. I'm going to get more games once I research what I want (Mario Kart, perhaps Castlevania, or maybe that cool 'Operation'-like game where you use the touchscreen on the Nintendo to pretend to sew up wounds). If anyone has any advice, please let me know.

I'm feeling all angsty about my homeless status, but other than that, life is good. I shall blog again when I'm back from the ski trip and a little more well-rested.

she only reveals what she wants you to see--she hides like a child, but she's always a woman to me

Note: for those of you who work with me, what I'm revealing below hasn't been formally announced or completely finalized, but feel free to ask me about it. For the rest of you, you probably already know most of it anyway--and if you didn't, I'm sorry you didn't hear it from me in person :(

So I found out today that I'm definitely going to Ireland, and that I'm going for at least a year! Yay! A year sounds much scarier than six months; but then again, a year in Ireland sounds less scary than six months in India, so I think it's a wash. Also, judging by the number of people who have expressed interest in visiting, I don't think I'll be lacking in friends. I'm really excited, and this will mark a lot of firsts for me. It will be my first living experience in a real city (Dublin is much bigger than Menlo Park), it will be my first grown-up living experience in Europe, and it will probably be the first time that I have an apartment of my own, if you don't count the month or so that I lived in the two-bedroom apartment that Walter had vacated. Anyway, I'm super excited, but things are still a little up in the air, since I haven't been given a departure date or timeframe yet. This is a bit troubling only because it's been in the works for so long that I thought I'd be leaving nowish, and so gave up the lease on my apartment. Now I find myself homeless, which is a really weird position to be in given my age and employment status, as well as the lack of any drug or gambling addiction. I hired professional movers to take my stuff to storage this morning, which may have been the best money that I spent in quite awhile--they were really fast, v. careful, and they did a much better job of protecting my stuff than I would have, since I wouldn't have saran-wrapped my couches, for example. I'm sad that my bed is gone, though, so I'm sleeping in a nest of blankets on the floor of my bedroom. Bad news bears!

In other news...yesterday was my oldest niece's birthday. Sammi's fourteen now, which is really hard to believe, and I loved talking to her even though she's a brat and demanded a birthday shoutout on my blog :) I guess she feels that she's entitled to one, especially since everyone knows that Vidya forces me into them all the time. Speaking of, Vidya was one of the many people who came over last night for dinner. Claudius made meatloaf and a tasty banana-cream pie, and I went waaaay overboard and made scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, greek salad, chocolate chip chewies, deviled eggs, and spinach artichoke dip. Gone are the days when it took me four hours to make potato salad, since I was able to turn out six dishes in less than three hours. This was especially impressive given that the only thing I prepped in advance was boiling the eggs, and given that I mistakenly bought the wrong kind of corn for the casserole and so had to run to the grocery store in the middle of my endeavors. Some of Claudia's coworkers came, as did Vidya, Sri, Zach, Oniel, Adit, and a brief visit by Shedletsky and Joanna. I managed to give away a lot of random crap that I no longer wanted to haul around with me; Oniel looked v. funny as he was leaving, since he had my former laundry bag slung over his shoulder, filled with my bathroom scale, a Twister game, a couple of notebooks, bandaids, and some other stuff. Speaking of bandaids, I was v. glad that I didn't give away all of them. In the middle of making dinner, I began to wonder why there was red stuff all over the outside of the cream cheese wrapper--then I realized that I was bleeding, and then my thumb started to hurt. It turns out that I cut myself pretty badly, and I have no idea what I cut myself on--but I triple-wrapped the wound and still managed to bleed through it. It's in an awkward place on my thumb, so the wound keeps separating a bit when I try to do things, but I've thoroughly covered it in bandages to avoid creating a complete biohazard. Of course, I'm paranoid about it due to my recent experience with glass embedded in my foot, but I'm pretty sure there are no foreign objects embedded in it, so I'll just have to hope for the best.

Okay, it's time for me to retire to my cozy nest. Start saving up your money for a trip to Dublin! I hear that it's awesome.

when pessimism fails and my cooler head prevails

It's time for a vote: should I buy a Nintendo DS? It's the next-generation Gameboy, althought it's been out for over a year and so is no longer the 'next hot thing'. The last Gameboy I had, for reference, was purchased as added incentive to convince me and my brother to go to Ukraine, and it's now widely agreed that we got seriously ripped off. Since I'm now facing a similar upheaval (pending the tying of a few remaining loose ends), it seems quite understandable that I would want a Gameboy to accompany me on this journey. The flipside is that perhaps I should grow up and not play video games--or that I should use my spare time to work/see things/write my romance novel. Your opinion on this matter is greatly appreciated.

In other news, my brother obviously got my obscure reference in the previous post; I don't know what he referenced in the comment, but I'm going to guess a Nelson DeMille book...maybe 'Spencerville'? For those of you who didn't get my reference, it was from 'The Ox Cart Man.' It's perhaps the finest children's book ever written, even though it's rather boring when you get right down to it--but regardless of the book, it may well be the best 'Reading Rainbow' episode ever made. LeVar gets to go to some colonial town and watch all sorts of interesting things, up to and including a demonstration of how people used to toast their bread using a cool iron implement that they placed near the edge of the fire. I highly recommend the book and the episode, although I think the toasting method leaves something to be desired.

if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts

I'm in the midst of a huge search-and-destroy mission, ranging across vast swathes of previously-unsorted territory in my bedroom, closets, living room, kitchen, and storage room. It's painfully difficult to part with some of the things that I'm discarding, but it has to happen--after all, when will I use 120 cocktail parasols? They've been sitting in a box (along with five grass skirts and about 40 plastic leis) since Mirlo in-house draw my junior year. For perspective, Terry was finishing her freshman year when she participated in that in-house draw, and she's now been out of school for a year and a half. I've moved this box four times, and now I'm getting rid of all of it. It should be a complete relief, but I keep thinking, 'what if I want to have a Hawaiian theme party? what if I need a grass skirt for something and have to spend $20 on a new one?' But, this is the kind of thinking that has gotten me into my current disaster. I explained to Claudia and Terry last night while we were driving to In-n-Out that my whole family consists of a bunch of packrats and collectors, and then I described the 'Room of Doom' in our house--a room so filled with stuff that hasn't been touched in a decade that we now pile boxes in front of the door to the Room of Doom, which prevents us from ever exploring the forgotten treasures (and, unfortunately, probably some dead bats) within. It was then that I realized that the storage space below our apartment is my own little embryonic Room of Doom--while I only have a few boxes down there, it's stuff that I could quite happily never see again but simultaneously refuse to give up. I shudder to think what my Room of Doom will look like in twenty years, so I'm trying to purge some stuff now.

So, tonight I threw out all of my notes from my college classes, as well as my year planners for sophomore, junior, and senior year. That really hurt--what if future biographers want to reconstruct my college experience? I also threw out the flowers that I wore at my college graduation, since they were getting pretty dusty, even though they have survived five or six moves extraordinarily well. I'm getting rid of a dozen red candles that I got for a dollar at Ikea, since I later discovered that the red was too bright for my color schemes and never bothered to open them. I'm tossing the fake-gold elephant keychain/money clip that I picked up at Krung Siam about six years ago and never used. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll never need a whistle, even though the fluorescent pink cord that it's attached to is pretty hot. I collected every cable that doesn't explicitly belong to one of my currently-working electronic gadgets, dumped the whole snarl in a box with an ancient subwoofer, an old cellphone, and a questionably-capable external CD burner, and I will eventually send the box to my brother as a gift to him (and his warehouse). Now I feel like I need to sell my ox and kiss it on the nose before heading home with some peppermint candies. Ten points (and a grass skirt) to you if you know what I'm talking about.

Okay, I have work to do tomorrow and it's getting much too late to continue rambling about all of the things that I'm supposedly freeing myself from. Goodbye, memories, I'll miss you!

i wanna be the light that burns out your eyes

I got a message from Walter today; he said that his ipod was on shuffle mode and that it served up Placebo, happy hardcore, and Bon Jovi (which he skipped) in quick succession, so he decided to call me. It's a little sad that my taste so obviously exists in the nexus where anger, nonsense, and hysteria collide. Then again, it's even sadder that I had an awful moment at CPK with Claudia and Terry tonight, in which I was talking animatedly about 'Stargate' in an ironic attempt to convince them that it's a great show, then suddenly realized that I was about to say the words 'human host' in front of the waiter, and so abruptly fell into silence and lunged for my soda straw to fill the void. Claudia started laughing at me immediately, and so the waiter probably thought we were talking about him, but I'm glad that he didn't realize that I'm a such a huge dork [editor's note: I just realized that the only thing lamer than talking about 'Stargate' is blogging about 'Stargate'. How sad!]. In other news (and this one's for you, Katie)--they're making 'Big Momma's House 2', which promises to be the worst movie of this or any other year. Yay!

Work was a little stressful today, compounded by the fact that I bought a cute pair of pants last night to wear today, but then shortened them too much and so they weren't quite right, but was too stubborn not to wear them. Luckily I did a quick and dirty hemjob that involved rolling up the cuffs and basting them, so I can lengthen them again, but it's such a pain. They still looked cute as long as I was standing up, though; and I was wearing a green shirt that a) matched the pinstripes in the pants and b) allowed me to wear the emeralds that my parents gave me for Christmas and c) made my eyes look insanely green. Of course, they started to look insanely bloodshot after I spent six hours manipulating a spreadsheet filled with around 2000 cells of numbers that didn't differ from each other by more than .75 in any direction; Excel is the postmodern version of Hell. It even sort of sounds like 'Ex-Hell'--like it used to be a traditional hell, but the fire and brimstone has been transformed into an electronic pit full of equations and pivot tables. Ugh.

Now, it's time for bed!

thank you india

Once again, I'm writing this blog post at night, but due to the fact that I don't have internet access in my hotel room, I'll have to post it tomorrow. That's not the point, however. Rather, the point is that I won a Luminary Award at the sales conference!! It's given to the top 3% of the people in my department, and it comes with a lovely, brightly colored orb and a cash bonus, so I'm pretty psyched. I'm guessing that I got it because they knew I was so disappointed that I didn't win bubonic plague in India--but this is a pretty good consolation prize. Several of my friends won them as well, particularly Jogi from the Hyderabad office, and so it was an exciting evening. And luckily, there was no koolaid in evidence, so apparently our apocalyptic mass suicide will have to wait until next year.

In other news, Malcolm Gladwell spoke at the conference today. He wrote 'The Tipping Point', which I used in my honors thesis, and he also wrote 'Blink', which I read this summer. Since I spent so much time perusing his work and referenced it quite a bit in my thesis, it was v. exciting to hear him speak. Most of his speech revolved around the difference between 'Cezannes' and 'Picassos'--or rather, experimental innovators and conceptual innovators. Cezanne's best works came when he was in his sixties, after years and years of painting, while Picasso peaked in his late twenties. Other genres have similar examples (Twain vs. Fitzgerald, Fleetwood Mac vs. Guns 'n' Roses, etc.), and Gladwell believes that the same comparisons and lessons can be drawn in corporations. Some corporations, like Apple or the Detroit Big Three, rely on brilliant concepts that appear in a flash and revolutionize the world (iPod, the SUV), while other corporations, like Dell or the Japanese car makers, spend decades iterating through variations until they find the recipe for success. Gladwell stressed the importance of finding balance between experimentation and conceptualization, which I personally found rather fascinating. It also made me wonder what kind of innovator I am, and whether I am going to peak in my twenties (perhaps tonight with the luminary award), or if I will slowly build up to greatness late in life. Only time will tell, but now it's time to go to bed!

jonestown part two

If they keep saying that I work for a company that is 'truly to die for', I'm going to have to steadfastly refuse any offers of Kool-aid at the banquet tonight...

o green world

Considering that I'm at the sales conference, which is arguably one of the most fun events put on by my company, I'm in a strangely depressed mood. Actually, perhaps it's not that surprising--after the hangover that I suffered on Sunday (which was compounded by having to drive back in the aftermath of a heavy snowfall on a road full of inept Californians forced to drive slowly by the state's absurd tire-chain requirement, and being forced to buy chains at extortionate prices in order to leave the mountains), I'm in no real mood to drink. I'm also a very all-or-nothing drinker, which I suppose would qualify me as a health risk, but if I'm still able to see clearly at the end of a night of drinking, it was clearly a failure. That's somewhat of an exaggeration--I would consider Saturday night's festivities mostly successful (due almost entirely to Circle of Death, my favorite drinking game), despite the fact that I was still able to see and reason at the end of it, but I do wish that it had been a bit more hardcore so that I could have felt deserving of my hangover.

Anyway, Saturday is not the point. The point is that the sales conference is half motivational, half depressing, and I'm fluctuating wildly between those two extremes. When I'm swallowing the corporate line, it's all lovely, and the stuff that we talk about is really interesting. But then, I start analyzing too much, and I begin to wonder what I'm doing in a sales organization to begin with, and that leads to the larger question of what I'm doing in corporate America and, if corporate America isn't what I want, what it is that I should do instead. This is all compounded by the fact that I have some really good friends within the expat community from Hyderabad, as well as a handful of friends from the California office, but I'm always worried that those friendships are context-specific. I'm shy by nature (until I get to know you, and then it's no-holds-barred insanity), so I don't have a great time in crowds of casual acquaintances, which is what this entire experience is. If that's what corporate America always is, I definitely don't want it, but I have no idea what's next.

I went to the arranged dinner tonight, and the group that I went with happened to include my friend Sarah, so I had a really good time there. Now, though, rather than going out with people from my department, I'm writing this blog post, which I'll post when I get online at the conference tomorrow. Then, I'm going to go to bed and dream of a day when I'll have more certainty in my life.

Also, I'm going to have an announcement to make in the next few days, which is probably the worst-kept secret in the history of my career, but stay tuned for details if you haven't heard yet.

[insert random techno song here]

I'm sitting in the middle of the sales conference, waiting for the activities to begin. I got up to San Francisco last night, after an abbreviated day caused by a) sleeping until noon and b) a long lunch with Claudius. I'm staying in the Marriott with Arod, who's back from the India office for an unfortunately-short trip; we went to the opening reception and a later party, before hanging out in our room with Chris until bedtime.

Now the conference is beginning, but I wanted you all to know that I'm alive. I'll write later!

based on a true story

Tomorrow, I am leaving work, rendezvous'ing with Tammy, Jasmine, and Michael, and driving up to Tahoe for a weekend of fun and chaos in the snow. I'm coming back Sunday morning, though, because I have to do laundry and pack in anticipation of the sales conference next week. I'm concerned about my liver's ability to survive the next week, but I've pulled it off for the past two years, so hopefully this year won't be any different.

Tonight, I went to the airport with some of the former India expats to greet a bunch of Hyderabadis who were arriving for the sales conference. It was awesome to see them, and I'm so excited to hang out with them next week. I must say that it was strange to see so many people from my India experience in the States, but I'm so happy that a bunch of them got to come. So, the next week promises to be a blast.

The previous few days have been pretty uneventful; I had a nice veg dinner with Adit, Sri, and Vidya on Tuesday night, followed by latenight at Lag Dining w/Shedletsky, Tammy, Can Sar, and Joanna. I *really* need to stop going back to latenight, since it just makes me feel uncomfortable...but then again, I can't get chicken strips o' fire anywhere else. Now it's time for me to sleep, since I have to get to work early tomorrow and wrap up all the stuff that I won't get done over the weekend. Goodnight!

mmm...chalupas

Tonight, Sri and I went to the glorious restaurant known as Taco Bell, where I had not one, but *two* baja chicken chalupas. Mmmmmm. Actually, I had the second chalupa in the movie theatre, since I talked too much while eating the first one and so made us almost late for the movie. And which movie did we see, you may ask? We saw 'Syriana', which I liked quite a bit. Granted, there were some moments when I wished that Matt Damon would stop being ineffectual and start killing people, but overall I liked it. Like 'Munich' it was frustrating because it seemed that most of the actions of the characters were completely futile; unlike 'Munich', it seemed that the only reason that anyone had for rationalizing their bad behavior was personal greed. Oh, well, I could use some personal greed right now, since I just spent several hundred dollars getting my brakes fixed--the good news is that they no longer squeal when I apply pressure, but the bad news is that I am annoyed that I went shopping yesterday. But, life goes on, especially since now I won't have a catastrophic brake malfunction. And, hanging out with Sri immediately made me feel better, since he's v. amusing.

Today was my first day in my new office, and it was lovely. As mentioned before, I actually have a real office; it has floor-to-ceiling windows, so I get tons of natural light. The bathroom contains those crazy Japanese toilets with the heated seats and the aquatechnics that will clean you automatically if you let them, but I haven't worked up the courage or the desire to try them. Given past tendencies, I'm sure that I'll lose my lovely office at some point in the near future--this is approximately my eleventh desk switch in the past two and a half years, and I'm actually kinda far below average in that respect. As a veteran of the move game, I didn't bother to unpack everything, and I kept the boxes so that I can pack them up again when the time comes. Now it's time for bed so that I can get to the office early and then get out before the air becomes superheated and roasts my flesh (like that crazy volcano planet Crematoria in 'The Chronicles of Riddick'--actually, nothing at all like that, because that was the lamest thing I've ever seen). Goodnight!

i'm in the mood for you...or for running away

I had a pretty good weekend, although I didn't accomplish nearly enough. Friday night, I had dinner with Lauren and Josh, my India expat friends; I'd seen Lauren in the office in December, but I hadn't seen Josh since I left India in October. We went to Fiesta del Mar, so I got to reconnect with them over delicious enchiladas suizas. It was great to see both of them, and to remind myself that friendships don't necessarily have to end when the circumstances around them change. I probably should have gone to the city instead, since Chris was in town and I would have loved to have seen him, but I was feeling lazy and didn't really want to drive up. Sadness. Since I was rather tired, I ended up going to bed shortly after returning from dinner, so it's probably a good thing that I didn't go to SF, or else I might have taken an unintentional (and potentially fatal) nap on the 280.

On Saturday, Tammy, Claudia and I had dim sum, which was as fantastic as it always is. I sat around for most of the afternoon and rubbed my overly-full tummy. Claudius made eggplant parmesan (or rather, eggplant mozzarella, in an attempt to get rid of the huge block of cheese I bought when making lasagna), which was quite tasty. We lazed about during the evening, watching a History Channel documentary about the apocalypse, followed by four hours of 'Law and Order'. My couches really are much too comfortable--they keep me from getting anything done, since it's infinitely preferable to hang out on them and do nothing than it is to motivate myself to complete the tasks on my list.

Today, Zach and I caught the 11:50am matinee of 'Casanova'. I wasn't expecting anything great, although I was hopeful about the prospects of seeing Heath Ledger in a deliciously frothy role; unfortunately, even my low expectations weren't really met. The movie was vaguely amusing, and it wasn't a complete waste of time, but it definitely isn't worth seeing again. I still love Heath Ledger, though. I had a good time with Zach, though, since we continued our tradition of seeing awful movies during early matinees. January and February are prime months for watching crappy movies, so I'm looking forward to the coming weeks.

After the movie, I had a v. late lunch at Quiznos, then went to the mall and bought the odd combination of sunglasses and pajamas. Claudia and I went to a tapas place in Menlo Park for dinner--she introduced me to the unexpected delight of bacon-wrapped dates, which turned out to be amazing. They apparently stuff the dates with chorizo (a spicy sausage), then wrap them in bacon and bake them or fry them, I believe--whatever they do to the them, the dates end of mostly caramelized and extremely flavorful. It made the rest of the meal seem positively boring by comparison. But, the restaurant was intriguing--the decor was classic Spanish, and their wine 'cellar' was on the second floor and visible through panes of glass overlooking the bar, which was an interesting use of space. After tapas, we came home and watched the last half or so of 'Return of the King'--this was in honor of Tammy's departure from our apartment, since we held off watching 'Return of the King' for the entire duration of her visit. That is quite the feat for us, especially since I'd never seen the extended version of the second half of the movie, and Claudia came back from break with a tantalizing review of the deleted scenes. Now, it's probably time for bed, especially since I have to go to work relatively early tomorrow. We switched office building over the weekend, so when I get there tomorrow, I'll have to find my desk, and nothing will be set up in advance. But, in the new building I have an office (even if I am sharing it with another girl), so I'm pretty psyched about that. I mean, having an office is not worth the knowledge that I've sold out to corporate America, but it does soften the blow somewhat.

the owner himself went to italy to purchase a pizza oven

It's been days and days since I've updated. Sorry 'bout that. Here are the highlights:

1) New Years Eve in Des Moines. Katie and I had a fantastic time at the radio-station-hosted party that we went to; unfortunately, that fantastic time was far too lubricated with alcohol. I think I hit a new low point in my life when, at three a.m., the pizza that we ordered arrived at the hotel, and I stiffed the delivery guy by accident. I went down to the lobby barefoot, wearing my pajamas and my pink fur-trimmed bomber jacket, and I'm almost positive that I only gave him $15 for a $19.87 bill. The worst part is that I told him to keep the change. Clearly if I did give him $15, it's his fault for not calling me on it--he looked like he was some homeless dude they drafted off the streets to deliver pizza on New Years. Anyway, Katie refused to wake up, so I ate half the pizza by myself while watching 'Larry King Live'. I was still pretty happy...

2) New Years Day. I stopped being happy when I awoke in a haze of pain and nausea. My foot was bleeding from an unremembered nighttime injury, my head was spinning, and my stomach was rebelling against all those double vodka cranberries. Katie and I tried having breakfast, and she succeeded, but I had a lone strawberry and one bite of fried potato before returning to my room to throw up. Between the bloodstains on the floor and the (I think successfully flushed) vomit in the toilet, I officially turned my bathroom into a biohazard. But, I made it home in time for lunch with my sister and her kids, and I was actually pretty well recovered by then, which made me able to enjoy the chicken and noodles that my mother made.

3) Trip Back to Cali. This was miserable. My flight from Des Moines to Minneapolis was so delayed that it was actually going to leave after the flight that was supposed to be later, so they bumped me to the later flight (which was now earlier). I got to Minnesota four minutes before my next flight was supposed to leave. With my bleeding, swollen foot, I quickly limped all the way across the freaking airport in hopes that I hadn't missed it. I made it just in time to sit on the runway for 45 minutes. Awesome.

4) Tammy. Tammy's staying with me and Claudia for a few days, which is super fun. Right now we're watching 'Iron Chef'--the secret ingredient was crab, and so we got to watch chefs try to make desserts out of crab. There's nothing like crab and lemon sorbet to really cleanse the palate at the end of a meal, eh?

5) Digging Plastic Out of My Foot. Last night, I decided that my foot should have started healing if there wasn't anything embedded in it--the fact that it was still occasionally bleeding and was swollen and painful after four days clearly meant that someone was wrong. So, I sterilized a needle and a pair of tweezers, used my cellphone flashlight to illuminate the surgical area, and spent ten minutes prodding into the wound looking for intruders. I was successful in my quest, after doing some pushing to get the foreign object closer to the open wound--and I pulled out a shard of sharp, pointed plastic an eighth of an inch long. I almost threw up after getting it out, since it was so appalling to think about the fact that it was slowly carving a path through my foot with every step that I had taken over the previous four days. But, my foot felt better immediately, and I awoke today to discover that the swelling was gone and I could walk on it without pain. Yay!

6) Coffee With Vidya. I only mention this because I know that she'll use ctrl-f to see if I mentioned her, since I saw her today. It was quite enjoyable, though.

Okay, that's all. Seeing Katie was fabulous, spending time with my family was fantastic, and it's hard coming back to California when I have so much to do :( Now, though, it's time to go to bed!