| Friday September 12, 2003 -- 11:30am What a day. We have a program through which we provide seniors with rides to doctor appointments and such. Our driver just called in a quandry. He'd arrived at the home of a female client to pick her up and guess what. She is stuck on the toilet!!! Poor thing. But you have to admit that's funny. Lark Fest is tomorrow! Woo-hoo! Actually, I've never liked Lark Fest, because they cram too many people on that one little street and create a huge hazard by blocking every possible vehicular means of access to it. I generally get overwhelmed early in the day and run home to have a drink and calm my nerves. However, this year, "home" happens to be the home of the Kids Area and one of the music stages. So, there is no hiding, but I can also enjoy the festivities from the relative safety of my living room. And Lark Fest seems to be outgrowing Lark Street and becoming Lark & Hudson Fest. Thursday September 11, 2003 -- 4:30pm Amusing Office Quote of the Day: "I don't wanna order the bloody popcorn!!!" Tuesday September 9, 2003 -- 4:15pm Happy Birthday to Dana!!! Yeah, so I wimped out. Here's the real deal instead. I'm not even going to try to explain that to anyone else. If you really want to know, you'll have to get me very drunk and bribe me. Then maybe I'll even show you the video footage. I'm seriously having crazy insane holiday-related impulses. This is nuts. I never think about the holidays before Thanksgiving. In fact, I generally express disgust at premature Christmas paraphenalia being spewed about the stores and whatnot. But, for reasons unknown to me, I got hit hard with the Holiday Shopping Bug yesterday. I've been brainstorming Perfect Gift ideas for people all day. Including myself! Look soon for the Wish List, specifically designed for anyone wishing to express love of me via material means - which, as always, is not at all necessary. But, you know, if you insist... Monday September 8, 2003 -- 12:50pm First of all, ignore that last entry. I like my life and all of its freedoms and slightly outside the norm ways. But more importantly, Warren Zevon. You've got to give him credit. He gets diagnosed with lung cancer and is told he's got about 3 months to live. How does he respond? He gets some friends together and produces a beautiful last album and outlives his doctor's prediction by 9 months. It seems like a lot of famous people have been dying during the last 6 months or so. Buddy Epson, Bob Hope, Katherine Hepburn, Sam Phillips... Very suspicious, I think. Sunday September 7, 2003 -- 12:30am Revelations: - People my age - younger even - do things like own houses and have tenants - They also have nice things - nice furniture and rugs and things - I feel so much less mature and capable than most of the people I interact with - I am much less confident and self-assured than most people my age, or else they fake it better I do love my apartment. It's just that, sometimes, when I see other people's big, beautiful homes, my place starts to look a little shabby. All of my donated belongings and my $60 Target special bookshelves. Sigh. I guess that's the price one pays for working in the field I've chosen rather than, say, rocket science. When I hear what they're paying for mortgages (and what they're charging their tenants for rent) I think, "Hmm. I could do that!" The big question is would I ever want to? Could I ever make that big of a committment to anything? More coffee now, please. Friday September 5, 2003 -- 10:30am This morning I am folding brochures and drinking cold coffee. You wish you were me. I only made it through one quarter of the game last night. I would have lasted longer, but I didn't have any money for beer, and what is the point of watching football - in a bar, no less! - if you can't have beer? Thursday September 4, 2003 -- 9:00am Football season starts tonight, do-dah, do-dah! Why this excites me is a mystery. I think I just like Autumn. Mostly football takes up a lot of time and stresses me out. I get really anxious when it's a close game and, you know, there are 2 minutes left and the losing team is trying to get in field goal range, and, and... where's my medication? School also starts today, in my little corner of the world. Aside from the fact that traffic has basically doubled, I am pretty excited about it. Next week I'll start my office hours at one of the high schools. It's pretty boring most of the time, but at least it's movement. Things are starting to take shape for the other programs too. Starting mid-October, my days of staring at this computer screen and wandering back and forth to the coffee maker will be over. Yesterday I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm. Today I slept through it for 45 minutes. ??? Wednesday September 3, 2003 -- 4:00pm It is very, very sad when your email gets rejected by the chess club. Tuesday September 2, 2003 -- 12:10pm Behold! Irish 2000 cometh! There's nothing like a Guinness in the morning! Monday September 1, 2003 -- 8:05pm Here. Go here. It will make Bob happy. Who's Bob, you ask? Does it matter?!? Do you question me?!? Sunday August 31, 2003 -- 6:10pm I have just decided that, if I ever do sell any of the bottles I've painted, I am charging extra for the ones that involved injuries to my person. Well... I didn't just decide, but I had to get a couple of band aids before I could type anything. In other news, I've kind of been having a weird couple of days. Nothing weird has happened. I'm just weird inside... but maybe that's not really news to anyone... Yesterday I was trying to take a nap, and I started to spaz out for no discernible reason. I actually took an anti-anxiety pill for the first time in about 2 months! Today I'm just kind of spacey. I don't know what to do with myself, and I keep falling asleep. I have decided to pin it on the change in season, which became noticable during the later half of this week. I smell Autumn. Ugh. Winter comes after Autumn. I feel like I just finished digging my car out from under a mound of snow, and now it's coming again?!? Friday August 29, 2003 -- 9:45am Our director's computer seems to have caught some sort of bug - or should I say "ug?" - that causes the printer to skip over every lower case b. It's funny, so I can't stop laughing as she runs around yelling, "Bloody Hell!" Every time she flies past my door, frantically trying to find her 'b's, I laugh, and she glares at me and yells, "You're enjoying this!!!" Well, yes! I am! (Secretly, so is she.) Wednesday August 27, 2003 -- 4:50pm By the way, this page (the most frequently visited on this site) is 5 hits away from 3,000 hits!!! Cool! -- 4:40pm I feel very much at the mercy of gasoline, and I don't like it. It's not like any other product, which I can choose not to use or buy an organic or recycled version of. And I can't buy the generic version to save money. I can shop around for lower prices, but the difference is pennies. Not even pennies! Not even tenths of pennies. It's hundreths of pennies! Big deal. With a 45 minute commute each way, dwindling bank account, and steadily climbing gas prices I can do nothing to avoid, I'm beginning to panic. I'm also beginning to drive slower, which is probably a good thing, except for how it angers other people on the Northway. Tuesday August 26, 2003 -- 12:10pm Marlene returned to work today after two weeks of absence. Her mother died. I never know what to say to someone after such a thing, so, when I saw her, I said what I was truly feeling. "YAY!!! Marlene's back!!!" If anyone could use some old baggage from high school, I'd be willing to part with mine for a very reasonable price. I'm getting kind of tired of carting it around. Sunday August 24, 2003 -- 1:00pm HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH-MERRY!!! I would like to know how many people die annually from head injuries sustained while tripping over their cats. Saturday August 23, 2003 -- 1:30pm On Thursday I went to therapy and mentioned this one particular response I've had to being involved with someone after so long. Dr. Jay gave me a strange look and said, "That's crazy!" Very comforting. Hahaha Today is the LatinFest in the park. I can hear the awesome music, and I'm feeling very whitey-uptighty but loving it. I went over for a little while and it was cool to see the range of people there. Very diverse, running the entire spectrum of skin color - with me as the anchor on the far white end. I swear, I'll be see-through this winter if I don't get some sun soon. Steve took me to dinner last night at Elda's. We made the most of it, ordering a bottle of amazingly good wine and an appetizer of lobster crepe things. He had sirloin and shrimp and I had ridiculously delicious salmon in pesto sauce. I don't even want to think about what this cost. It was so much fun! The waiter brought us the wine and stood there waiting for approval while I tasted it. Classy gal that I am, I gave him a thumbs up. I wonder what would have happened if I'd said, "Eh.. it's all right, but not what I was hoping. Take it back!" My body revolted though. How come every time some lovely man tries to have a nice date with me, my entire gastro-intestinal system goes haywire? We'd intended to walk downtown to hang out with a couple of Steve's friends, but by the time we'd made the 1 1/2 block walk back to my apartment, I was doubled over with stomach cramps and could do nothing but lie in fetal position on the futon. I know it wasn't due to the dinner, because my stomach had been hurting before we went. I think it was directly related to my serious inability to control myself around donuts and the number of donuts present at work yesterday. I want to go to Cuba. Maybe I'll become a Canadian citizen so I can go there. But first I must vote in the 2004 American election. So that's the plan. Oust W., then go to Cuba. Maybe I'll take a dance lesson first. Thursday August 21, 2003 -- 8:10am Well, the Superoo behaved itself as one would expect a car to today, so maybe yesterday's incident was just a freakish bad hair day kind of thing and all is well. You know my philosophy: Ignore it and it will go away. Seems to be true of my health lately. I ignored it and it went away. Bleh. I am quite curious, though, about why the small furry animal population of Glenville is so suicidal. I'm going to demand that a federal investigation be launched. Wednesday August 20, 2003 -- 9:30am Ah! There's nothing quite like having your car stall in thick 75 mile an hour traffic first thing in the morning! The exhilaration! The test of skill! The sheer terror as you simultaneously try to work your way over to the breakdown lane before hitting that tricky on-ramp and try to remember how the hell to turn the hazard lights on! Yee-haw!!! Also, I put 11.7 gallons of gas into my 12 gallon tank this morning. Eish. Tuesday August 19, 2003 -- 3:50pm It takes real talent to run over a chipmunk while driving 30 miles an hour. I'm impressed. No, I did not do this. Someone else did, and I saw the evidence on a road I take to get to work. Several animals have tried to end it all under my wheels lately though, including THREE just this morning! Tonight I am having dinner made for me and doing laundry for free. Yep. I do like this boy. Monday August 18, 2003 -- 1:15pm I have been left alone in the office while everyone else went out to various lunch activities. The temptation to put my head down on the desk and sleep is tremendous. We are having assorted phone problems here today. First our after-hours greeting wouldn't turn off. Now Anne Marie's line is just completely dead. No one calls me anyway, so I'm fine. Another fun, tiring weekend. Alyce came to visit, and we had ourselves a time. It included karaoke, which was a new experience for me. No, I didn't sing. There's not enough gin in the world. I was, however, impressed with Steve's rendition of Van Halen's "Ice Cream Man." Poor Bennett has been so traumatized by the presence of Scary Strangers (i.e. anyone other than me) over the past couple of weeks that I think he's ready to quit being a scaredy cat. He probably figures he's just going to have to be brave if he ever wants to eat or poop anymore. Friday August 15, 2003 -- 2:40pm Holy boredom. I have found out several things. One is still quasi-secret, so I will just say YAY!!!! emphatically and leave you wondering. The other is that it would have done me no good to have wandered down to the usual Thursday night hang-out last night, because apparently it closed. Good grief! I must have missed the memo. Now where will we go?!? -- 12:20pm Well, that was interesting! So much for my plan to remain happily air-conditioned, eh? I left work a little after 4:30 yesterday, when we gave up on the power coming back to our office, and eventually made it to Steve's after a somewhat harrowing and traffic light-free drive back into Albany. Steve had power and made me some flame-broiled pizza, which was delicious, despite some charring. When I got back home at 7:30, my section of town still had no power. If I wasn't such a social-phobe freakazoid, I would have wandered out and joined the masses of people gathering on front steps and sidewalks. I was curious to see what was happening down at our usual Thursday night hang-out, but I ended up staying home and writing by candlelight until the power, disappointingly, came on at 9:20. I was enjoying the experiment which was forcing me to notice how automatic the priveledge of electricity is to me. I was also enjoying the not-too-surprising discovery that things like air-conditioning have really destroyed the concept of neighborhoods. It was so neat to see the way people emerged from their cells, candles and cold drinks in hand to share with the neighbors and passers-by, being... neighborly! Plus, I was really hoping not to have to come to work today, since I have nothing to do. Thursday August 14, 2003 -- 9:00am I had my first new job work-related dream last night! I feel official now. It was a minor anxiety dream about the after-school program I've been working on. In it, the kids ranged in age from 7 to 21 instead of being 7th and 8th graders, and they were out of control! I was only there as an observer, so at least it wasn't my fault. That dream comes later, I suppose. It's supposed to be 90 degrees today. I am trying to figure out how I can avoid non-air-conditioned places until after the sun goes down. Unfortunately, in order to get anywhere I have to go in my car, and the air-conditioning in the Superoo only works when it's already cool outside. Tuesday August 12, 2003 -- 4:30pm So, the weekend was fun. Nicolas arrived on Friday night... eventually. He claims my directions were faulty. The real story is that he forgot the directions when he left Bangor. I emailed a slightly abbreviated version to his mother in Augusta. I left out the repetitions of "STAY ON ROUTE 90, even if the signs tell you to do otherwise." In the revised directions, I only stated that once. Apparently that was a mistake. But he made it eventually, and we got some dinner before falling asleep early. Saturday's highlights included breakfast at the Miss Albany Diner, the museum, tours of Albany and Troy, lunch at Ichiban, and 3 different bars. I'm sure there was dinner in there somewhere too. Sunday found us at The Madison End with Dee for brunch, The Peace Pagoda for, um, peace, and then at Steve's to hang out. I got there just in time to see Jeff Gordon crash. Denny's for dinner, and then home, where Nicolas watched Star Wars and I dropped dead in a fit of overindulgence. All in all, a successful weekend. |
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