I Lied

once again i've been negligent in my posting. he won't let me use his computer. ok that's a lie too, but in my defense we've been busy. we attempted a trip to mud island (closed til april 08), went to see juno (beyond awesome), went out and about on the town yesterday (shopping and i got my nails done), played a game of scrabble against his family in which we completely dominated (we got lucky with our letters, i'll be honest), played a game of scattergories in which we did not do well (he did better than i), and now we're at his work for a brief bit to catch up on some stuff before the new year. tonight we'll be downtown partying hardy and looking good, come find us if you're looking for some fun!

Vaycay

in t-minus 9 hours i will be running off my plane into the memphis airport and directly to the reverend. i need sleep now, since i have to get up at 4:30 am to make this a reality. i will do my best to steal his computer while there and get posts up, and expect a plethora of newyear'sinmemphis and katieandpete pictures afterwards. peace out.

Who Knew This Day Would Come?

we all need to take a moment. i have repeatedly asked for this bag, largely as a joke. a serious, i want this bag but know noone will spend $400 on it for me kind of joke.

but then.

i looked online last night and found, lo and behold, that the bag had been Marked Down to half off (!) and that they were out of the red leather on the kenneth cole website. a panicked call to dillard's later and i had one on hold, promised to me at the markdown price. i called pete in excitement, as i had even gone to the length of showing it to him in real life when he was in kc, to let him know i was going to get my bag after all. his response? "don't get it. it's gotten."

what?!?*?#!

so the best man in the world, the hottest, greatest, nicest, smartest, best bloggerest reverend i know tonight bought me my new best friend, thanks to a cell phone call from the dillard's purse counter. it is gorgeous and lovely and quite possibly my favorite gift of forever and i can't wait to show it to him in person saturday morning...i'm so spoiled.

What Goes On Upstairs

they throw a dance party every night and, needing to clear space for the dancing, move every piece of furniture in their apartment.

one of them has OCD and needs to move all the items of furniture in their apartment one foot counter-clockwise every night. (counter-clockwise as in around the apartment, or counter-clockwise as in moving just each piece on its axis? i don't know, but it could very well be both.)

they have waxed their floors, and as a result every time they go to sit on or lean on a piece of furniture, it slides about two feet, and then they have to pull it back into place.

they are in interior design school and their homework is to constantly rearrange their apartment and photograph it.

they buy one new piece of furniture every day and every night must move everything else they already own to find a spot for the new stuff.

in an attempt to both get back at the landlord and eventually see into our apartment, they have decided the most efficacious manner would be to wear grooves in their hardwood by repeatedly sliding their furniture back and forth until they just poke through our ceiling, much in the same manner children think they can dig to china with a spade in their backyard.

and lastly, the theory put forth by my roommate: they are on crack and/or cocaine and have so much energy they literally just can NOT STOP MOVING THEIR FURNITURE.

Merry Merry

christmas was long and eventful. i won the best aunt category by presenting my 3 almost 4-year-old niece with a bike. went over very well. i was given several chai/coffee related gifts, a new digi cam (expect better pics soon), a jewelry armoire which i need help filling (alert: reverend, take notice), giftcards, perfume, and many other things. now i'm snug in my room with the new jewelry armoire all set up, and just awaiting giving my last pile of presents to the man from memphis. also given in the best aunt category: wellesley gear!!:

The Sound of Silence

this was the weekend the internet decided it was tired of visiting our apartment. more specifically, our wireless router gave up on life. i actually have a legit excuse for not posting for once. now i'm at my mom's house on the wireless network there, so i guess it's family time. off to watch it's a wonderful life for the 47th year in a row. god bless us, every one!

Simple Pleasures

cats know how to do it. each night when bowser comes to join me on my bed while i sit on my laptop or with my nose in a book, he stops on my serasoft throw blanket at the end of my bed and kneads it. for a good two minutes, he just sinks his paws into the softness, his eyes narrowing and an obvious look of catly pleasure taking over his face. then he finds a spot that is just right and snuggles right down into the blanket to bask in my yellow lighting and sometimes my cooing and petting. it's easy to take for granted the cushy luxuries i have every day, the working in the #1 architectural marvel of 2007, the having a more-wonderful-by-the-day boyfriend, the feeling of a fifty degree day in late december. here's to not forgetting, remembering to notice and appreciate, and divining the same kind of intense pleasure from those simple things that bowser finds in my throw blanket.

Chubby Cheeks

he is abnormally strong. he's been holding his own head up practically since he was born, death gripping my finger, and now going for my hair at any given opportunity. he is easily mesmerized by lighty-uppy things. we have pictures of him with glazed eyes and drool as he watches baby einstein. he's been kind of anxious since he was born, with some level of separation anxiety - brayden can entertain himself on his own forever with nary a worry, but tyler gets fussy and upset should he not be able to see people for a second. his dad can always calm him, smooshed to his chest with a bouncing movement to get him to sleep, while his mom can always make him laugh and smile his chubby smile. he can be finicky, but when he smiles and laughs he is the greatest little man around. he is tyler blake.

Notions of Grandiosity

two hundred pages into the bio on john adams and i feel kind of...inadequate. the man, from mccullough's glowing descriptions, virtually established our nation, founded the navy, established education as a necessity for a stable american society, wrote the massachusetts constitution, acted as an emissary to france, and this is all before he became president. i'm only at the point where he's 44 years old. not to mention he had about a zillion children with a woman he not only adored and loved but respected, admired, and valued, walked five to ten miles a day, and was often forced into periods of geographical estrangement from all that he knew and loved.

and then there's me...granted, i'm only 23, and at this point in his life john adams was a schoolteacher in worcester, but i cannot pretend to suppose i will reach one eighteenth of all that adams accomplished by the age of 45. he lived in a time where people were expected to converse in french and english, read greek and latin, know intimately the texts of all of the esteemed ancient roman and greek philosophers, and to not only intimately be able to work in these and more modern texts into everyday conversation but to analyze them and draw new and dynamically appropriate lessons and conclusions from them. i barely remember my italian, and cannot pretend to even know all of the letters of the greek alphabet. i wonder...if our modern politicians were expected to uphold themselves to the same levels of learning our founding fathers did as a matter of course, would they have possibly, maybe, somehow learned a LESSON somewhere in HISTORY that might have stayed their hand from getting involved in, i don't know, afghanistan/iraq/iran? i might be just a lay historian now, but the more i read about pretty much any period of the past previous to the past three generations or so, the more lamentable, ignorant, uneducated, close-minded, and lazy i find my current society. no offense, guys.

Resist This

he is flirty. he flashes his two-toothed grin at anyone that'll look at him, jam one or more fists in his mouth, and squeal like a high-frequency ham radio gone awry. while his younger cousin tyler will make noises of the goo goo ga ga variety, in an obvious attempt to form words, brayden merely tests out his vocal range with extended sounds. so extended that people look around the restaurant we are in, wondering where the emergency broadcast noises are coming from. he loves his light-up toy, his ducky toy with the chewable legs/arms/feet/hands/face/tag/body, and my glasses. if given the opportunity, he will pull your drink over, steal your silverware, and eat your napkin. and then flash his teeth. he is brayden alexander.

Lazy Days

yesterday and today were my days off. i have done nothing more eventful than sleeping, reading, and eating. i actually slept a great deal, due in large part to closing my blackout curtains and being sick. i am still fighting bronchitis, though at least the debilitating exhaustion that accompanies it has finally worn off. just the coughing, coughing, coughing is left. i finished one book (the hotel new hampshire) and started another today (john adams, by my favorite biographer, david mccullough), and am consequently deeply embroiled in the events of our nation's founding. these events make for a much more dynamic and interesting read once you've actually been to boston and philadelphia, for some reason. i advocate taking all schoolchildren of the nation to these sites...nothing like bringing history alive. also, i am a nerd.

also also, i had a visitor today, his name is gizmo:my roommate's sister's dog, gizmo was under my watchful eye briefly as they went to the store, during which time we enthusiastically played with a cat toy. this was the peak of energy i expended for the day.

Sisters

i have nothing to blog about, so i figured i'd introduce you to my sisters. aren't they charming? this was four summers ago, at the 4th of july, and they were miserable in the heat. now these two are mothers. tremble at the thought.

Currently

...listening to john legend and my neighbors upstairs move stuff around.
---wearing a green tanktop and pink comfy pants and my plushy green cozy socks.
...reading The Hotel New Hampshire by john irving.
---battling a minor headache.
...debating whether or not to turn on the tv.
---considering going to bed.
...thinking that reading in bed is just as restful as going to bed.
---feeling too lazy to blowdry my hair.
...having fuzzy thoughts about the reverend.
---counting the days til my memphis new year's trip.
...wanting someone to make a scrabulous move.
---craving something but just not sure what.
...determined to finish more of the two books i got out of the library tomorrow.
---running out of verbs to start these sentences with.

I Choked on Air

still in bed. all day. with a brief break for vietnamese for dinner, and an attempt at a drive to the plaza which rapidly ended when i was seized with a coughing fit that had tears streaming down my face and me nearly throwing up in my lap while i drove as fast as possible to a bottle of water. that was not fun, and will teach me to leave my house and try to buy things for other people. guess i learned my lesson. tomorrow, another attempt at going to work. gearing up.

Word of the Day

bronchitis.

so now i'm on meds, hoping to get over bronchitis before new year's and the ill party i'll be attending.

this is what i wish for:i just need someone to squeeze into a cat carrier with. but how nice and warm and cozy does that look?

Me + Bed = Good

that is about as coherent of a thought as i can put together right now. i have been in bed for the past two days straight and i kind of don't want to leave it. let's see how tomorrow goes. so far i've been feeling detached and floaty a la tylenol pm hangovers, exhausted, and just not-wanting-to-get-out-of-bed-y. i may have brought up once or twice before how comfy my bed is, but here is the official proclamation that my bed rocks and is comfy and i might just never leave it. i'm tired. wah. starting to feel like the dude with the man cold from the video below. i callllleedddd.....

Hi My Name is Katie, I Am Paranoid

last night was the biggest brouhaha to hit our house since move-in day, and it all started because i felt weird.

let me preface the whole thing by saying that i have a cold, haven't been feeling super great, and spent most of yesterday lounging around in bed. after an entire afternoon of being a blob, i was feeling lightheaded, with a mild headache and kind of dizzy. i hadn't had much to drink, so i could've been dehydrated, but my mind sort of naturally went straight to carbon monoxide. because that is the first logical response to feeling weird, right?

so when my roommate nikki got home i asked her to let me know if she started feeling strange, so i would know if i were crazy or not. she remarked that, oddly enough, after hanging out at home for a while the previous day, she had started feeling strange. feeding off of each other and the reverend yelling at me to go get a detector, nikki and i went out in the ice storm to get a carbon monoxide alarm.

bring it back, open it up and put the batteries in, and not 2 minutes later it goes off. red light flashing, screaming at us to seek fresh air. we run around in circles in a lightheaded (in my case) panic, nikki putting the cats into a carrier as we go to the other apartments in the house to let them know. lo and behold we come to discover that carbon monoxide has been a problem in this house before. awesome. we go outside on the front porch in freezing rain and 30 degree temperatures, call the fire department and our parents, and wait. the fire truck roars up with lights blaring just a couple of minutes later, and the guys go in with their little CO detector doohickey. then i find out that an ambulance is on the way for me, as i'm the one with the symptoms. the firefighters go all through the house and find zero ppm carbon monoxide. good ending, except here i am, drama queen, with the poor paramedics rushing in to help me for something that is apparently all in my head.

i refused assistance, they left after filling out some paperwork, and i laid down to relax from the carbon monoxide symptoms i had apparently inflicted upon myself. it was then that i realized that i had taken two swigs of delsym cough syrup earlier in the day, from a bottle that is over a year old and probably has distilled itself to a higher potency. it left me feeling so woozy and dizzy that i slept until 3:30 pm today. most dramatic night in a while, all for nothing. but better safe than sorry!

I Caaaalllleeddd...But You Didn't Cooommmee...

(thanks to dooce, i'm borrowing this)
this video truly speaks the truth. i cannot possibly remember all the times i have helped some poor bereft guy with the sniffles, laid low by something that would barely be a hiccup in my day. this video makes me laugh til i cry.

Tis The Season

i spent all day shopping. and then all evening wrapping and boxing and prettifying. plus two trips back out to the store for things i forgot. those are the worst kind of trips to the store...makes me feel like i may or may not have early onset alzheimer's, how often i have to turn around and get all cold-weatherified to go back outside and back to the store to get some one single ingredient that i had forgotten. but at least i am dedicated enough to go out instead of just scrapping the whole shebang and curling up in bed with a special on LC from the hills. combatting that urge though is my compulsive need to do something right.now. and it must happen that second or else the world may possibly cease to exist. this is what makes me go to walgreen's at 9 pm to get gift tags. because WHAT IF I WRAPPED MY PRESENTS AND DIDN'T TAG THEM THIS SECOND OH.MY.GOD.?!? but don't worry, it's all done and wrapped and tagged.

Update

no one has yet stepped up with a donation for my dream bag. there is still time! don't be left out of the donation pool and therefore my affections.

my knee is being wonky. old war injury...i inflamed my kneecap playing racquetball in college, and it is flaring up again. i feel like i might be able to let you know when cold fronts are coming through.

the streets are icy. it is sleeting. i am now going into hibernation.

i need to go to the library tomorrow. i have high hopes of finding the hotel new hampshire back in, but if i don't i think i'm going to start tackling my list of david mccullough biographies.

i have become gainfully employed a second time over. i will be working in a well-known home decor store for part-time hours. this is essential if i will ever come out from under my credit card debt. so hellooooo 60 hour work weeks.

my dinner was vegetarian in nature tonight. it consisted of wheat thins chips (multi grain), rice with kc masterpiece bbq sauce, and awesomely sauteed asparagus. what did i really want? a steak.

Good Intentions

i had all good intentions of posting last night. i was reading a very captivating book (the devil in the white city by erik larson) after catching up on tila tequila's latest antics, but had left my laptop open and on so i could squeeze in a short post before bed. and yet somehow i found myself shutting down the computer and going to bed, without ever posting. i do this a lot, telling myself i will do such and such at a specific point in time, and then completely forgetting to do so. i of course realized i hadn't posted the minute i laid down to sleep, but at that point the computer was irretrievably turned off and there was no going back. also this small entry goes to show what a l.a.m.e. friday night i had, sitting in bed reading and watching tv. but ok, this is what i do every week. so maybe it is just me that is l.a.m.e.?

Piano Man

tonight my friend jen and i went to the billy joel concert in the new sprint center in downtown kc. i love being in midtown, only ten minutes down main st. from the new big arena and lots of great shows. you may remember me going to go see the so you think you can dance show in the same arena, but this show, i have to say, blew that show out of the water. we were in row 21 off of the floor, at billy joel's 8 o'clock (so sort of behind and to the left-ish of the stage). this is basically our view:besides not playing uptown girl, the piano man did it right and kept us amazingly entertained for 2 hours solid - no intermission. we had a blast, and the best moment of the show was the encore: his singing "piano man" along with the entire audience, all of us standing and singing together. it was really, really cool. good show.

Same Old Story

every time the reverend and i are together, we have a through-the-roof kind of good time. i'm sure it gets old for my four loyal readers, but it's true. and we apparently can't help it.

we made it to many kc tourist attractions, including:yj's, the hippest hipster spot for coffee in the crossroads,fritz's, where a train brings you your dinner,union station & its ginormous christmas tree,the zoooooooooooooooooo!!!,and finally, the nelson-atkins museum of art and its oldenburg/van bruggen shuttlecocks. we covered most of the greater kc metro area, had amazing meals, went to crazy fun places, and had an all-too-short but intensely amazing visit. now we're back to a t-minus situation, and it's jumped back up to over 3 weeks. but he always tells me to focus on the positive so huzzah! 3 weeks is less than 4!

Bullseye!

you have just lost a game of pool to your girlfriend. then, to add insult to injury or rub salt in your wounds, you lose a game of darts to her as well. a second game is well underway, and you appear to be falling behind once again. this is when it's time to go balls out and try to shoot with your eyes closed:you shoot, and before you can remove your hand from your eyes, you hear your girlfriend say, "HOLY SHIT."bullseye. you shoot two more darts, and in some freakish spasm of luck, hit the exact numbers you need to get to zero and win the game. you then raise your arms in the air in your V for victory stance and strut around the dartboard area of the bar, proclaiming to all who can hear and see your skills at darts.then you take a cheesy picture with your winning board, and promptly lose the next game.

Ccccchhh Chhhhhh

the title of today's blog translates to the sound of me breathing through my mouth as my nasal passages are completely under construction, this ramp is closed. i hate being a mouth breather, it makes me feel gauche and uncouth and all those things that wasps call impolite. so ready to be unclogged. lame.

Cento

THIS IS POST ONE HUNDRED.

one hundred posts in under 4 months. i think that's a pretty awesome percentage. the only unawesome thing is i have nothing terribly exciting to report. i just vacuumed my apartment. and scrubbed my bathroom. um...i washed my sheets? tantalizing, i know. oh, and i did the dishes. and lit candles (baked apple pie and a fir candle, interesting but holiday-ish mix). worked, cleaned, ate chili, aaaand sat around sniffling.

happy one hundredth post to me!

Put Your Hood Up

i am currently enshrined in my large, amply hooded robe. this is my retreat when i feel like shiz, and when i really feel icky, the hood goes up. it doesn't make my dried-out sinuses feel so much better, but it helps the psyche. i guess it's just that time of year, but i think i'm going to have to take my humidifier back from my sister and create the jungle-like environment i was known to have in my dorm rooms in college. moisture, yummy yummy moisture. maybe i should just leave my shower going all night...would that be bad for the environment and all that? i don't pay for the water - i know it would be wrong but the idea appeals.

Be the Tree

once again, i'm fresh out of material. pretty much coasting through the week waiting for saturday to arrive. in the meantime, i have dredged up another embarassing photo of me, this one from senior year of college. we are lucky enough to have had a very enthusiastic, poetic, entrancing, and possibly slightly kooky dean at wellesley that often encouraged us to become one with nature, feel the wind in our hair, coo like the young doves we were that had all sorts of potential to take poetic flight on breaths of scented air, and the like. so i felt the moment one night after allegedly drinking more than i'm used to (i think i had a mike's and a daiquiri...woah i am OUT OF CONTROL), and i became a tree. i've had a rough time living this picture down, but whatever, i own it, i was a tree, i was a cool tree, and i was one with nature.

T-Minus

116 hours. i can't decide if that sounds like less than just under 5 days from now, or more. i plan on spending at least 35 of those hours asleep, so really just 81 hours! that's not that many, right?

also, it's amazing how much finally putting coffee tables in your living room and throwing up some holiday decor makes an apartment way more homey...we should leave the christmas tree up year-round.

Love of My Life

trickery: i'm not writing about the reverend. i went shopping with my mom today, and i met the new love of my life in the field of accessories (don't worry mr. anderson, you're still the number one human for me...). his name is kenneth cole, and his look is gorgeousness:i would take it in the red, too. i am hereby initiating the buy-katie-a-$400-bag-because-she-wants-and-deserves-it fund. if you are willing to contribute, please leave a comment and i will contact you as to where to send your sizable, $50 minimum donations. i haven't been able to focus on anything else for the rest of the day, so please help me refocus my life and buy me this bag. i will never buy another. um until i find another cute one...but this one will definitely last for a few years.

Self-Humiliation/Immolation

i have nothing to talk about tonight, so i decided to post an old and humiliating picture of me to spice things up. the above is the immediate aftermath to my wisdom teeth removal, courtesy of kderrick as instructed by my mother. i was awake for that surgery (my only surgery ever, as i'm far too cautious and wussy to have anything actually go wrong with me), so i remember the whole shebang. luckily/bizarrely, i had my ipod going in one ear to help me relax, so i had a soundtrack to the surgery, and remember being tripped out that i could watch the dentist's hand go up and down while he stitched me shut. i had all four teeth out and spent that evening in the health services office of wellesley college, run by goddesses that brought me lukewarm soup and cold ice packs and cups to spit blood in. lovely, i know. i'm a delicate flower. with big puffy cheeks.

I'm Taking Him to the Ballet Soon

this is how i feel right now: like a 5 month old little boy whose mom says that real men don't wear pink, but has been put in a cozy pink hoodie only to be in danger of it being imminently ripped off by his gender-constricting mother. mostly tired with a dash of indignant. also in need of coziness.

Happy Turkey Day Etc.

i just forgot to post yesterday. i had partially crafted a post in my head that went: "it is winter now. lame." that may have not been the most compelling post i would have ever written, so it's probably for everyone's benefit that it never made it up here.

i slept in today, luxury of luxuries, all the way til 9:45. after a shower and primping, i went and spent about an hour at starbucks with a chai latte and the book the devil's knot by mara leveritt. then a trip to walmart for some thanksgiving supplies (coloring book & crayons for my niece to keep her distracted, check.), then to my dad's house to pick him up for thanksgiving at my mom's. then nothing but a normal thanksgiving of lots of food, lazing around, and being full. the only new thing this year was having an infant around who likes to style and eat my hair.

after dinner and taking my dad home, i wanted another chai to round out my day, so my mom and my scrabble board and i headed out to starbucks. except: NO STARBUCKS WERE OPEN. anywhere. what the? i so wanted a chai latte. but apparently starbucks employees are allowed to have thanksgiving evening off, which is basically unacceptable. plus i was unable to break in my scrabble board...we'll probably be stranded together til the reverend gets here next week. sad.

Fiori

today was a hectic day. i kickstarted my week and day wonderfully with a call from my manager at 9:15, asking if i was ok - i was supposed to be at work at 9. tooootally forgot. so that was a nice adrenaline rush as i flew to work, and then i just hit the ground running...we had all expected holiday traffic to hit this friday, giving us today and tomorrow to gear up and prepare the store, but this was not so much the case. we were busy from the minute we opened, and stayed that way. i was running up and downstairs, around the store, going crazy trying to get product received in for our merchandiser today, when my coworker stops me to tell me that security said i have a delivery at the command center. my mind ran through all the vendors i have personally worked with lately, and who might've dropped something off in my name of all people. then, it clicked. and, of course, i rush over in the midst of this hectic day to find these:so i took a moment, smelled the roses, and once again felt spoiled and loved...and for some reason all the tension of the day eased off and i had a smile from then on out. good day today.

Carpe Diem

fall is pretty much over, as evidenced by the billion pounds of leaves the trees in our yard have unceremoniously dumped on the ground. i have to basically guess where our driveway is every time i leave home, somewhere in the field of yellow. but it is kind of pretty. and today was gorgeous out, low 70s and sunny, which i was incredibly excited to go out and enjoy until i looked at our weather prediction for this thanksgiving week:lame. snow?? lame.

so i went out and seized this, one of two last apparent days of nice weather before months of suck. went out to the legends as i said i would, and found a dress in the first store, first dress, first thing i tried on. we (shopping addicts) know how difficult and rare this is. and i'm excited. so excited that i called pete who could barely restrain his non-excitement. nonetheless, it is cuteness, fits well, and was ON SALE. we all know how i love things ON SALE. and this was a sale at an outlet store, is there anything better? anyway, here's the dress, ooh and ahh at your leisure:

Not Me

it is once again time to revert back to saying that it was not my fault for not posting last night. i was on the phone with pete and in the midst of a scrabulous tournament involving lots of silent stretches on the phone broken by "invalid word?! hairnob isn't an invalid word!" of course, i lost all games played last night, causing me to fall into a sleep coma til this morning. it also might have been all the shopping on top of the shopping i did yesterday, hoorah for christmas shopping! and now i have an official shopping project to guide today's day off: i need a dress for a new year's extravaganza. do i have dresses? yes. but none that are Just Right. malls around the greater metro area, beginning with the legends, here i come.

People Watching

during those slow times at work, those times where i'm leaning ninety percent of my body weight on our glowing glass counter to avoid collapsing into a tired puddle on our cushioned floor mats, i have ample time to consider each and every person that enters and exits the store. one thing i've been studying lately about these people is how they enter the store. some customers enter like they have rolled out of bed, thrown on something comfy, and are strolling into their kitchens for a cup of coffee. comfort, confidence, a certain degree of ownership. they know where they're going and what they're looking for, and they do that. even if their aim is to just browse.

some people edge in, testing the water with their tippy toes, a little nervous and possibly overwhelmed by all the stimuli of lights and colors and textures and sounds. they kind of skirt around all the islands of product, hesitantly drifting a finger over something or other, maybe even daring to pick something up to look at the price.

and then there are the bluffers, people who like to act like they own the joint but are really kind of nervous under it all. these are usually the college kids, clutching their sketch pads and raggedy sheets of questions from their professors, acting cocksure but really not feeling so comfortable in a store with $2000 items.

i guess these are three of several reactions people must have to museums in general, depending on how often they've been to one, how much they know about art, how much they get intimidated by large buildings, how wealthy they are, and how confident they are in themselves, among other things. it's all pretty interesting, and it's always fun to categorize people the minute they walk into the store. though i promise i am openminded...

Long Days

feeling better, but worked for over 11 hours today (which i volunteered for, admittedly - holla for overtime pay!). consequently am tired. and yet i have to gear up for a 10 hour shift tomorrow. so there's that. i DID, however, come home to YET ANOTHER gift: this time a more "practical" gift of a 1 GB flash drive. super handy, and super sweet of the continuously wonderful reverend. i know, i know, blechhh stop being all i <3 him he is the bestest, but apparently i can't help it. i think i've regressed to acting like a 16 year old. his fault.

Meh

i've kind of felt like junk today. felt progressively like i'm getting a cold as the day wore on - achy, tired, sore throat, tight chest, all the key signs. thank you to the many people that have come in to both work in the store and to shop in the store that have hacked all over everything before handing me things dripping in snot and viruses. ok maybe that's dramatic...but purel was invented for a reason, people. now i just feel like junky tiredness, so i'm off to bed. huzzah for boring posts.

Holy Scrabulous!

i have played 13 games on scrabulous (The Best application on facebook) against the reverend. his consistently superior vocabulary skills and ability to always hit the triple word score tiles have resulted in 12 straight losses for me. but then. but then:holy shiz & scrabulosity, i won!

Rotten

i am quite possibly the most spoiled girl on the planet. i get back from my little weekend jaunt to memphis, work for the day, get home, and find a little package. a package with a gorgeous, wonderful pearl necklace from this ridiculous guy who loves spoiling me. call me spoiled, call me lucky, but i love it.

Certifiable

i dropped off of the face of the planet there for a couple days, but for once i have a legitimate, albeit insane, excuse: i decided to hop over to memphis for my two days off. saturday i woke up at 8:30 am, worked a ten hour shift, went out with friends for a few hours, and then decided to leave kansas city at 12:30 am for memphis. as i said to pete upon arrival, i am really glad i did that, but for the love of god do not let me do that again...i had to stop eleven times on my 8.5 hour drive there - i had the shakes, the chills, felt like i was outside of my body, and various other entertaining results of no sleep. when i got to memphis i very romantically said hi i feel nauseous i need to sleep. but because i have an understanding and wonderful boyfriend, he was not offended and put me straight to bed.

after a refreshing nap and shower, he and i hit the town for lunch (crepes), caffeine (venti chai latte), and entertainment (the zoooooooooooooooo!). while at starbucks, i learned the downfall of having a gorgeous boyfriend with panty-dropping blue eyes (his description, not mine): the barista chatted with only him, refraining from even looking at me despite the fact that i was immediately next to him, failed to put a cardboard sleeve on my drink ("hi, can i get a sleeve for my drink?"..."oh yeah. here."), and also made a crappy chai latte. whatever, i kissed him thanks for my drink in front of her. bitch.

annnnyway, so we went to the zoo, had a blast as we tend to do, went home for more caffeination (i was still running on approximately one hour of sleep to thirty hours of awakeness), and then went to germantown for dinner with his parents and little sister. had a nice steak dinner with them, then back home again to watch curb your enthusiasm, and then bed where i passed out cold.

today was sleeping in for me, work for him, and then lunch together. i managed to not bawl my eyes out this time, and left memphis around one. just got back to kc at 9 pm, and am a tad tired. but happy. if i hadn't gone to get this little nibble of the reverend to tide me over, we would have gone six weeks without seeing each other, which is basically unexcusable. so that is my long, drawn out excuse for not posting for a couple days. i may be certifiable, but at least it's for someone and not just me full of crazy.

Mission Accomplished

yes i am that ahead of the game - christmas gifts are on their way to a few of my friends...working in retail does have its benefits, namely getting gifts done and done several months ahead. i feel so on top of my game.

Sure, No Problem! I Hate You!

retail at christmas: teaches you the true horrible-ness of human nature. people are demanding, rude, self-absorbed, and impatient. and they like to treat me like i am about 12 years old and quite possibly slightly mentally challenged. and yet i have to stay happy, encouraging, interested, and helpful at all times. no wonder i come home every night and collapse on to my bed, unable to move for the rest of the evening and often passing out for hour-long naps. it is mentally exhausting to be so chipper. but try me...i will always give the best customer service, with a smile, even if i then go to the back office and punch something. and cuss a blue streak.

Grand Opening!

because i have no creativity tonight whatsoever, i am going to basically do my own version of the rev's most recent post....

so yay! go support his store, chock full of awesome merchandise that i helped design in some small way. he's not making any money off of this, it's just a strictly for-fun enterprise, so he's basically a non-profit foundation now. and who doesn't support non-profits? i know i do. as one satisfied customer said: "Wow! I just got my Your Neighborhood Reverend hoodie in the mail and - oh boy does it keep me warm! And let me tell all you guys out there - I have never had a larger number of attractive ladies approach me for casual sex than when I first wore my Your Neighborhood Reverend hoodie! Get one for yourself and one for a friend!" also just go read him, since he's talented and interesting and also hot. not that i'm biased.

Um, Oops?

i just belatedly, blearily realized i did not blog last night. but here's the thing - the real housewives of orange county started their new season last night. and then i had to fulfill a chai tea latte craving at like 9 pm (and i did not get a nonfat, gasp!)...so as you can see i was pretty busy doing important things. i'll post something more interesting tonight.

Lazing

this whole having days without work thing is really not working for me. i waste half the day in bed and then "waking up slowly" (something i always viewed as a crap excuse by my parents but now completely enjoy doing), then i have to shower and do my hair, then i generally go out and spend money. this is not a good pattern. i suppose it's alright if i'm spending the money on other people, but it is inevitable that, as happened at the mall yesterday, spending money on others often turns into hey i like that i'll just get it while i'm here how convenient! who wants to offer me a job that doesn't require me much but keeps me out of the malls on my days off?

in rereading this post i realize that i come off pretty vapid. um, i have no real excuse for that as i love shopping, but tis the season and i have a valid excuse for living in stores. plus now that i work in retail it's fun to see what other stores carry our products. ok lame ass excuse i know, but that's all i can come up with...it's not like i'm out saving third world babies on my days off, i'm shopping. ok i'll look into doing something more beneficial to mankind instead. non ministrari sed ministrare and all that, ok ok ok.

On the Hunt

i realize that i missed a post in there somewhere. but maybe i didn't? maybe you just lost it. way to go.

i like this new tactic of just blaming my 3 readers for my not posting. makes me feel better, at least.

in my preliminary casing-the-joint hunt for christmas presents, i wound up at our local mall yesterday. and when i say local i mean it is way the hell down the highway from here - i don't really know where malls are down here and i like the comfort of a mall i can navigate with my eyes closed. i spent a good amount of time in stores i rarely enter, trying to dredge up ideas for what to get my family, my roommates, and my pete. i have a list from none of them. but as i said previously, i am a gifted gift giver (ooh alliteration) and i can surmount any gift giving challenge.

now ask me what i left the mall with. a new pair of pants for me and a nonfat chai tea latte. something fell through the cracks here.

The Giving Syndrome

for some reason i am addicted to giving gifts. i take much smaller notice of the cost of something if it is not for me, and i love getting pretty packaging for gifts, or greeting cards, or what have you. ask my boyfriend - he's been getting a gift or a card in the mail pretty much weekly from me, for no good reason. just because i see things out and about that i think he would enjoy, so i send them. i'm already done getting christmas/hanukkah gifts for my friends (all bought at the store where i work, which makes it much easier to spend money sometimes), and now i'm trying to drum up ideas for my family. i consider myself a pretty talented gift giver; i tend to find the gift that people don't know they want or need but LOVE when they get it. or the dumb gift that people just wouldn't spend the money on themselves, like the time i bought my friend ben the biggest possible box of his favorite kind of plain old bic pen - he was ecstatic. but i'm having some small amount of trouble coming up with gift ideas for my 4 and 5 month old nephews, who literally need for nothing. i'm leaning towards something educational, as i consider myself their cultural and educational advisor from now til forever, but i'm just not excited over much. what are your opinions on the following art cards for babies, made by a company called wee gallery that we carry in our store? i think they're pretty cool (frameable even, for the chic nursery), and a possible idea for the boys, though who knows if they'd ever get used...thoughts?

Curled

fall always feels like this time to me where i kind of curl in on myself. leaves curl up and die, people retreat indoors as the weather gets cooler, and everything just seems quieter. i get, if possible, even more introverted during the fall, just wanting to enter into a hibernatory phase to prepare for winter. fall is my quiet time. to compound this, i am happier now than i can ever remember being. everything is falling into place for me, and i just feel a warm glow all the time that i just try to bank and hold steady. i am finally truly celebrating my mantra of drishta dharma sukha viharin - dwelling happily in things as they are.

Blame Scrabulous

i will not be posting anything very extensive tonight as i am in a heated scrabble tournament that is about to wrap up but is nonetheless taking over my night. talk to you all latahz.

I'm Getting Controversial

i need to come up with something more controversial to drum up readers. i have now entered into a low-level competition of readership numbers with the reverend, who for some reason has a steadily rising number of visitors to his blog. it must be mentioned here, once and for all, that i am the one that made him start a blog, that he has admitted that 40% of his readers come from this very blog, and that i therefore am the sole reason he has any readers at all. so really i already won this competition.

but anyway.

what are your thoughts on gay marriage? i am pro. i consider myself an ally, i support the notion that people want to enter into lasting and legal bonds to show the world and each other how important they are to each other. as was always a popular chalking on campus on NCOD (national coming out day): love is love is love. i want to be married someday, and i see no reason why any other human being should be denied that desire simply because of who they want to marry. our wonderful christian fascist rightwingers would lead us to believe that if we allow them to marry the entire united states might just plunge forthwith into a fiery abyss where people marry donkeys, terrorists target america, and all children will fail to ever know what a true marriage is like between man and woman because they will only know the corruption that is a loving same-sex marriage. with the number of people currently in therapy over the divorces, trysts, abuses, and more that their parents have had and committed, i think our country is f-ed up enough already - what could it hurt to see two people who are so committed to and in love with each other that, despite all adversity and odds, they would have a public ceremony to declare just that? commitment and love are apparently not good things. who knew.

Cravings

late night food cravings are bad. i don't think eating chips & salsa right now would be the best plan. acid reflux is also bad. but who am i kidding...i have food cravings all the time. i ended up at the store after dinner tonight for brownies to put in my ice cream. my cravings are also healthy. super healthy. just like me.

Two Days in One

last night got away from me, what with the laying around and the reading and the talking on the phone. all i missed out on telling you was how i went to the museum yesterday to show my niece, reagan, all there is to see about culture in kansas city. i've taken her before, and she had three requests: to see the shuttlecocks, the lion (our lifesize greek lion), and the "horse with sticks" (a modern sculpture of a horse constructed of mud and sticks). so we ran around outside to see all of the shuttlecocks (there are 4), saw the lion and the horse, got a treat from the museum store, and watched tom & jerry for the ride home. the outing got rave reviews from the little one, so it was a hit all around.

today was a wonderful lazy day, largely spent lounging, facebook chatting, reading at starbucks with a chai tea latte, and then cleaning and mopping my house. then i was treated to a ridiculous dinner by my roommate: breadcrumb & peppercorn crusted chicken tenders with ginger mashed potatoes and stir-fried veggies all covered in a citrus honey asian sauce, ALL made from scratch. super good. and yet, even though i'm so full i'm comatose, i keep thinking about my starbucks lite coffee ice cream. to dessert or not to dessert...

So You Think You Can....

my mom and sisters are obsessed with the tv show "so you think you can dance." i watched some of it while living with my mom, and it is a good show - the people in it actually have talent, and dancing is always cool. so when their tour came to town, my mom bought me, my sisters, and my sister's mother-in-law tickets. tonight was the show. it was really cool, and i'm not sure how the dancers kept up the energy for over two hours of dancing, but they did. it makes me want to go take one of those dance aerobics classes like zumba or whatever it is. anyway, my sisters and i have the potential to act "special" when we are around each other, and this is what happened during intermission:we are cool.

Dang It

i'm too tired to come up with a stunning post in the next 7 or so minutes. i didn't do much today. i worked. i got my library card for the kcmo district. i checked out a john irving novel at the urging of the reverend. i went grocery shopping and somehow came home with toiletries, a loaf of asiago cheese ciabatta bread, and guacamole. and drano. all night i've just been reading and cleaning. i cleaned most of the apartment, all of myself, and all of my clothes. clean cleanness. so that was my friday night...way too exciting, i know.

Cavalierly?

a lesson learned from working in high-end retail: when you are setting the prices for $1500 vases and become convinced that people will surely buy them, you begin to treat your own money kind of cavalierly (is that a word?). oh sure $40 on whatever crap, that's not THAT much... not good. i'm going to be broke soon. i need a financial backer. anyone? anyone?

Swelles

tonight i gave a talk. that makes me sound important. all i really did was report to the kansas city wellesley club about what i saw and did at the alumnae leadership council two weekends back. but apparently me regaling them with tales of my exploits worked, because i got rave reviews from across the board. in addition, i met several very cool alumnae, and had some good snacks. being around all these powerful ladies always reminds me of what a strong network we have of smart women who may or may not secretly rule the country. ignore the fact that it took me three tries driving by to find the house where i was supposed to go. i blame it on the boy, who was distracting me on the phone. i can totally read house numbers.

Day Two in STL

our second day in the lou we got a later start than the first, but still respectable. we headed out for lunch, hoping for "handmade mexican" as advertised by pete's GPS navigator, only to find a completely desolate mexican restaurant in clayton, mo that didn't seem all too appealing. a short walk down the block and we found chipotle's. and even better, starbucks across the road. we hit both, leaving starbucks not only with our standard drinks but also two new gorgeous starbucks travel mugs, matching, of course. are we addicts? maybe.

from gorgeously cute clayton we headed to the equally idyllic park setting of the st. louis art museum and the st. louis zoo. first we spent a bit walking the front of the museum, largely because i am a super slow coffee drinker and needed to finish it up before entering. we then spent a bit wandering through the museum, pete setting off an alarm in the process, luckily not followed by a tackling security guard (actually, security never even showed).

next was a quick drive through the park to the zoo, another free st. louis hotspot. first order of business was a coke slushee, which i believe i may have paid about $17 for. then we saw the bears, the penguins, the big cats, the giraffes & zebras & gazelles and all of that, plus many interesting people, events, and halloween decorations. then it was back to the room, then back out for indian food (i took his indian-food-virginity, and he's fully converted). then a dip in the pool, then sleep.

our last morning in stl consisted mostly of me moping that we were having to leave each other. it also was spent at denny's for brunch doing the crossword while we ate. then a trip to starbucks (which was initally led astray by our usually trusty GPS, who decided we should go to the starbucks that was actually inside the airport), then back to the hotel where i pretty much lost it. this weekend was easily top 3 in my life (another one spent in memphis, so strangely 2 out of 3 good weekends have involved the reverend), and i DID NOT in all Capital Letters want it to end. hate it. nonetheless, we both had to get home, so we did despite my trying to hold him hostage at my car in the parking lot of the comfort inn. i can easily highly recommend st. louis, but go with company as good as mine and it will be perfect.

Tourism at its Finest

well, i ended up not even turning on my computer for the whole weekend. i think i turned it on once looking for a song - but no typing or blogging was accomplished. friday night after work i left straight for st. louis, making it there by about 9:45 pm. got checked in to our hotel, and waited on the reverend. he got to the hotel about an hour later, and we went and got steak n shake for a late late dinner - the only thing open around there that late, and right across from the hotel so it didn't demand much effort on our part.the next day we got an early start on being tourists, making it to downtown and the gateway arch by 10:30 or so. we spent a significant part of our walk to the arch looking for starbucks, talking about starbucks, whispering about whether or not we should ask that couple where they got their starbucks, and NOT FINDING A STARBUCKS. lame. i have never seen a business district that is lacking several hotspots for caffeine, but now st. louis has become the first.

despite not starting our day out with significant amounts of caffeine, we went on to have a blissful day of touring the city, following the arch with lunch at union station and the afternoon at the botanical gardens. the weather was perfect, the sights were gorgeous and relaxing, and the company was awesome. then we followed it up with a glammed-up dinner out at a restaurant called savor, a fantastic place that had the best bruschetta i've ever had and a really good amaretto sour. all in all our first day tearing across st. louis was a huge success, and i'll write about the second full day and our brief half-day this morning tomorrow. i would give a lot to be able to record saturday and be able to replay it in real time and kind of act it out over and over and over...although i might get in trouble with that since i'd just be slipping away from work to do that all the time.

STL

last night i totally thought hey, i should post on my blog. then i got busy what with surfing the internet, watching the tonight show, and showering. also, i was packing - i'm doing another weekend away, this time to st. louis. i always think of st. louis as the town i drive through; i've never stopped there, so i have no idea what the place is like. but i'm about to find out! or at least what a hotel is like right near st. louis. it's a good meeting point for certain reverends to come see me though, so that's where we'll be this weekend. updates and pictures to come. also, i predict moping once the weekend is over.

The Hurricane Effect

i have a problem i need help with. we have all experienced the hurricane-related phenomenon of a shower curtain liner getting sucked into the shower. i think it's something related to the temperature change, pressure vaccuums, and magical events. anyway, this is a daily issue for me. consider the following picture:what you may notice upon close inspection is that my shower curtain does not so much reach the ground. this is because i have a window that is partially in my shower and partially out, causing me to keep the shower curtain pole thing at an unusually high position. so my shower curtain liner too falls short, and the magnets designed to help me fight the magical hurricane effect do not quite reach the tub. i spend most of my showers fighting off my liner sticking to me, and have decided that this is not so much fun. any solutions you may have to offer me would be much appreciated. do you think they make long liners? i could investigate this but that would involve leaving my house.

What Time Is It? Now? Now?

time NEVER goes more slowly than when you are looking forward to something especially much. my something is leaving town this friday at 6 p.m....and more than that, getting to st. louis later that night. so today between 12:32 and 12:36 i looked at my watch approximately 7 times. i got to the point today that i took my watch off and put it away in my purse to try and stop myself from looking at the clock every other minute for the next three days. please someone out there reading, press a button to make the next couple days speed up - i'm begging you.

Apologies

so i have been paying left and right for internet lately, and it is officially uncool of hotels rhyming with larriot to charge for the internet. i only paid long enough to check my email and facebook, at the demands of some people.

so now i can finally sum up my weekend back in boston, quickly as the starbucks i am in for internet tonight (more on that later) is closing in 20 minutes. i flew back into boston friday morning for an alumnae leadership conference at wellesley, and the flight went awesomely well thanks to just half of one of my new favorite pills. got picked up and taken to my hotel, where my roommate was a fellow '06er who lived on my hall second year. i proceeded to take a nap.

then began the Wellesley Events and Socializing Extravaganza. first was a big dinner where we schmoozed and open bar boozed with everyone from classes from the '40s til we young '06ers. they fed us well, they speeched at us, it was nice. the next day was booked solid from 6:30 am until 9:00 pm, giving us pretty much no time to breathe. we had seminars on how to better our local wellesley club chapters, and finally a big banquet where i got to hear the new president speak. i can't decide what i think of her yet. i'll give her time.

next day was off to the campus at the crack of dawn again, where i wandered and sat and spent more money at the bookstore until 12:30. i also may or may not have taken approximately 70 pictures. then lunch with my boss from wellesley, franny, her niece, my friend ayako, and my hotel roommate, emily at shanghai tokyo, a favorite place to order from in college. i lived on their steamed dumplings for a while there.

i flew back in last night and used a whole one of my pills and spent the flight in blissful drowsiness. i even tried to muster panic at the bumpiness and it was there somewhere down deep but didn't feel like surfacing. fine by me.

ok so now there's no power at my apartment for various reasons (there will be tomorrow morning), so i'm off to read and shower by candlelight. romantical.

Ok I Give Up

ok i said i would post again tonight but i have to leave early in the morning and i really don't feel like writing anything. i'm bringing my laptop to boston though, so i should hopefully get a post in tomorrow. see you then.

I Know

i know i missed last night. i have no real excuse, per usual. i was at a college fair drumming up wellesley girls. then i was home. then i was on the phone for an extended period of time, pushing me past my midnight deadline. oh well. and i'm hungry now, for chipotle's (again this week? maybe so), so i'll post tonight.

Anxious

i get mildly anxious about a lot of things. being late. a messy room. merging on to the highway. but this mild anxiety is nothing compared to what happens to me when i fly. it used to be that even going to an airport to pick someone up or drop them off would land me sick in the bathroom and unable to eat. now i don't as often get sick before flying, but takeoff, any mild to major turbulence, and landing cause me to often flip my shit. actually landing is the best part because i at least know land is getting closer. even a shift in engine power freaks me out, i think that the plane's lost an engine and we're about to go down. but turbulence especially has gotten me to the point that i will literally sob from fear. this is not a fun state to be in. it's a completely irrational fear, i know, but it just wins every time. but this time, when i fly to boston this weekend, i have a little pharmaceutical friend. this minor tranq will hopefully keep me from losing it, for once, and make this a much more enjoyable trip. i'm kind of excited to take medication, for the first time in a while. everyone, cross your fingers for me.

Go With Christ, Brah

dog the bounty hunter may or may not be my hero. i am not religious by any means, but i can appreciate his finding god and using some actual christian ideals to catch and attempt to connect with criminals. they're better than barbara walters in getting people to crack and cry. and they always let them have a cigarette. there isn't much that is more sweet than seeing a huge beefy dude with a killer mullet all in leather and armbands lighting a cigarette for a handcuffed criminal. it's a goofy show and all but i actually have some level of respect for the dog.

also the south park episode pictured above is pretty much made of awesome.

From Heaven by Way of India

i have one constant food craving, one i think about about once a day, one that pushes me to urge people to go out to eat with me to one of five places, one that will just not let me go: indian food. and really, just one dish with one side - chicken tikka masala with a big basket of hot chewy naan bread. i just had it for dinner tonight and i'm already craving it for tomorrow. it is the one food that i keep eating until i feel the food hit the top of the back of my throat and i have to stop or i will literally throw up on the table. and then i have justonemorebite of naan soaked in tikka masala sauce. plus indian restaurants usually have great and quick service, and bunches of freebies. i love the free rice pudding with the candied ginger for dessert. i love the fried veggie thingy for an appetizer. i love coming out of a restaurant smelling like curry and cinnamon and all sorts of good things. uh, does anyone want to go out for indian food tomorrow?

Thoughts on Alcohol

so i might be a little tipsy. not much. a little, though. i never/very rarely drink, as alcoholism runs rampant in my family and that is a genetic time bomb i'd rather not mess with. but tonight i went out with my friend jen (longest running constant friend, we met in 5th grade) and her roommate and some other friends, and we went out for tapas. and i had sangria. two and a half glasses of it. for those of you that know me, that is pretty much a WOAH KATIE IS OUT OF CONTROL sort of amount. i basically stick to mike's hard lemonade or limeade, and usually about...one at a time. but then after tapas (Amazing, go to La Bodega under I35 on southwest blvd, go there now) we went to sol cantina on martini corner in midtown, and i had an amaretto sour. that's a lot for me. so i'm feeling a buzz. but i'm drinking water so i can easily get up for work tomorrow. and i think going out once every six to twelve months or so is probably not too crazy of a thing for me to do. and this post is totally coherent, right? so i'm fine. and it was a good night. oh, and try the bread pudding in apricot sauce at la bodega, you will marry the chef.

Life in the City

i am still getting used to certain factors of life in the "city," or midtown kc, which is the most city-fied i've ever been. for one, i hear sirens about, oh, every other hour. yes i live one building away from a major thoroughfare of this area of town, but it still kind of concerns me that there are this many cop cars and ambulances and fire trucks passing by. at least they pass by and aren't tearing into my neighborhood. then there's the sounds of drag racing, which i just heard tear by down aforementioned thoroughfare. super loud, super aggressive sounding, super dangerous. i'm glad i'm safe and tucked away on my island of comfort in my bedroom. oh, there they went again. i'll probably hear sirens again soon.

Horizontal Stripes

why am i currently obsessed with shirts with horizontal stripes? i wear them all the time, fashion no-no that they supposedly are. i have an addiction. someone stage an intervention...

To Tattoo or Not To Tattoo

every day i reconsider getting a tattoo. i've got the spot all picked out: the inside of my left wrist. i kind of want it in white ink, if i can talk a tattoo artist into it. it's kind of like getting a baby tattoo - a tattoo hardly anyone would even see. and i've narrowed it down to two sayings: col tempo (which obviously has meaning for me already), or drishta dharma sukha viharin (a sort of summary of the third noble truth of buddhism, meaning dwelling happily in things as they are). i guess both sayings are my ways of telling me to chill the f out sometimes, and remember that the bad times will pass, or that i need to better seize the good times since they are often fleeting. i feel like either of them would have a continuing relevance in my life. but then i remember that i will be 50 someday. and what will i think of a white tattoo on my wrist? who knows. what i thought was super hella cool 10 years ago is pretty much way not cool now. but the other part of me says that by the time i decide i don't want my barely visible tattoo, the technology to get rid of it will be cheap and probably commercialized. maybe i can get a starbucks and blast a tattoo all at once! that'd be awesome. so the vacillation continues. one negative point: lindsay lohan has a white tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. add that to the way not cool side.

Meet Huggerton

ok to start with, i am not one of those girls that names her stuffed animals or various other things names like snugglebugs and puffinface. i swear. example: pete won me a stuffed monkey at a dart booth at a memphis fair, and i named him phil. not phillysmooshyface, just phil.

today though, the naming had been done for me. meet huggerton the bear:
he showed up today accompanied by these:
huggerton brought me the flowers safely, and is now keeping phil company in my room. i think everyone should have a little huggerton in their lives.

Luck

i think i had other things to write about, but they kind of all left my brain. all i can think of right now is how lucky i am. i just...i'm really lucky. not to be a mushy girl or anything, it's just really all i can think about. so that was a boring post, but it's just where i am right now.

Fall Cleaning

apparently when it's stormy and fall-ish out, i get an urge to clean and cook. i made dinner tonight (spaghetti with from-scratch meatballs) for me and my friend jen, then vaccuumed the kitchen and my room, did the dishes (twice), and baked a cake. from scratch. oh, and i wiped down my bathroom sink. and windexed my floor-length mirror. forget spring cleaning...it happens in the fall, apparently.

No Real Reason

for once i have no lameass excuse for not posting yesterday. i went out to dinner with my mom and sister and her husband and kids, and got home lateish only to watch tv and cruise my websites. it just totally slipped my mind that i have a duty of some tenuous kind to about 3 people to post here every day. my bad.

yesterday and today have been those perfect late summer/early fall days where the weather is just ideal, all warm goldenness and comfortable temperatures, there's a nice cool breeze, and i can drive around with my music cranked and windows down without having sweat running down my back. it doesn't hurt either that i have this amazing guy in my life that makes me smile all the time, or that i'm within about five pounds of my ideal weight, or that i have an awesome apartment to chill in all the time. i'm waiting for the other shoe to fall, which shows what kind of an optimist i am. it's just too much goodness right now, so much it's scary.

I <3 Pizza Rolls, So Sue Me

it is, i've found, the toughest thing to work all day, come home, and cook for myself. it sounds pretty simple when i put it like that, like hello katie people do that every single day all over the world, but for some reason i find it to be this often insurmountable challenge. usually i say F this and end up at chipotle's, or mcdonald's, or drowning my laziness in my java chip. or even more often, dependent upon supplies, i usually end up waiting all of 15 minutes for my $0.79 pizza to heat up, or a frozen egg roll, or etc.

but tonight: i cooked. nothing insane, and i got the kind of bacon that's already cooked you just have to heat it in the microwave (YES THIS IS AWESOME, there is nothing i hate more than dodging bacon grease), but i had wheat pasta with crumbled bacon, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a ton load of parmesan cheese. highly recommended for you carb addicts out there. and not super challenging. just don't look in my freezer at the newly bought stack of frozen pizzas and pizza rolls and chicken patties...or if you do just pretend i'll make something exotic with them.

Strategery

how to win a game of cutthroat pool, when it is down to your ball and your opponent's ball (and who cares if he's six feet of cuteness, you still need to win):

1. aim for your own ball. yes, on purpose.
2. miss. "accidentally."
3. watch your opponent aim at his own ball.
4. let him get it in the pocket before telling him he just hit his own ball in.
5. lord your victory over him.

it's a surefire way to win, and then get a glare that is half anger half hard-won respect for f-ing them over, and then get a smile that might make you momentarily feel bad for winning - but you hold strong because you totally won.

then give him a i'msorrybutnotallthatsorry hug, and continue holding your victory over him.

Left My Heart

i know the song is about san francisco, but though i've been there this year, my heart has been left in memphis, tn. it could have been the company, (ok it was mostly the awesomely baby blue-eyed company...) but i loved memphis. if i didn't have such a grown-up life with obligations, i would be moving there pretty much....tomorrow. as it stands, though, i'll definitely be going back. the city has great vibes, i loved everyone i met, and it has decent food. the barbecue not so much, but the other food was good. to tell the truth though, i mostly just miss this guy:
i'll be seeing you again, memphis.