7th graders

So I am a mentor for this 7th grade science fair. i have no idea how to deal with 7th graders. this does not bode well for my career as an educator. in today's session they had not much to do and broke down into talking about skiing. all were engaged in this conversation. one kid in the group is a bit of a what the other kids see as a fuckup but as adults we clearly know is a kid who struggles academically and doesn't get a ton of support at home so tries to act macho and like he doesnt care and is all punk. so the girl to my left kept making fun of him (saying he must have been skiing on the bunny slope) and it was annoying to me, i told her to lay off a couple times in a kinda sarcastic hey that's not cool voice. eventually i stopped the chit cht and tried to refocus on the project and talk about how they needed to be able to descrive their sample and should figure out sex of their participants. and f course this same know it all girl couldnt grasp why that was important/ i felt kinda helpless and like i shouldn't be enabling this shit talking. but i think i'll come off like a freak if i start next session by saying only talking about what;s on hand and that everyone has something to say. i so wanted to throw back in that girls face well you don't understand what your experiment is just b/c you get good grades doesn't mean everything.

why don't chocolate chip muffins have chocolate chips all the way through? same with nut muffins? poppy seads are always evenly spread throughout.

i emailed this youth hostel on the dingle peninsula to see about some live/work opportunity for a month this summer. long shot, but i'll never know unless i ask.

i a liitle bit rule

i have not done my paper, or even all the reading.
i for some inane reason cannot figure out how to get a fucking aim screen name.
i did not get rid of my headache all day b/c i didn't drink enough water.

i do rule because i figured out and successfully (after several attempts) downloaded what i needed to be able to watch avi files on my mac. i can now watch all of my roommates 100's of movies. go me!

spam

why do i get spam (which i've yet to ever open) about meeting christian singles with good morals. hello i'm miss lefty pro-choice, pro entitlements, pro separation of church and state, pro gay marriage and oh yeah a fucking engaged (not in the marriage sense people) and observantish jew.

saw christo and jean-claude in the park on a hill watching the sun set over the gates for the last time. and saw many people taking pictures of them. they seemed non-plused by it.

my boyfriend is married, at least i have walter

3 years ago mickey somehow found out about the book (which i now think is required reading for everyone my generation, certainly all jews. its the best rendition of the holocaust i've read) everything is illuminated the day it came out, or even before. she was the first person i knew to read it. halfway through she calls me up and tells me that she wants me to date the author, he lives in queens he's jewish he's awesome. i joked her off. she was serious but never followed through with the set up. before she could get a chance it was discovered that he had a girlfriend. people feel pretty mixed feelings about him. people generally do about well educated young first novelists that make a super splash and make us really jealous (read: zadie smith). so he's a cute jew boy, i loved his book, i weathered his criticism, i thought he could be one of us. the thing though that made me give him my loyalty forever was when a couple years ago, last year, whenever he for a while was the voice of god through a flashing colored light lcd display that might otherwise tell you about which paint was on sale at pinchicks. its a hardware store that has a fairly famous past (and apparently present) for its antics in south brooklyn-it features fairly prominently in fortress of solitude by jonathan lethem. in any case when he played god people who speak into a microphone and from the office upstairs he would type answers into the display. it only lasted a couple months. but how fucking brilliant and classic!
so it turns out now that he lives in park slope. and the same times magazine article that let me know that, also let me know he is married. there go my chances.
but he is yet another famous person, especially of the literary variety that lives in brooklyn or park slope. seriously every interview i read or short bio at the end of a piece includes so and so lives in brooklyn. why aren't they my friends? right b/c i don't meet them.

i hate the smoke detector in my apt. its fickle.

one of the blogs i read always uses footnotes. here is where i would if i knew how. to say that walter is my teddy bear. he's cute and wonderful and always willing to snuggle, he gives great hugs and you should see him dance. chad rescued him from walmart a couple years ago and the three of us couldn't have been happier about it. i got sole custody in the break up, and walter definitely misses chad, and is very protective over who can come into my bed, but he's pretty happy to be here. i certainly don't know what i'd do with out him some nights.

i was outed in my blog stalking of this same blog last night. whatever. its the internet. deal.

one last thing. yesterday kriegs called me up to go to dinner and bowling. i was pumped esp b/c friends of the fiancee's were going to be there. i of course assumed they would be male and wondered about it being a set up and thought about it all day. nope. very nice and pleasant females. which in some way is cooler, b/c it means she called me up just to hang which i think is pretty sweet.

no sheets, kosher wine, lonely nights, talking about steve

most wine stores that i've been into have all their kosher wine sectioned off. it takes up a shelf or two. i've been to a couple stores with a very impressive collection, most are whatever and you can tell when you are going to end up in a neighborhood that is probably not going to have anything better than maneshvitz or the uber expensive and not very good baron herzog varieties. the last two liquor stores i've gone to looking for a bottle of kosher wine about 10 minutes before it was needed have totally thrown me for a loop-they don't have the kosher wine all in one place, its integrated into the rest of the store. i: love this, hate this, am totally thrown for a loop by this. i mean why does kosher wine have to be different? but it is much easier to make your choice when its all in the same place. and who said it was ok to break with convention? and why at this totally odd place on 14th st yesterday was the cheapest bottle of total non-crap $20. hello budgets people.

due to an unfortunate incident involving a plastic bag and some chocolate (i know this could be a sweet incident-esp in bed if i had someone to share it with) i have no clean or even passably dirty fitted sheets and am using a top sheet that doesn't totally fit as my bottom sheet. this wouldn't be so horrible if i hadn't just done laundry and so have to wait a while to have enough to do. i might just buy another set of sheets (not unreasonable b/c my other set got a big fat hole in it and had to be tossed).

i erased tattoo artist's numbers from my phone last night. i'm just lonely and wanting male attention and maybe some hook-up action but there is no need to obsess over him. esp when i'm not that into him. maybe there will be someone new and wonderful at lunch today, doubtful. but this woman who annoys the shit out of me will probably be there.

chad wrote me a very sweet email the other day wishing me the best in finding someone to share my life with in ways that he and i didn't fit. it made me sad. i am still glad i had my relationship with chad, and i know he's not 'the one' whatever the fuck that means. i never found anyone before him that i felt so comfortable with and it give me hope that maybe out there is someone i could feel comfortable with and be challenged in all more parts of my life.

ended up going to walper's for shabbat last night just the two of us. she is a mean cook. which i've actually always known, she just doesn't bring out her talents all that often. it was a little annoying b/c i spent this cash on fancy food at a gourmet grocery store (b/c i'm in the shit house in the coop, and was running late b/c instead of cleaning my apt or going to services i went for a drink with the 199 pacific girls.) and then it ended up that dinner was just going to be the two of us and so she had me over instead of me having people over. but that's ok b/c i would have found it depressing to have dinner just the two of us in my dirty apt. and would have made me esp sad when she left, and there is no fireplace at my house. and now i have food for the rest of the weekend even if its not the healthiest and totally not organic nor locally grown. sometimes shit happens....in any case i ended up telling her the whole steve death story and all my feelings about it then and now. it totally tugged at my heart strings, and while i was happy and fine to talk about it, and think its probably good and helps me to process it still. i still don't know how to handle uncomfortable feelings and try to get rid of them as quickly as possible, when maybe its ok to sit with them, and the death of a sibling even if it was 13 years ago is still definitely something to bring up emotions.

i've actually been on a couple first dates where the steve thing came up. one was probably one of the worst first dates i've ever been on (1st 1st date with silver) another was maybe one of the best first dates i'd been on (could have been due to his cute accent and excellent taste in bars though).

yesterday was my grandmother's (nana) 96th birthday. granma ochs turns 97 (but maybe 99, depends on what records you hold by) next week.

? does anyone i don't know read my blog? does anyone that i didn't give the address to read it (regardless of if i know z or not)? if my comments section worked maybe i'd be able to answer that. but i like that the comments section doesn't work b/c it would make me sad if no one ever posted comments. in this case its better to have no way of knowing then to waste energy worrying about stupid shit. i think my shrink would agree. oh i like my shrink now. maybe not as a person. but i think she's good for me. good thing its only taken 2 years to figure that out.

the lisa show

in college norm and schnieder were serious going to produce the silver show. silver was clearly the star. but i don't remember if it was a traditional sitcom, or more of a seinfeld type plot.

chatting with a fairly new coworker who i rarely chat with today, we of course delved into future life plans and lack of guys sparking our interests. i was in a mood. good mood, slightly high on life and loopy to get out of the office. my voice was confident and also with lots of inflection and raging sarcasm in a good way. she told me i could be an actress. i demurred, than said i'd rather be a comedian but i'm not good at a regular act, but i can ham up my ridiculousness, especially around here. i crack up l.d. all the time. she said she wouldn't be surprised, and would come asking for money if in 8 years she saw the lisa show on tv. what do you guys think? could i do it?

baby steps

moved from the english breakfast with milk and sugar to lady grey with honey. small step but close to getting on the sugar reducation track

i was able to call my recommender out on not writing the rec and he did it. and i called about getting an interview at GW which is set for the 21st. so slowly these things move along.

also i didn't eat total crap for breakfast. i did have to wait til i got to work and had the parfait i usually have for lunch for breakfast.

also due to the 2 bugs i saw crawling on my desk yesterday i did some cleaning and more importantly crumb removal.

need to eat healthier and get back to being active. it helps with my mood.

more

1. on house/lights. the set looked like collaborative project out of the smack mellon gallery in dumbo, at which i've seen someone of the coolest performance art/installation pieces that i've seen. (the sounds redundant, think its just not well worded)

2. my treatise on bodegas nothing knew intellectually we've all seen the pattern before. and know it when we walk into one
bodegas are an important part of new york life, its one of those things that can be on every corner, but you still don't go to just any one. there are two on my corner. i don't like either of them. i go to the one across the street for cash and the one downstairs for eggs. i much preferred the stop one in greenpoint, even if you did always get whistled and hollared at you got the impression that there was some stock turnover and they had ingredients you would actually need or things you would want to buy. the little supermarket on 15th st and 4th ave is not a bodega its way to big and clean and having wayyyy too much produce for that (it has as much produce as some regular grocery stores in nyc which can often be a pitifully small amount) i would love waking up ibn the weekends and going there in my pajamas to get oj or milk or chocolate chip pancake ingredients and not getting a bag to carry my stuff in, which always freaked them out. you could tell they knew they neighborhood was about to tip by the amount of organic or natural or gourmet brands you could find there-but not yet any organic milk or eggs, well no organic eggs not sure about milk. and you could definitely find green mountain gringo salsa. i used to live on that stuff and garden of eatin blue chips. i seriously did just ask chad. it might be 9months since i've last had any-how freaking crazy is that. but i digress. this item is a indicator of tippingness. if a bogeda has it-here comes that crazy upscale gentrification. if not, its a total front operation or the neighborhood isn't going anywhere. point being even though 11st isn't considered south slope any more when you are farther east. it totally is on 4th ave. and while south slope as come to denote a neighborhood that is gentrifying mine is clearly staying the same, no matter how close cafe regular is to me. wow that must have been annoying to read. i really do have a more thought out treatise on this idea, that didn't just come from my inability to buy green mountain gringi salsa and the good chips when i came home at 10pm last night and was forced to go to the lousy fancy mexican restaurant across the street and pay a ton for shitty chips. i should have braved the cold and gone to actual mexican up on 5th ave that would have been yummy and cheap.

3. why can't i get online access to my money? i am typing in what they say. errr no i wasn't. got on, don't understand the statements, but got on. also lost somewhere in my room is a $500 check to me that i could really stand to have cashed! and reading back over old blogs realized that my lost silver ring that i wasn't to wear on my left hand as a compliment to my swiss cheese ring was lost in mexico. four winds here i come next time i'm in pgh.

4. i would direct you all to the nytimes.com site to see the great picture of what looks like a giant bugger coming out of our fearless leader's nose. but they changed it to a much more flattering picture, at least us in the annex got to laugh

5. how fucked up is it that is not that fucked up that one of my coworkers who lives in boreum hill regularly has to western union his landlord money in atlantic city and that's how he pays his rent. either that or all in cash. but somehow its brooklyn. south brooklyn at that, so we put up with this shit. i'm surprised that my coworker does though, he has no patience for people. it irks me how little patience he has for people and how quick to angrily (new adverb) annoy (is this correct gerund?) he is. he could never be my life partner. he and his life partner are also incredibly codependent.

feeling good leads to feeling down

i was so up before, why now so not up and so still in my house when i have so much work to do at work? why does it take so long to get to work? why am i already looking to my departure-as is my boss. meeting yesterday started coming up with transitioning plans. i really want to go to ireland for the summer.
turned in the bank street application. kinda a relief except i think that one of my recommenders hasn't written my recommendation yet. fuck. that would suck if i didn't get into programs bc of that. i was going to call him last night but totally forgot and will put it off now....narg
looks like the levinerman's have a possible date if they can get a venue. and it doesn't look to overlap with any other plans i have...always sweet. why is spell check picking up always? weird. but of course you can't see it and it didn't pick it up the second time. and i made initial inquires about their gift. not going off the registry for this one.

review HOUSE?LIGHTS
ok so i've never seen a wooster group performance before, but i wish i had. it was great. i could see the richard foreman influences, esp in the sound effects, but it worked for me and i got it. ok i didn't get the character who just sat at the front of the stage at the computer the whole time. i mean ok when she was used as a prop and she created a lot of the sound effects on her laptop, but was she the over arching moral conscious, or that every act has an observer or seriously what the hell was she doing there? the group is apparently well known for their integration of technology, and they definitely bring a lot in and it works well. multiple single channel tv sets on stage that were sometimes projecting the action on stage, sometimes projecting a backdrop like it was a green screen (did you know that they are green now, not blue) and sometimes showing the action of this B movie from the days of black and white film but probably the 50's or 60's and that was being acted out on stage, which was blended with an adaptation of gertrude stein adaptation of faust. the guy who played the dog was soooo cute. i kinda want to write him a fan letter. the choreography was cool. there were comic moments, overall it was quite well done and certainly engaging and while i might not have totally gotten it all, at no point did i feel lost. i felt cold b/c the heat was not on b/c the heaters make too much noise in the theater-ouch. also jim findlay who is part of wooster group, works for st ann's and was part of the technical production of accidental nostalgia is my hero. i think he is a fucking genius and is so deserving of a genius grant. maybe i'll drop the macarthur foundation a line. he is quite over weight and smokes a lot so i hope he doesn't have a bad health premature death and rob of us his coolness. is the show recommended yes. did ben brantley say it-not yet couldn't find a current review.

more refreshed than a monday morning

warning this post will contain lots of random musings, maybe a little gossip.
1. love for industrial brooklyn near my house. a) if they ever take down the kentile floors huge sign in gowanus i will be sad. i bet people will lobby to keep it. and i would sign the petition, b/c i think change is bad and we should respect character. but then i think about the archeological record and how cities are built upon buried cities and how maybe change is inevitable and transition is what's supposed to happen. but then i think about how there is no old growth in new england and its all grown back, even the relatively old trees and i think that's a shame. so maybe i should sign the petition to keep the sign. b) close to the sign there is a large empty, but used (parking? storage?) lot that butts up against the gowanus and smith street below and action on smith street. it was still covered with pristine snow this morning and looked very nice and peaceful as the train went by this morning. c) the new bid for the west side rail yards by transgas. not at all sure how i feel about this. esp since they might still build a stadium. a couple things i feel. 1.the mta needs to get the most money it can for the site. 2. no one should build a new stadium there, esp a heavily taxpayer subsididized one. i'm from pgh i know what i'm talking about on this. 3. i also don't want a stadium b/c i don't want the olympics at all. it would be hell to live here during the olymics. the rnc was bad enough, but that was small, contained and had very few people who needed streets shut down for them. and we would be talking about a hell of a lot more streets people. bring more public art projects, not the olympics. 4. i need to talk to some urban planners, maybe mfs (not to be confused with a smf), but i'm not sure i totally agree with his views on land management. and the trangas plan is all about putting a power plant in an area heavily saturated with polution and power plants on the east river. someone tell me what to think.

2. believer love and shame. there is an article on nerve that makes me feel a little dirty for having all my believer love and fascinations. and makes me feel like my feelings are so three years ago. well fuck it. i like it. kidna like if my cards are cutesy and not great art, or i like going to openings-they are done for a reason people to enjoy them so i will. so there. not sure who that hostility was directed towards. not any of you, just a manifestation of my uncomfortableness in my skin sometimes.

3.a) last chance for the tattoo artist. i sent him an email asking about some art supplies and going for a drink. i give him another 24 hours to respond. if he calls, cool. if he emails me back he's not into me -fine. if he blows me off he's an ass. (the email was set up so these would be the logical explanations for the possible outcomes). b) wonder what will happen with the tea lounge CL guy and sa. turns out he had responded to an ad of hers and she was into him but they never met up. we'll see if he is again an idiot and doesn't follow through with her.

4. looking for a cd by avro part. (classical composer) will buy. not sure how to find though. hopefully the people i go ask at tower records will be nice.

the day the after hunter s thompson died

NOTES ON A CONVERSATION WITNESSED WHILE EDITING MY ESSAY AT AT TIN COVERED BOX CAR COFFEE SHOP
flat affect conversation
short question and response
quick back and forth
regular relationship
intimacy unclear
extend outside of coffee shop?
_______________________________

something about the way the guy behind the counter grabs his coffee cup to take a sip in between taking and filling orders. its part of his rhythm, part of his smirk, part of creating the formal but relaxed atmosphere of the place where things and done in a dignified and refined manner with a sense of the finer and more important things in life

______________________________
observations from cafe regular on snow melting president's day.

______________________________
why are all the white people i consider public intellectuals dying off rapidly: HST, Susan Sontag, Arthur Miller

random. a couple blogs that i read have been posting pictures of the meals they cooked. why? big deal. only makes me feel bad for the single food/dish meals i make.

nicky at beehive is my hair goddess

my hair is just screaming 'thank you' for paying attention to me and shining some love on me. well, it should scream thank you after the $100 i just laid out on it today: cut, tip, tip for person who washes my hair, and product. given that i buy expensive product (and if i like this new stuff i think i will be able to find it elsewhere cheaper) and only buy it when i get my hair cut-last time was 6 months ago-this really isn't so bad. but ouch on the amount of (well spent) but still serious loads of money i have shelled out this weekend. and there is weird transition stuff happening with my bank this weekend so its kinda unclear when i get to get my money again, ha ha like i have any...

saw the new couple. my mom asked me when they are getting hitched. dude they just got engaged on friday and on thursday would still talk using if language.... the ring is a nice an old school inspired elegance, but not antiquey.

forgot to take my medicine this morning (i think, i hope i haven;t now taken it twice in one day) and started feeling the pre-vertigo feeling. this could also be due to over caffination on strong tea and not enough hydration.

went to brown for brunch b/c the line at essex was out of control and they raised their prices. while debby was doubtful, i had no doubts over how yummy it was going to be. mmm. i could go every sunday, nicely topped off with a little chocolate covered raisin cluster. yum. and later when a gourmet grocery turned out to be a met foods in disguise and seriously let me down, dean and deluca came to the rescue. thank you oh staple of downtown upscale almost overpriced gourmetness and the great bakeries of the city of whom you are a purveyor. oh how i love gourmet or interesting food shops. chris and i agree on the awesomeness of getting married in giant eagle, esp the new squirrel hill one. i know i know its not new they redid the store over a decade ago-but still, the ramp is crucial in the plan and that was not always a part of giant eagle. the running into everyone you know, always has been. ooh ooh ooh, the woman who alternates between playing violin outside of the manor and giant eagle could be the musician for the ceremony. oh i love this idea. if i had a video camera, my gift to the leviman's would be to do a mock wedding ceremony and give them the dvd. oh i kinda wanna do it anyway. tilda, hoya, you in?

went on a coffee date at tea lounge with someone from craigslist yesterday, while very nice and kinda cute and i could see him at our shabbes dinner tables i clearly didn't click with. i think, but am not sure, that i could see him with another friend of mine-whom i am pretty sure is looking. i think i am going to email them both on the same email and suggest they get together. i would maybe check it out with each of them first, but i've never met the guy before-what do i have to lose. my friend will laugh and talk to me again if it fails, and will thank me if it doesn't.


oh yeah and i want all my clothes to be either bcbgmaxazria or ellie tahari. and i want all the colors of the free people tank tops i tried on today, but i won't pay $50 for a tank top let along $150 for all 3. must seek out sales. and i approve of the downtown bloomingdales. i like. though they don't sell anything that you can't find uptown. actually they sell the only stuff i would be interested in uptown, and nothing my mother could pull off wearing (she'd be fine with that, easier to take me shopping). and it was such a same how all those nice on sale (still for lots of money) dresses didn't come home with me, b/c when would i wear them?

mazel of mazel tovs

cinnamon toast and mazel toast and cinnamon toast and mazel toast to my serious peeps debby and chris. he popped the question last night. she said yes. while not entirely unexpected nor such a surprise that it would happen sometimes. its still hugely exciting and big news. and while they are living together (those sinners) its still a big change and, and viewing themselves differently, and an overwhelming transition. but its also mad exciting and yummy and occasion for happiness. just hope they remember to breathe. my mom wants to throw her a shower this summer. (sweet she'll cater it and pay for it). i love you guys. and on the off chance i go to grad school in boston, i want to rent out your extra room-wouldn't you just love that, i doubt it.

had a very nice and extremely yummy shabbat dinner last night. shuvi can be my personal chef anytime. i had no idea she was such a good all around chef. it helps that debby who has lots of food intricacies (i know wrong word, but see how my vocab has gone that i can't think of a better one, or describe in more words what i'm talking about...) has all the different kinds of pots you could want, and i think good cookware can make a difference. the conversation was also great. this kid that i have met a few times and not been impressed with was also there, but actually i was finding him pretty great. maybe its that you need to get him in situations with smaller numbers. and of course the gates were a huge topic of discussion.

i didnt really plan anything but a haircut tomorrow for this weekend and that has become uber overwhelming. so i am going to go motivate to do something so that i don't just sit here and cry.

tavern on the green is a monstrosity

seriously its a huge eyesore. the white lights, which i think can be very tasteful, art utterly tacky and distracting. in other central park news, can we stop calling the gates saffron. they are orange. say it with me people orange. i am not dismissing either the coolness of the project in and of itself or the awesomeness of such a huge public art project and i've been a fan of christo and jeanne-claude since art history in college but.... they are playing a serious joke on us, getting us to all use the word saffron about 3 times a day. the only other change i would make is to make the gates yellow-taxi colored yellow/orange, this is new york after all... and it its totally reminiscent of the scenes in underworld by dellilo where the protégées of the artist out in the desert in the southwest are painting old warplanes and for her birthday they paint a car like a nyc taxi-cab. talk about mass appeal and on different levels. although the taxi exhibit at ps1 and in madison sq park a few summers ago didn't really do much to stir up that civic new york pride. and frankly mayor mike neither would the olympics. seriously i don't want to live here if the come here.

ran into this guy i went on a couple dates with a few years back in the west village today. i forget how old his is, probably around 31 i'd say. he has the gray hair of a 50 year old. kinda sad, b/c it doesn't look so flattering on him. but maybe it fits in well with his writer's aesthetic. it is nice to run into people though, esp when they are on their way to good coffee shops like doma and remind you about their existence, and also about the splinter minyan he founded and telling you that you should come.

went to the philharmonic last night. the first piece was so awesome. i want more of his stuff; cantus in memoriam of benjamin britten by arvo part. next was mugsorky with a female soloist doing the words. would have been better with a man's voice. the last piece-the entirety of the firebird by Stravinsky made one of my companion's cry. its definitely a rousing feel good, rising from the ashes against adversity piece. i don't know it felt a little too patriotic and we shall rise and triumph again for me. it also made me think of the last months of chad and i's relationship and some of the high's and lows from that. nice night over all. didn't meet up with walper and mollie and sarra, it would have been nice to see them but i didn't miss so-called naom's cousin and a yiddish rapper with an accordion.

kinaseicasters please invite me

I want to go back to ireland. seriously. i think it could be mad fucking fun. who wants to come. katie? mickey? i think that the best excuse i could have is to go for the kinasecaster's wedding. this means i have to be invited. and even though some promises were made, if we haven't kept in touch, which doesn't mean that i have any less love, am i going to get that invite. this might also be the summer to go work in a youth hostel on dingle. noam was there over xmas and the guy offered him a job. noam is very personable, i can be personable but i don't flirt with everyone the way that he does. need to get that email from noam and see about possibilities.

just a shout out to greatness of english breakfast light and sweet. oh how you perk up my morning. and i almost like it better now when i get it from the sous-chef to the fresraeli guy than from your one himself.

another shout out has to go to the believer magazine. part of their mission is to make sure that good books don't go out of style. i mean there will always be a market for good literature, but what about the good books written several decades ago that we've never heard of. each issue i walk away saying, 'huh, i want to read that.' not i should, but i want to. [i hate that this is in html mark-up, i would underline or add italics if it didn't require so many more keystrokes] i would love, love, love, for so many reasons (including what my definition of success is, what it would say about me as part of the intelligencia, what it would say about my critical thinking and analysis skills-as my shrink says i want more and that's ok, and i shouldn't be afraid to go for it) to have a piece of prose, preferably criticism published in there. how cool would i feel. i must say i am so over dave eggars as a writer, but i am really into the legacy he is leaving as an editor and literary visionary for the common-folk. yes i know we are not part of the common folk, but the kids that get helped by 826 valencia and the brooklyn superheros supply store are. and the people who can appreciate the graphic design and layout are everyone, designer and not.

as you may or may not know most scientific research involving humans, especially psych experiments, and esp. normative studies have been done with typically high ses children of academics or college students. this presents confounds, esp in imaging data where you are looking to create behavioral interventions, where different neurological patterns could lead to the same phenotype but would want to be treated differently. so now my boss wants to study across ses backgrounds. great idea. but he keeps pathologizing poverty, well not poverty but any educational deficits due to poverty. it drives me up a wall, he always is characterizing our populations in terms of ses, or thinking that low ses will perform differently, and while in many cases there is evidence to show this behaviorally, and it makes sense in terms of less enriched educational contexts, if he wants to do a normative study to see what is going on with kids, why can't his emphasis be on sampling something that is representative of society or equally across ses lines. this may not follow from my above diatribe, but its actually as if he pathologiezes children of academics as a special case of performers and that kids from low ses are the norm in terms of performance. i think its somewhere in between. can't we just agree at the outset to sample from a wide range so as not to confound with ses, and then never mention the term again. i mean the man has never taken a freaking sociology class in his life! (if the meetings for this project didn't start at 4 pm and be run on west coast time it might not annoy me so much)

lights over the verazanno

i generally prefer riding on the westward side of the train. in general you get a better view. when coming home after dark on the F train often when i look out over the verazanno i see planes coming into land, at laguardia i assume. they totally look like ufo lights. its kinda cool, and also disconcerting b/c i i don;t see stars i just see artificial lights. i hate flying at night, b/c all the lights on the ground make it so much easier to see all the sprawl everywhere. its disconcerting.

had a good shrink session. talked about my fear of achieving and fear of change.

after my last mosaics class... my two mirrors came out well. i'm glad i got to do 2 mirrors and not any stupid coasters, which could have been cool, but took more thought into design that people assumed. my second mirror is still there drying. the one i brought home i'm really happy with, it has some grouting flaws that bug me and i could have fixed but of course not now, and the design is simple and a bit cheesy. but i'm still down with it! in any case, i couldn't get chill to go for a drink with me, and mollie doesn't return my calls anymore so i stopped by 199 pacific and had a quick glass of wine, they were all into alias and i was going to be asking too many questions. besides i wanted to hit book court before it closed and pick up the new believer magazine since i've been waiting at least a month for it to come out. i'm so excited that this is what i will be reading for the next week. i'm such a little pomo punk. but you all love me for it. any how walking to the subway i ran into the tattoo artist. or rather i spotted him. i couldn't stop myself from calling out his name, and he walked me the block to the subway (he was backtracking, but it was only a block so its not a big deal). so now of course i will be back to checking my phone constantly for a call, the craigslist ad did wean me off of that for a bit. but its nice to live in a place and run into people you know. though if court street turns into forbes ave i might just go a little insane.

maybe grog and elise will spilt the cost of a subscription to believer with me. oh the simple pleasures in life.

against who's judgement?

just posted a personal on craigslist.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/w4m/59914752.html
what do you think. i'll keep you posted if i get any responses.

the power of the internet

remember the guy i spent three weeks cooped up with on the floor of his office making out at the end of summer? i just ran across his blog through some randomness. i haven't yet read the whole thing, i don't think he had it when we were hooking up. i think he would hate that someone he knows has the address but he didn't give it to them. i doubt he writes anything too personal. i'll get back to you if i think its interesting enough to pass along the url to.
ok just read it. not worth it. wonder if i should mention it. wonder what would have gone into it if he had started it when we were hooking up.

it is so nice out today. i had another of those i love ny mornings and that all i want to do is not work, but be forced to leave the house and wander around the village and go get another cheddar herb biscuit from mary's off jane and sit and read at the grounding place with the tile studio in the back. oh give me summer long vacation please!!!!!

crashed with walper last night. her bed is so comfortable. even if her sheets were dirty-mine are probably dirtier, although she's gotten action recently. its nice to be able to go to a friends place talk about life and boys and drink cheap wine and then stay over in comfy beds when its pouring rain outside. she's also really good at throwing me out of bed in the morning. thanks! and it was ottally gorgeous walking home down slope on a crisp morning after a rain, where the ground is still wet, but sharp and the sun is still coming up so the light is pretty brilliant. and all the birds. i didn't see the parrots that i think live on 11th st, but i did hear so many beautiful chirps. how i wish i didn't live on 4th ave.

finished random family. thought she got a little moralizing at the end, and kinda felt like she should have been more moralizing about how systemic poverty is. i guess that was told through the generations of children having children and all the molestation. i can get having fucked up thoughts about acting inappropriately sexual or otherwise with someone who can't give full consent. i can NOT get acting on those thoughts. why would some one want to touch a young kid? is it power? is it fun? i found out the other day that yet another one of my friends was molested as a child, but no details other than that. that is so fucked up. and yet now this person is so well adjusted, but i don't know if i could ever forget. i guess the person hasn't, z just moved on. in some ways you've got to move on i guess. but in the end it made me stop and appreciate how great my life has been, shitty things happen to us all, and I'm not saying steve's death or my mental health issues aren't nothing, but it could have been or could be a whole lot worse. so a shout out to my friends and family b/c i appreciate you a ton-seriously and i'm here if you need a shoulder to lean on.

morning errands and mazel tovs

i ran a couple errands before work, causing me to take a different route and not be able to hit up my french/isreali hot coffee guy at bite. i stopped at a new coffee cart.  its not new its the same one outside
of work that has been there since i've worked here.  but i almost
never go there, and i'm not going back!  because instead of using hot
water for my tea, he used coffee. (milk, sugar, and tea bag also used)  i hate coffee.  so upset. hello coffee man, when someone says light and sweet that refers to tea as well.
mike drank about 3 sips thinking it was interesting and then it turned gross, kinda like the smf's of the world.

in other news. mazel tov to matt and lorie. i'm off to LA for labor day for their wonderful wedding. sweet. not so sweet was me being the last to know. matt's mother must be in heaven getting to plan this.

squirrel hill cage

the gates=3 rivers arts festival. i did a prelim walk through of the gates after work today. somehow all i could think was 3 rivers arts fest. something about the color (orange is now called saffron) and something about the material and the pleating and public art in a part reminded me of the tentish things where the juried art used to be shown (i hear that moved that all in doors) and of the stage and scaffolding they put up near the trench for the fort before you go over the echo chamber bridge, and just having public art that's temporary that everyone comes to see a park just to see. christo and jean-claude i salute you.

as a note. (referring to the title) the bar's official name is the squirrel hill cafe, but no one would call it that, even when i was in elementary school i knew it was the cage. how did we know that? and how about except for the smoke its the kind of bar i really like. pgh drink prices and getting to ironically drink yuengling don't hurt either.

chad is dating someone. kinda. of course they are about to not just be in different time zones, but different continents. i checked her out on friendster, and can see how they would get along. i think that microserfs is too dated to be listed as a fav but at least she's recommending good stuff to him.

did mr. moonface proposition me for sex or just hooking up in 10th grade? just remember telling me that i was physically ready for something and he could help me be mentally ready. gross. but hope he's not dead in iraq and i should i have told him that the reason he wasn't welcome in my house was not his race or religion status but the fact he was rude to my mother. oh and the sneaking in at 1 in the morning.

never did anything real as a memorial for frank, formerly known as beetlejuice. used to say that if you mentioned him enough he would appear-in a bad way. but then he was murdered basically between rachel mervis and chris rockmore's house and he won't ever show up. lots of stream of consciousness has taken me to thinking about frank little lately. still don't have the words. but this world is a fucked up place.

new phrase for guys who could be cool but are actually kinda weird. smf. the initials of this guy kim went on a couple dates with a few years ago. we met him in a coffee shop. he came off pretty cool well at least interesting but then the 17th century renaissance prose started up. or being a dork, but not in a cute ironic way, in actually just kinda a dorky way. went out with three dates with one of these guys. ended it over email. it was for the best. he wears a full length eskimo coat, and his scarf like oliver from belgium. (love how only 4 people will get those references, but none of them will get all of them)

valentines day. oh how cheesy. i might make a couple if i finish my homework though.

the return of the mermaid parade. hpchen convinced mickey to do it. so i'm in. i might go for having my body painted in scales, or at least my chest and maybe reusing the fin skirt from last year. maybe i'll call up the ghosts of bauhaus senior year and go for liquid latex.

upcoming changes. mickey is probably going to move. this makes me infinitely sad and a bit scared about the future of our friendship.

why are my ears clogged?????????
catch yinz on the flip side.

sugar

ok so one thing i would like to do is cut out my processed sugar consumption (without substituting it with that sucralose crap and that old school aspartame tastes like shit and i'm convinced gives you cancer stuff). i had basically eradicated sugar from my tea drinking by getting lady grey with honey (yes honey still as additive but not as bad) and then only on severe days, like going to work hung-over would i switch to the power of english breakfast with milk and sugar. now in this city light and sweet means two sugars, which makes things damn yummy but also is a lot of sugar. i hate when they ask if i want one sugar or two b/c i feel compelled to say 1, knowing thats already a lot of sugar, but in reality want two. but if they just give me two that's fine. i also ask for whole milk, b/c skim milk actually lets you absorb less calcium-i forget why but some nutritionist was telling me. its all about the balance and combination. but i'm digressing. but as of late i've been stopping by my guy at bite who i used to think was french, but have become ever more suspicious of him being israeli and we all know how i feel about that.... and everyone morning i've been going for the sugar heavy, whole milk english breakfast-in a disposable cup. double ouch. i left my nalgene at a shul on the UWS a couple weeks ago and keep forgetting to try and get it back. narg. i wouldn't feel quite as guilty if i wasn't using so many resources for my gluttony. but one bright spot is that on the sleeve of the cup is and an for garden state and i get to stare at zach braff every morning and all day b/c i never manage to throw out the cup til i'm on my way out of the office at the end of the day even though i'm already done with the tea.
WORk.

inarticulate and possibly stupid

i feel like my feeble vocabulary is becoming weaker by the day. constantly i feel like i am searching for the word i want, and while they are big words for 3rd graders, i'm not talking about the vocab 800 verbal gre peeps. i can't give examples b/c i can't remember/don;t know any of the words. i hate how uneloquent i have become. not so say i was ever so eloquent in my speech before.

at brunch the other day i got party favors. you know i love party favors. they are those confetti noise makers. these were the advanced version, that have a cardboard casing that looks like a gun with a trigger you pull back instead of pulling the string. i got two b/c my brunch companion didn't want his. i gave one to mwole at work at kept one in my bag. today i notice the confetti had come out of mine and got sad. just for fun i pulled out the trigger and it sounded like a gunshot and as if it were going off for real. there was also smoke and a little flare. luckily it had been pointed at my coworker's chair, but she had been out of the room. mwole freaked i think he's wound a bit tight over all his up coming life changes. he has also been freaked out by just hearing about the mother-fuckin huge cockroaches in our adjoining office, and he literally jumped out of his chair after seeing one on his desk. (ok admittedly pretty gross)

i had other examples of how inarticulate i am that i realized that i can't get any of them out quickly err see i really meant to write easily there-'nough said.

just a little word of friendly advice that the current administration won't share with us: have safe sex every-time you have sex. if you have any reason to question your status-get tested! only saying it b/c i love you all.

oh i was going to write something about all the worlds i live in or would like to have some hands in, and how to describe the small differneces i see in the worlds and areas, and how similar people keep popping up oin my life and i want to compare everyone i meet to someone else i know, kinda for valiadation of why i would hang out with these people, but expanding upon mickey's: there are only 75 people and all the rest are extras theory. but how i really want there to be a community of people who are multi-world'd like me. i will explore this further but i's got to go to the coop for my shift.

besos

birds chirping

last night i crashed in an apt on a very, very quiet block. the street is only one block long and full of old-now fixed up brownstones. i didnt even know the street existed until a couple months ago. the room was silent. it was earie. now partly my room is so loud b/c to keep it a decent temperature i have to keep my window onto 4th ave open. but even on the 4th floor with the windows closed i can hear street noise. i don;t think that these windows were such great insulation, its just that the street was that quiet. in the morning i could hear the birds chirping just fine. i seriously think part of my trouble falling alseep, besides the normal trouble of dealing with a new bed was how quiet it was. that and the sweatpants i borrowed were hot as hell. why can't i find a decent temperature for sleeping anywhere? last night's dreams brought on some old middle school kids. wonder how they are doing now?

peace is war

so after reading this in the nation i feel even more compelled to post the lyrics to a dar song that i have been singing for a couple days. i know that its late to come to the dar bandwagon. i know that she also is preaching to the choir, and i know that in high school i was very high-minded about my thinking of the indigo girls as 'that lousy whiney chick music' time has changed and so have opions. i've been to indigo girls concerts (plural, i think..memory is going) and i wish i owned more dar, still not a huge ani fan but i digress. dar speaks the truth. and i remember senior year in college i was trying to date this upski wannabe and he was off to Georgia to protest the SOA. That was the first time I had heard of it. I remembered thinking he'd be arrested, which he wasn't. I didn't think that 6 years later these protests would still need to happen and how much scarier the world has become due to the schools' actions and similar US funded mistakes and capitalist enterprises. So for a little inspiration I give you some of Dar's very true words.

I Had No Right

God of the poor man this is how the day began
Eight codefendants, I, Daniel Berrigan
Oh and only a layman's batch of napalm
We pulled the draft files out
We burned them in the parking lot
Better the files than the bodies of children

I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you

Many roads led here, walked with the suffering
Tom in Guatamala, Phillip in New Orleans
Oh it's a long road from law to justice
I went to Vietnam, I went for peace
They dropped their bombs
Right where my government knew I would be

I had no right but for the love of you
I had no right but for the love of you

And all my country saw
Were priests who broke the law

First it was question, then it was a mission
How to be American, how to be a Christian
Oh if their law is their cross and the cross is burning

Aaaaaaaaah the love of you
Aaaaaaaaah the love of you

God of the just I'll never win a peace prize
Falling like Jesus
Now let the jury rise
Oh it's all of us versus all that paper
They took the only way they know who is on trial today
Deliver us unto each other, I pray

I had no right but for the love of you
And every trial I stood, I stood for you

Eyes on the trial
8am arrival
Hands on the bible

is this me?

from the program to an art show at a bar on atlantic, i met the artist the other night (sent me home in a car)...
"A Brooklyn chick is someone who can definately hold her own and doesn't take shit. Brooklyn chicks don't have the capacity to deal with people who waste their time. They are independant thnkers that are truly self-sufficent. They make their own rules (and heaven forbid you should break one.) A brooklyn chick will sit there adn listen to you bullshit, not becasue she is gullible or buys into what you spew, but to find out what your deal is and what your angle on things are. She'll then turn around and give you a verbal beat-down in such a way that you feel silly for even trying to run game on her. Although she might not know exactly where her life is leading, she knows where it's not going to go. She refuses to relive mistakes or past situations as she learns, moves on, and never repeats bad history. Most of us are looking for the condifence they possess..."

I'd like to think this is me, but I'm not as tough as the women to which this is referring to. I couldn't last one night behind a bar.

line that keeps making me smile from an email from a guy i went on a date with to magnolia "You know your pictures don't do any justice to how cute you really are."
he he he
ok work

feel like i'm in college

ok. all the physical ailments seem to be over, except that i still feel as though i'm nursing a hangover at 7:50 pm. hence college. i only had three beers. and while that does make me drunk...sheesh. going to bed at 3:30 didn't help anything though. mickey and chill also woke up with headaches, maybe something was slipped into our brooklyn lagers.

went to what turned out to be a good, but definitely over priced brunch today (shopsin's). and i had had such high hopes for the place. but apparently it moved locations and expanded. the food was good, but i thought the ambience would have more going for it. i did get two confetti exploding things when i left though. if they served booze it would have been better-and would have helped the headache. but it probably would have cost $10 for a mimosa. mmm vegan sausage. may have been the first time i had eggs since mexico-made me want to be back at the beach. doesn't take much though.

last night i got send home in a car service paid by someone else. i left the bar at 3 am and if i had been flush for cash would have taken a car so as not to spend an hour going a mile and a half. but the, grew up in the Jonathan lethem neighborhood, guys refused to let me take the train. there is a distinct difference in the way people from ny and people who have moved her in the past 8 years look at the bococa neighborhoods. the first time i came to ny norm commented on how bad john whats his name's neighborhood was (part of the area being discussed)l, then at a party john what's his name told me how bad his neighborhood was growing up and still now in the shadows and how foolish i am to think of it as relatively safe. yes i think you have to keep your head up esp off the main streets, but that walking to the train from atlantic and waiting for the train would be fine even at 3 am. yes mickey did get mugged, but that was in the projects corridor and shit does happen. i'm just liek those 15-23 year old men who think they are invinsible. in the end with the cajoling of the bartender-who kinda saw my point- i got in the car. the fare was $8, the dude gave me $20 i gave the guy a 7 dollar tip b;c i felt weird taking his money. but then i felt weird giving the guy a 12 tip, so i kept $5. maybe i'll give it to the next person on the train who asks me for money.

i love brooklyn (and withdrawl pt 2)

so first off i love brooklyn. today has been awesome. i woke up started cooking for shabbes lunch, went to the bodega in my pajamas, which i haven't done since the days of chocolate chip pancakes. why have those days gone? probably the not being friends with the roomies thing, and chad always cooked me breakfast, not me cooking for him. in any case i cooked, then went to shul. today was warm for winter and not a cloud in the sky. had a nice discussion at shul. i really like the rabbi's ideas, but not her delivery, not the text of what she's saying but she always speaks loudly and quickly as if she's racing the clock to get all her words out before the timer goes off. then i walked home in the gorgeous day, stopping to have a brief chat with noam who i haven't seen in ages and to see if he wanted to come to lunch, he was busy. came home and a nice lunch with yummy matzaoh ball soup with walper, schwartz-who it was really good to see and good to see he's looking well, jason, rachel the roomie, and sarra. the world is small as schwartz randomly met aram at the gate the other night, and aram randomly lives with jason. then we went for a walk in the park and it was just so nice. and so many fathers with kids were out and so were a ton of jews for shabbes walks-it was great. fyi did you know that you can sing shir hamolas to a billy joel tune, i forget which one. i never would have thought.

so i have skipped my med for the past two days, partly b/c i'm lazy and partly b/c i'm broke and didn't want to walk the avenue to go pick up my prescription. so i have been feeling kinda woozy for the afternoon, like a nice drunk state but sober and finally realized that it wasn't a dehydration thing. fucked up that i take something that can fuck with me like that. so even though its hours after i was supposed to take the med, i just went up there and got my pill so as not to totally fuck myself over and maybe i could be able to concentrate and finish working on my bank street application. the med bottle came with a drowziness warning which is interesting b/c my doc always tells me to take it in the morning 'cause it might keep me up. one of my ladies, who had a similar medication history, her doc says the same thing-so why the warning that it will put us to sleep. i plan to have a few beers tonight to counteract the upping effect and be able to go to sleep.

update from last post-gosford park is bad to watch before bed, b/c you have to really pay attention to it and can't kinda just drift off.

shabbes

about a year ago i switched meds and went threw withdrawl-which gave me vertigo-which mad me motion sick, which provided for bus rides that made me puke when i got off of them. those 10 days were more pleasant than the bus ride i just took back from matt and lorie's. usually i walk back from their place on shabbes, but the bus was there and i had groceries. it did a lot to wipe away any nice shabbes feelings i had been having.

at dinner there was this couple. the guy was hot and looked so adoringly at his girlfriend, you could tell he was head over heels for her. it was great and making me sad at the same time.

i have a date on sunday that i'm really looking forward to, not bc of the person but b/c of what we are supposed top be doing...going to this restaurant that i read about in a collection of foodie essay's of calvin trillin's and then going to a museum or to spy on the progress of christo's gates. and i didn't come up with this idea. i wonder if this guy might turn out to me another ezra. perfect on paper, not in person. except that i was attracted to and wanted to hook up with ezra. well at least for the first few years we knew each other. we shall see. did i mention in a previous post about the 2 interview rule that i learned and how i want to implement that into dates? if i did i won't explain.

for a period of time chad and i would watch movies for 15-30 minutes in bed before going to sleep. i think i am reviving the tradition, but its not nearly as cozy on my own, but it is a good way to wind down and clear my thoughts before i go to sleep. reading does it too, but if i like what i'm reading i don't want to put it down.

i'm having company for lunch tomorrow and have yet to cook or clean and just want to watch some of my movie and drift off to sleep and not wake up by an alarm. but there are not an infinite number of hours, as might me wanted. esp if i want to sleep in and go to shul and the gym would be awesome as well.

what i love about the journal. transitions are not needed.

shabbat shalom

switching it up

holla.
i feel overwhelmed. this is because its late, i'm not at work. i'm being called out at work for not having done anything in the last 3 months-literally. i realize that this is a problem. of course its also 9am and i am writing this instead of getting my ass out of here and into work. and i have to pickup my meds, b/c it would be bad to miss a day. so apologies if this makes less sense than usual.

went on a date (from nerve) with some guy that looks like jack from will and grace. not as much as the guy who comes into the coop on thursday who i am convinced is jack from will and grace. he also reminded me of someone for krieglet, but she is of course taken. it was fine. i once went on an job interview where the person said that she interviewed everyone twice before making a decision so that you could be a little more comfortable with each other the second time around and give people a fair shot. i'm kinda taking that attitude towards dating. we'll see if he emails back. and magnolia cupcakes and a beer from blind tiger are always great. he paid for both, which i of course felt awkward about and if i wasn't soooooo broke i would have have picked up the beers, but i didn't have enough cash and thought it would be more rude to say i'll just get mine. oh well. shit happens.

am switching over to gmail from hotmail, hotmail has been driving me crazy for a while now. but i'm not sure how i feel about the gmail format, or the grouping of messages. esp if a message was sent to multiple people. and then all their separate responses get attached to the same train and then get buried. i'll get used to it. i['m just a slow technological adapter.

the bbc is talking about the global problem of alcoholism and how we have to reduce our global availability to it. i kinda agree, but wait don't take away, or worse more more expensive, my ability to party!.

i remember

what else i was going to post yesterday...when we stayed in the tent cabins they had shared bathrooms. in the morning as i was basking i the full sun outside of the shower house to dry off, this couple came into shower. i noticed the guy was wearing a fat tire t-shirt. i mumbled nice shirt, he said 'what' i repeated louder, 'nice shirt' now i was never even a fan of fat tire. when i came back to st louis from ireland, its all anyone drank. it was ok, but nothing special and generally more expensive in my opinion. but in the way that all things familiar, regardless of their valence, become nostalgia i was pumped to see a fat tire shit in mexico, it brought on some warm fuzzies.

is it bad that i kinda dread going to the shrink on days that i feel ok?

i remember

what else i was going to post yesterday...when we stayed in the tent cabins they had shared bathrooms. in the morning as i was basking i the full sun outside of the shower house to dry off, this couple came into shower. i noticed the guy was wearing a fat tire t-shirt. i mumbled nice shirt, he said 'what' i repeated louder, 'nice shirt' now i was never even a fan of fat tire. when i came back to st louis from ireland, its all anyone drank. it was ok, but nothing special and generally more expensive in my opinion. but in the way that all things familiar, regardless of their valence, become nostalgia i was pumped to see a fat tire shit in mexico, it brought on some warm fuzzies.

is it bad that i kinda dread going to the shrink on days that i feel ok?

i'm not pregnant

don't worry, there was no chance, since the closest i've come to getting any-let alone sex-was kissing aram good shabbes on the cheek. but this does explain my unrestrainable need for microwave popcorn of late, and maybe some of the lowness of mood.

in latin america they have these autotels, sleazy motels where each room has its own indoor garage so you can drive in, shack up, and leave without ever being seen. i wonder if the brooklyn motor in on the red hook side of the bqe is a similar type establishment.

i had some other random musing, but its gone now.

wustl invades

so after dropping off my NYU admission application i was walking to the 6 train and noticed the addition of a cold stone creamery, same place as was the smashed ice cream place in the galleria. this reminded me that maggie moos (which was far superior, but i think only b/c of the name and non-indoor mall location, as it was part of a strip mall, but next to wild oats and close to the fancy shnucks) has come to 7th ave in park slope. can't wait til its warm and can walk up there for ice cream. but it won't be quite the same as walking up to baskin robbins as there is no jason block to give us cheap ice cream and good gossip. maybe i could contact him and get him to move to park slope.

yesterday i had the opportunity to look the the recommendation my boss wrote for me, which was apparently 3 single spaced pages and v. nice. i choose not to. it wouldn't be write, he didn't show it to me. i think that when i leave i will ask to look at it. it bothers me a little bit that my brand new coworker has seen it, it in fact lives on her computer.

us RAs lobbied to get ourselves the cute flash memory drive usb keys. how cool are we. and how soon am i going to lose mine? oh also getting a refurbished computer and screen i don't have to pick and drop to make work. maybe i am getting some respect around here.

at the end of class last night, the instructor suggested that we bring in our digital cameras (don't have one, not even on my phone) to take pics of the charts we make in class (after working on a problem as a group we chart out explanations and share what we did with the whole group. its actually not as suffocating as that just seemed) so we can put them in our portfolios. ok i know i'm entering into progressive education and tests are bad and all, but what they hell good is a portfolio. arg. also on the syllabus the percentage points for how much stuff is worth adds up to 105% that just makes me chuckle every time i look at it.

woke up, took a shower, got dressed, and decided i didn't feel like going to work, so went back to sleep and i had a dream about going back to sleep dressed and involved the steelers and nyu and a giant folder promoting them. it was odd. definately through me off and made me get up.
l8r