sooooo on friday they announced a major restructuring of my department (basically half of the department- not my half- is being moved to another group, and my half is changing names and taking on some events from a different area) in a meeting that i missed. i didn't have the energy to be anxious about it all weekend but now i'm back at work and everyone is whispering about it and that is making me anxious. we're having a meeting at 11 to "discuss our questions and concerns." my concern is not so much what is happening but like, if i will still have a job at the end of the fiscal year. it's like... 99% likely that i will, but my worry is that my job will change so much that i will hate it. oh well, can't do anything about it now.

i had a very full weekend ! friday was the opening of mike and jeanne's art show at part time studios in fishtown, so mouse and i went down there. their show was sea-junk themed and everything both of them made was absolutely stunning.



i'm really proud of both of them. fishtown is... weird, i basically never go there and didn't even realize this block was there, but there was a little block of galleries and junk (including the fabled coffee shop that biz lives over ! where i... saw two of my coworkers? it was like seeing bugs bunny in real life or something). fishtown is full of weird people who look like aliens who heard tell of earth hipsters and tried to emulate their look without the use of the earth internet, so there was lots of weird flapper clothes, giant feathers in peoples' hair, and slouchy socks. i also saw at least two bolo ties. the gallery was pretty crowded because it was first friday, so i got to very briefly see and barely talk to a lot of people i like. here are my two favorite things from the show:


unfortunately i don't have a full picture of this, but it is a beautiful melusine by jeanne


a leviathan by mike !!!! my actualllll favorite of his was this tiny fiji mermaid but this is my other favorite

afterward, mouse and i went to whole foods and i came home, where i went to bed surprisingly early to avoid cleaning my apartment for company this weekend.

on saturday, i procrastinated so hard i actually played windows solitaire (i use cumulative scoring so i end up in the hole, and always think one more game will get me back in the black), but ended up doing an okay job cleaning my room and getting my laundry together and getting some of my junk off of the couch. my friend brian from connecticut was in town, and luckily was up for a bunch of stationary back pain fun. we got indian buffet and gelato and then watched the naked gun, which i just realized is available on netflix instant !



it kind of fell apart from there because, as you know, there is basically nothing good on netflix instant, but it was fun. i ended up actually going to sleep early, which is sort of a bummer because i go to sleep at 4am on work nights, but i slept for like ten hours, which is unheard of. i think it might be due to the fact that roxy jr. didn't sleep in my room and it was raining so it was like super dark in my bedroom.

oh yeah ! i introduced pizza to roxy jr. on saturday too !



they are not really getting along yet- lots of hissing and growling, though surprisingly pizza seems to be the alpha (do cats have alphas?) and roxy jr. immediately backs down. no real fighting or confrontations, but no grooming and cuddling yet. oh wellllllllll.

on sunday, i met up with brian, christina, nick, and sandi at local 44 for brunch. christina had gone up to nyc to see wild flag with nick and sandi, and then brought them back to see wild flag here. local 44 was kind of disappointing (righttttt after i updated my yelp reviewwwwwwww)- bland bloody marys and the removal of vegetarian disco fries from the menu was pretty heartbreaking. nothing really looked too appealing on the menu, so i chose the new menu item replacing the disco fries with eggs on top that i had last time- weird spicy french fries with eggs on top. i'm not sure why i got this because i'm not really wild about french fries, but it was pretty gross- the fries were super super super super salty, they didn't taste hot at all, and they were pretty dessicated. also the eggs were the size of peanuts.

i tricked everyone into going to cvs with me afterward to get cat supplies, and i also treated myself to some nail polish-


rimmel hot cocoa, purple rain, and steel gray

and then came back home and hung out with nick and sandi while christina napped, and then *i* napped, and then they all went to see wild flag again (i'm bummed that i didn't try to go to this- my back was so messed up when christina strongly urged me to go see them that i thought i'd never be able to go, but it looked fucking amazing and i love mary timony and ahhhhhhhhh). after they got home i had some wonderful drunk bonding with them all, and then watched futurama in bed until it was time to go to sleep- 2am, still pretty early !

so, overall, good weekend. not much on the horizon this week except lots of work, hanging out with mouse, maybe going to ryann's show at the bean if i can make it (the walking junk is still pretty tedious), introducing jeanne to roxy jr, blah blah.

p.s. i love nick and sandi
p.p.s. work is stressful right now

eating popcorn on a piano

ahhh, school. did you guys know school was a lot of work? my german class has kind of been light on homework so far (attending daily class, doing an interactive lesson on the deutsche welle site, recording answers to verbal questions, writing an introduction for myself on the class facebook... !!!) but the history class has been killer. i need to pace myself better as far as the reading goes- i need to do the reading over the weekend every week so tuesday and wednesday aren't super stressful.


the time management octopus or banana

i'm stressed out already ! buh ! and it's only day 3 of classes. i'm also already resentful that i'm missing out on fun social stuff, like anna's birthday ! and now i'm anxious that i won't finish my craft swap scarf by august, though i guess i could work on that reallllly hard on the weekends or something. i'm trying to be really reasponsible about obligations now, and since it's the first time i've done this particular craft swap, i don't want to be late or a deadbeat !


someone else's beautiful entrelac stuff

i also watched a few futuramas with ken last night, including the one where bender becomes human. favorite. i wish i could make that 'wooooo' noise my text message sound or something.



oh, speaking of text messages, i also restored my iphone to factory settings by accident so i lost all the apps i had and my most recent like, cat pictures and shit. and most of my better sexts ! just kidding. or am i?*

what else? oh, i just bought a used copy of resident evil 5 to play with a friend. it looks kind of stupid and weird (basically, killing zombies and monsters and a matrix guy in south africa- has caused some controversy because the zombies are mostly black), but also like it'll be fun since it requires a lot of cooperation.



some other suggestions for cool scary games where maybe i could kill monsters instead of zombies are also welcome.

tonight i have more class, which is already making for a boring blog. but !!! nate and anna can't use their phillies tickets for tomorrow so mouse and i are going to go ! and we might go tubing on the delaware on saturday? and then i'm going to spend a thousand hours reading and knitting and being miserable about having responsibilities i think.

p.s. what iphone apps did i have?
p.p.s. homework sucks

* yes

are you there god? it's me, roxy

ughhhh i just realized i have a team meeting in 30 minutes so i won't be able to finish this until after ! ughhhhh ! ughhhh. what's up guys? i just ate a trader joe's mini quiche for breakfast (spinach and mushroom) and it tasted exactly like a white castle? minus the ketchup. muy bueno.



i had a pretty great and actually relaxing long weekend ! on friday we were dismissed unexpectedly at 11, so i went downtown to meet biz (biz being my best friend from sixth grade who incidentally lives in philly now !). we had a rough plan of buying stupid shit and eating and i'm happy to say that we stuck to it ! we stopped by the place i'm catsitting to check on miss hoolie (she was okay !) and then walked up walnut looking for places to buy cheap jewelry. the first place we came across was the most bunk overpriced second hand store where i felt super guilty cause we made fun of everything and didn't buy anything, but it was like... some rich lady peddling size 0-4 garbage from the salvation army at like 10x the price you'd find it there?



we DID find tselaine at 19th and walnut which is like the cutest store ever with the best stuff, but unfortunately i like... don't ever want to spend money and am a cheapo so i just got some wind up dinosaurs there. but if you like purses and jewelry and notecards and foofy umbrellas and wind up dinosaurs you should definitely check it out !



christina met up with us after that and we ended up just going to nova ice (the cheap-o jewelry store) where i got exactly what i wanted for exactly what i wanted to pay- big colorful beaded necklaces for $5 each. i basically just wanted some necklaces to match my work dresses so i look more dressed up (without wearing something other than a $14 jersey cotton old navy dress) so i got dark purple beads and orange beads to match this dress


that crap on the bottom is flowers !

and a sort of slate blue one to go with whatever. then we went to sephora where i almost bought a $14 hydrocortisone stick (what does it say about me that i was in sephora and the thing i wanted to buy was... hydrocortisone? but it was awesome and i put it on the heat rash on my knee and it basically cleared it up in minutes ! my regular tube of hydrocortisone isn't doing ANYTHING !). i didn't buy it though cause i'm a cheapskate.



then we got dinner at pietro's and finally went to rittenhouse needlepoint. rittenhouse needlepoint is... a needlepoint store that's on the second story of a building at 18th and chestnut, and we always consider going there and never do. holy shit, it's the nicest store ! one of the owners talked to us forever and was super nice- they offer free classes on saturdays for beginners and the culture that they're trying to create around crafting to make everyone feel welcome and included is super nice and refreshing. also one of the owners' dad is a former wharton dean who is a really nice guy !


lulu, the owners' standard poodle. she kept walking in front of a fan and it looked very glamorous

christina and i went home after that (she got crewel supplies and is already making something beautiful) and i took a quick nap. mouse came over and monitored my progress in getting my bike ready for our trip on saturday. on saturday morning, we went to nockamixon state park in quakertown (quakertown is really cute btw !). nockamixon was really nice and surprisingly not crowded for a holiday weekend.



we rode our bikes a little (their path is short but really well maintained) and ate lunch at a picnic area and went swimming in their pool which was super exciting for me- i haven't been in a pool in FOUR YEARS or more ! i can't find my bathing suit top so i wore little shorts and a tank top and that was a sort of terrible idea because i forgot that boobs float, but only one person made a weird comment to me and also... i'm never going to see any of those people again.



after the park, we went up to mouse's mom's house because his sister was in town with scottie the baby. hooooly crap he's huge now and he laughs and his legs are so fat ! i held him for a little and he ripped out a ton of my hair and it was the best. he also got obsessed with the letters on mouse's shirt and kept trying to eat them:



after that, i went over to mouse's and we watched full circle, the first series in the doctor who e-space trilogy. the story was surprisingly deep for a doctor who serial ! basically these people on a spaceship have been preparing for 100 years to take their crashed ship back to their home planet, but they keep getting attacked by mysterious marsh men. it turns out that the survivors on the ship evolved from the marsh men and were unable to pilot the crashed ship because it was never their technology and the original survivors didn't leave instructions !!!!



on sunday, christina and i went to trader joe's and pathmark to get groceries, and i got two watermelons and two pounds of cherries (did i mention i ate a pound of cherries at nockamixon? haha.). i've already eaten one watermelon with minimal help ! later that afternoon, jeanne, mike b. and carol came over, which was exciting because carol and i haven't really hung out yet but we've been planning on it. we mostly watched rocky and i shared some fruit with them. mouse came over too and after everyone left, i showed him more futurama because he wanted to see this:



did i mention that futurama is now available on netflix instant viewing? this has changed my life and i basically did very little other than watch it for most of sunday and monday !

on monday, i finally made myself do my homework. it was worse than i thought- i forgot how to take notes ! all i had to do was read three chapters, but i took six pages of notes on 20 pages. i finally gave up and just started writing down stuff i didn't know and finished the final 40+ pages in the time it took me to read 20. i'm a little nervous that i'm studying wrong or something?



i think it may also have been the boringness of the chapters though? i know it's an american history to 1877 course but basically every history class i took from elementary to high school was too- i mean, not EVEN to 1877, i feel like i learned indians -> revolutionary war like 900000 times already. i know which explorers explored what, who gave smallpox to who, which indians had mounds, who colonized what, etc.

after i finnnnnalllllly finished, ken and i played left 4 dead 2. we had to re-do the carnival campaign except carrying a gnome statue, and i mistakenly thought this meant that i would get a gnome. it turns out that my xbox avatar gets a depeche mode shirt? ripoff ! i wanted a gnome.


this IS the fat avatar !

then we watched a few episodes of futurama (don't judge me !) to the point where we were stupidly tired and i may have made a few rude smallpox jokes.

oh yeah. my classes start today. my first class is from 6-7 (history) and my german class is from 7:30-8:45. i'm super fucking nervous but i think i've done all of the preparation i can do ! wish me luck.

p.s. sorry i made an entry with two animated gifs
p.p.s. i forgot that we went to claire's on friday and i got a julius caeser laurel headband? it's really hard to shop there as an adult. they had like 80 different colors and patterns of... sports wrap?

go ahead and ask her

hayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!! last night i worked on a work project at home, like a dork, and crocheted ! that's like, mostly it ! i had to look up like 50302943 people in our system to make mailing labels for them and i got about half of it out of the way since it's so time-consuming. the actual work isn't time-consuming but our system is so slow that it takes like 5 minutes per person to look them up which is like four hours in internet time.


i can't take credit for this clever graphic

i made it my goal to finish two more granny squares while i cleared our DVR of the simpsons and futurama, but i kept getting distracted and it took longer than i thought. i think it would take like 45 minutes or so to do a granny square if i actually focused but it took me like 900 hours because i kept putting it down. anyway, here's the two new ones:



and here's all four together in case you are too lazy to look at the last entry !



what else? i'm also re-reading the fellowship of the ring, which i haven't read since i was 10-14 (when i read it many, many, many times). i lovedddddddddd these books when i was a kid and, re-reading them, i really regret seeing the movies. i wasn't too crazy about them when they came out, but like, i had everything pictured so vividly in my mind- what everyone looked like, what every place looked like, what every race looked like, etc. and now when i'm reading i just picture this:







i'm especially heartbroken about gollum because the movie gollum is really stupid and gross and i hate him. gandalf and saruman are okay though cause... 1) christopher lee is cool and 2) what else is a wizard going to look like? anyway, it is coloring my re-reading in a way that is bumming me out, because like... i'm an adult, i shouldn't have to think about elijah wood if i don't want to, and it also sucks to lose important magical stuff from your childhood.

i unfortunately have to cut this short because i have a meeting in 20 minutes that i have to prepare for. hayyyy.

p.s. my mom gets here after work tomorrow ! which means i'd better clean my room tonight and maybe drop my laundry off to be washed?