i will follow you into the dark

mannnn. not sure how to start this entry, because i really don't want to write it, but weirdo's kidney's failed suddenly on sunday and she had to be put to sleep. she was fine on saturday- playful and energetic and annoying and cute, but she didn't finish her dinner. on sunday morning when i left, she was playful but sleepy (kitten attacked my hand when i petted her goodbye), and on sunday evening when i came home, she was completely lethargic and her gums were white. i didn't notice anything strange at first because she was kind of a little floppy noodle cat when she was tired anyway, but after about a half hour of that, we started to get worried.

mouse dropped me off at the emergency vet, and they took her right back. the first time the vet talked to me, we talked about what i should feed her when i got home (i transitioned her to regular cat food, but they suggested i keep her on kitten food for awhile), and then she went to check her bloodwork results. when she came back, she was carrying a box of tissues.


the last picture i took of her

the vet said that it looked like she had congenital kidney problems and at that point, she was so sick that there was nothing she could do. christina came and met me there, and we got to say goodbye to her (and sob and use the entire fucking box of tissues) and hold her and pet her and tell her how much everyone loved her. i had to hold her while she was put to sleep, and she went in about ten seconds.

this... fucking sucks? i don't really know how else to talk about it. i really, really, really miss her and i hate that this happened. like, on saturday specifically i was thinking about what she'd be like when she grew up- any time i picked her up and rested her head on my chest she'd fall asleep, and i was wondering if she'd still do that when she was big.

bleh. what a great little friend.

p.s. christina has been really amazing throughout all of this- i know she loved weirdo just as much as me, but she's been super supportive and great and funny and caring. she also made a donation to citykitties in weirdo's name.
p.p.s. i had a great thanksgiving weekend filled with terrific people who love me and weird stuff and maybe i'll write about that later this week. right now i'm pretty bummed.

east timor

i gotta make it quick cause i have a meeting soon ! hey !

yesterday i mostly slept. i meant to do reading for school but i didn't really get much done because i felt so crummy. i guess that's like... barely even interesting for me to write about, huh? anyway, later that night jeanne and i got dinner ! i didn't eat all day because i didn't feel well, but i got super super starving right before i had to go and i couldn't take it anymore, so i... ate like 10 pickled baby beets on an empty stomach !


please enjoy this genius covered in beet juice

so by the time i got to the restaurant, i had a pretty gross stomach ache ! which was a shame because i ate a big cream-based dinner (pappardelle in a cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, shitake mushrooms, marsala wine, pecorino cheese). also, i decided recently that my new signature drink is scotch on the rocks, and i e-mailed my mom and consulted with my friend justin about how to order it in a bar, and was totally ready, but i got a shirley temple instead because my stomach was so upset. maybe next time.



after dinner, we got frozen yogurt at scoop de ville, and then i had to take a cab home because i had to use the bathroom and we were in a weird bathroom desert (i usually know where every public bathroom is and the closest one, barnes and noble, was closed). i got home and hung out with the kitten and edited my essay and got to catch up with christina a little- i've barely seen her since she got back from new hampshire !

sooooo, the kitten. she does not understand the importance of the litterbox. like, she goes in the litter half the time, but the other half she either goes 1) NEAR the litter or 2) where ever. i'm going to have to figure out what to do to give her the encouragement she needs. i'm not home during the day, but when i am home i grab her and put her in the litterbox if i see her squatting to go to the bathroom. other than that, she's super weird and cute. i can entertain her for an hour by putting my hair in a ponytail and setting her on the back of the couch.



i wish that accurately conveyed her smallness. that's christina's flip flop, and christina has little tiny feet (little tiny adult sized feet !). her flip flops are like, a 5.5-6 in womens' sizes. so the kitten is REALLY SMALL.

i have to go because my coworker needs help with something that she made much more convoluted than it needed to be, and i also have a staff meeting. bleh.

oh by the way ! i meant to post this picture of mouse and his nephew because it's the greatest thing ever, so i'm posting it in honor of mouse's birthday. he's not excited about his birthday but i am because he is cool and my favorite.



lots of reading to do today. lots of work at work.

when i'm dreaming of you

i had the best weekend and now i don't feel well !! i'm not sure if it's allergies (since my eyes itch) or what, but my nose has been gushing, my head and neck hurt, and i've felt super super super exhausted since yesterday afternoon. i called out of work, but i still have to go to class tonight because i missed class wednesday. blehhh.

welll here's all the good stuff ! on friday, i picked up weirdo II from jeanne ! i had to drive in south philly, which is sort of a nightmare of narrow streets and jay walking guidos, and was not able to parallel park to go inside (her street is REALLY narrow !), but weirdo and i made it home and she is the cutest sweetest smallest best dude ever. seriously, i cannot convey how fucking small she is ! here is a picture of her being small with me:



mouse stopped by on friday night to visit her and loved her, of course (he is interested in kittens)- we also discovered that she's obsessed with food. the second he opened his burrito and she could smell it, she frantically climbed all over him, meowing and then ran down his leg and bit his burrito !!! it was the funniest weirdest, but during the course of the weekend she did that with:

- thai curry
- pickles
- bbq seitan
- twizzlers

basically any food sends her into a ridiculous frenzy and she screams and tries to bite your food. it's very cute now that she's tiny, but will possibly not be that cute when she's big !

on saturday, mouse, nate, anna, and i went to linvilla orchards and met up with kati, alan, james, rachael, ashley, and sarah (who i FINALLLLLLY got to meet !). that sounds like a billion people, and it was ! linvilla is my favorite orchard, and it was packed.



i had the best time with everyone- we mostly looked at animals and ate food. a real stupid goat ate some corn out of my hand !!!!! and i saw a cow pee for like a minute straight. a horse too ! and we looked at some super gross emus. i also had french fries with vinegar, an apple cider slushie, a cider donut, and a slice of frozen chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. who knew such a thing existed? holy shit. i felt like cathy.



but because of all of that, i DIDN'T get a caramel apple, which is a bummer because caramel apples are my favorite food and i only get to have one a year (because i have terrible teeth !). i also didn't get to have deep fried oreos, which i get to have no times a year (only because i'm not often around them, not because of any kind of cathy-esque food rules). so many regrets ! i declined going apple picking (since i can never find any good apples on the trees) and instead bought some neat stuff at their store- i got:

- pumpkin butter
- orange blossom honey
- pickled baby beets
- sweet garlic dill pickles (!!!!!)



anyway, i had the best time and got the worst stomach ache ! after all that, we came home and parted ways- i had a ton of homework and was super tired, and ended up crashing out and not doing any homework.

on sunday, mouse and i went to laurel hill cemetery (a gigantic beautiful victorian cemetery here) for the spirits and spiritualists tour. it was great, and laurel hill is beautiful (especially on an overcast day, because i'm a goth teenager), but there wasn't really thaaaaat much about spiritualism on the tour. we did learn about margaret fox, who was basically the inventor of spiritualism, who was very famous for being able to communicate with the dead with rapping and crap, and her love affair with the famous explorer elisha kent kane. they were going to be married, but his family forbade it because they were stuck up assholes !!!!!! anyway, he wrote her a bunch of romantic letters about how she'd be buried in his family crypt with him when she died (why don't guys do stuff like that anymore?) and after he died she was like, "actually we secretly got married and i want his shit", and i believe she ended up getting some of his shit.



his tomb is in the side of a hill just outside the cemetery fence (i think cause they couldn't fence around it?), and margaret didn't end up in there. boo. other than that, there wasn't too much spiritualism on the tour, but he did show us all the famous graves (general meade, harry kalas, frank furness, charles thomson, etc.). i had a good time, and i tried to touch every tombstone to see if a ghost would haunt me, but it didn't happen.

after the cemetery, we went to whole foods, where i got $98329829832 worth of stuff from the salad bar/hot bar, and i came home to study and do homework. i didn't end up getting too much done because i was already starting to feel sick, but i got the main assignment i had due finished. today i have to do a little reading and maybe work on an essay, but i'm probably going to take mucinex and sleep.

class tonight- the syllabus instructs us to bring our laptops, which is awesome because it's rainy and gross outside and my laptop is too big to bring places, but i'll do it.

oh how happy you have made me

blahhhh hi ! class last night was kind of rough- this week we were covering settler genocides and specifically aboriginal child removal in australia, so we watched rabbit proof fence, a movie based on a true story of three "half-caste" (of indigenous australian and european descent) girls who were taken from their indigenous australian parents and put in a "school" (to be trained as servants and bred with europeans to "breed out the black"), who later escaped and walked 1000 miles home.



it was a great movie and it was brutally sad, and of course i was the only one crying. i'm not sure what is up with like, the dead-eyed unsympathetic generation that i'm going to school with? anyway, i have to write a paper for this class, and i'm thinking about doing something about gendercide. i got gendercide and genocide by adam jones, and gendercide by mary warren. i also have some other books already that may be relevant (rape of nanking for one). wish me luck !



sooo what else, besides genocide? i came home from school and remembered i had to raid. our plan was to kill the lich king, buttttt we kept wiping on sindragosa. we don't have a ringer group right now since no one is really playing, so it wasn't an ideal set up, and paul was cranky because the padres blew it.



oh, also ! ALSO !!! tonight i'm picking up my new kitten. hannah was fostering her, and she dropped her off with jeanne last night to babysit (since i had class), so i'm going to get her after work. according to jeanne, she enjoys playing and eating and putting her paws on you.



i'm excited ! and a little nervous. it's been a long time since i had a kitten.

weekend? hanging out with mouse (i feel like i've barely seen him lately), going to linvilla orchards (unless the weather blows?), hanging hard, doing homework.

it's too much for me

yesterday i actually took care of business and did some reading for my class ! it was ESPECIALLY hard for me because i had plans later in the evening, but i went to green line after work and powered through a thing about aboriginal child removal and about half of a chapter in adam jones' genocide textbook, which is fucking great. i've felt intimidated going back to school because... i have very little experience in school, and some of the readings i've had so far since the summer have been hopelessly indecipherably jargon-y, and this textbook is really well-written and accessible. like, i've never read a textbook before that really felt like i was reading a good book.



after that, i went to meet jeanne and mike b. at their friend's house (he is also named mike b.)- he owns a really beautiful house in west philly that filled me with envy. i should buy a house in my neighborhood with my millions of dollars ! that i have. i drank 100 iced coffees and had read so much genocide stuff that i felt like somber cornholio. anyway, we watched black death, a movie about.. the black death ! the premise is that a bishop sends a group of dudes to go to this remote town that they heard is untouched by the plague because a necromancer/witch is raising the dead and protecting them and crap.



boromir is in it, as well as a redhead jeanne likes whose name is EDDIE REDMAYNE (what are the odds). the movie was really fucking cool and understated and grim- there is a quartering scene that made all of us make audible noises of disappreciation (i never thought about how slow a quartering would be) and the bubos were totally gross. the best part was that the necromancer/witch was this beautiful badass blasphemous lady



i was so into her, and the movie didn't fall back on a lot of shitty sexist tropes (like, a movie that takes place in ye olden times without any rapes is a rare thing), and she was such a great character and obviously the winner of the movie... until we got to the kind of unnecessary tacked on ending in which women lose throughout history. i recommend stopping the movie like 8 minutes early !

jeanne and mike walked me home after, and i came home and i did slightly more reading and painted my nails with christina's um, parlez-vous opi



and went to bed at a reasonable time ! oh, and while we were watching the movie, i got a lot of knitting done, which is nice. the baby sweater is knitting up fast, but between the two classes, i'm nervous that i won't have that much time to knit.

bleh. i have a slightly busy weekend (of my own doing) which involves getting the kitten on friday, so i really need to buckle down and get a jump on my schoolwork. i have to write a loose proposal for my genocide research paper by next week, and i'm sort of panicking because i don't know how to do that and i'm not really sure what i want to write about. i see that adam jones has another book called gendercide and genocide that looks really interesting, but i'm not sure what my paper would really be ABOUT, and... my professor is especially interested in this topic, so i'm afraid she'll be disappointed by what i write. academic insecurity !!!!

i have to go pick up stuff for a stupid thing. bleh.

throw every last care away

ahhhh my back is ruined ! i fell asleep in a crappy position when i was benadrylled out and hurt my back and it's felt crappy for a week ! it's specifically the muscle i use to get up and sit down- so it's fine when i'm up walking around or laying down or sitting (except in my work chair, which is a problem), but having to sit down and get up from a sitting position is torture. TORTURE !


it actually hurts right about where the skeleton is hurt

i had a good weekend ! on friday i intended to do homework but ended up taking a nap, eating dinner, reading a non-school book, dropping my laundry off at the laundromat, and loafing. i managed to finish my outline of a chapter we had to read but i still have an essay to write before my class tonight ! i'm nervous that i won't be able to get it done because all of the material for the writing seminars is poorly written and i don't think i understand the instructions, but i'm sure i can bang something out- it's a first draft, anyway.

on saturday, i got a car and went to the bank and picked up kitten supplies. i got a tiny litterbox, a bunch of (tiny) cans of kitten food, and ordered a broken heart best friends necklace for the kitten and pizza's collars.


i didn't get THIS one cause it was $220

after my errands, mouse, nate, and anna came over to watch the phillies game, which was a total bummer. fuck the mets. we got pizza from ed's buffalo wings and pizza, since they have vegan pizza. the vegan pizza was probably the best vegan pizza i've ever had. the non-vegan pizza was probably one of the worst pizzas i've ever had. the vegan pizza was better than their regular pizza ! probably the best development of the night, though, was that nate and anna decided to come with us to the old timey baseball game on sunday !

...the old timey baseball game got rained out on sunday, but we all went to delaware anyway and went bowling with kati and alan. i didn't bowl because i'm too competitive and also too bad at bowling, but i knitted and drank a giant fountain coke, so i had a really good time. the bowling alley was blaaaaring like... weird tween music? like a mix of bad teen pop music and... adult pop music being covered by teenagers? also they had cosmic bowling at 2pm.



i like all that stuff though ! after bowling, we stopped at a kind of crappy thrift store (this was like, the most teenagery day ever- bowling and thrift stores !) and went back to kati's, where she and alan made us dinner- sweet potato fries and those veganomicon chickpea cutlets. kati also had cherry cider which was excellent. their house is so cute. they also have a very handsome 3-legged cat named sandy who sort of has a half leg? and the tip of his half leg is hairless and the nub feels like a paw pad ! pretty exotic. he is the cutest and he and anna formed a special bond.



sandyyyyyy. after dinner, we came back to philly and i unwisely took a nap before starting my homework which means i.. didn't really start my homework. i SORT OF finished huckleberry finn, because the essay i have to write is about the end. i'm probably going to write the essay at lunch today. basically i have til 5:30 to cobble something together. i sort of hate this writing class? no one wants to be there so the environment is weirdly hostile and i don't really have a class friend. oh well, i like the professor and it's a good class to take alongside a hard class.

hmm, what else? i started the presto chango jacket for helen's baby. it will look like this but less purple, more red, and cooler with cool faux jet buttons:



i'm going to go find breakfast or something and then get to work on... work.

how to boil water

okay i haveeee to complain a little about my writing class again. we have a class blog that we have to write in, every day, monday through thursday. we have to write at least three lines, about any topic. nearly everyone is acting like the professor tossed them a scalpel and asked them to perform brain surgery. so far, many of the blog entries are like, HOW CAN I FIND TIME TO DO THIS EVERY DAY? HOW CAN I REMEMBER TO DO THIS EVERY DAY. like, how do you remember to do anything every day? just do that. i personally put an outlook reminder on my calendar for every day, monday through thursday, until the end of the semester. put me in, coach !



i don't know- i guess i'm surprised that people are acting like whiny high school kids in college? like IS THIS GOING TO BE ON THE TEST? GOD THERE'S SO MUCH READING I DON'T HAVE TIME, THIS SUCKS. THIS CLASS SUCKS !)(!#@())(###

oh, did i mention that getting my courses evaluated has been a total bust so far? i had 7 possible classes that i was told "would transfer" (which i think was a poor choice of words on the part of my adviser, who seems to be... totally clueless. it took 3 days and 6 emails to get her to actually attach the attachment she forgot to attach to the first e-mail). of the six courses i was able to find syllabuses for (out of 7), 1 has been accepted, 2 have been denied, and 3 are in various queues. my dream of knocking a year off of my school career (in exchange for attending 2.5 years in the early 00s) isn't going to become a reality.



last night i desperately tried to read for genocide class- still reading saviors and survivors. it is a very intelligent and well-researched genocide denial i think? but it's frustrating me because i don't actually know enough about darfur to say this guy is wrong, and i only know that some people who DO know about darfur say he's wrong. i am also frustrated by his recounting of the history of darfur, including the ancient history- this SHOULD be interesting, and the history of race and politics in sudan and specifically in darfur are super important to understanding the current climate and conflicts, buttttttt he's just rattling off lists of names and dates and it's fucking boring ! it's frustrating because 1) i love history and 2) his writing was engaging in the previous chapters ! so i don't know what's up.


mahmood mamdani

anyway, all that aside, the main point is that i didn't do as much reading as i should have. i have a good excuse- my back is sort of fucked up and sitting in a crappy chair at the green line away from my computer and xbox and stuff seemed painful. haha. so after my writing class tonight, i have to do exactly that- no excuses. i need to read like 200 more pages tonight.

so far this entry has been all complaining and genocide denial so i'm going to cut it with knitting and kittens. first, here's a picture of tavi in an awesome sweater (let's ignore the fact that kathleen hanna gave it to her):



all of my knitting dork friends are trying to figure out how to make a chart for that so we can all be huge copy cats of a 14 year old. granted, a super smart and sharp 14 year old who makes our 14 year old selves look like total posers. i definitely think that pattern would work well on a scarf.

in other news, the kitten i'm adopting is very cute. here's proof:



i'm going to have to look into teeny kitten accessories for her- like a collar tiny enough to fit her, a litter box (though she'll probably use a pizza box til she gets a little bigger), toyssssss, etc. i'm also going to shop around philly vets because mine is in the suburbs and it's sort of annoying to go there, and the little lady needs her vaccinations and needs to get spayed. ahhhh my baby. i hope pizza likes her.

i have to go get ready for a stupid meeting now. blehhhhh.

men like you can never change

man. my writing class. i'm not sure what's up, but like... everyone curses and criticizes the class and class material constantly in class and in our writings, and it's the weirdest classroom environment in the universe? i feel like i'm on the bad news bears.



in class we had to bring an extra copy of the essay we wrote and do peer review of other peoples' essays. we weren't allowed to edit the copy, we just had to make an outline of the paper from our point of view so they could review it and see if their paper was actually saying what they meant to say. i guess that's a useful exercise? the paper i got needed editing but since it wasn't my job, i didn't do it. it did say "huckleberrey finn," "huckleberry fin," and "hick finn" in it though.

i feel guilty or like i sound snobby (or worse, classist) about this but my class is comprised half of privileged ivy league snots and half adults who have been working in professional jobs for 5+ years.


some dunces

after class, i came home and typed up my peer review and... watched tv for like 4 hours. i was in a really thick haze of allergy medicine fog (how do people with allergies DO this every day?) and couldn't make myself pick up another book. today, i'm refocused- i'm going to:



1) re-write my essay based on my peer review
2) read more of that mahmood mamdani book at lunch
3) write a quick paragraph about whether or not the kent state shootings count as genocide (someone asked this in class so we have to write about what we think)
4) go to the green line after work WITHOUT MY LAPTOP and read more of that book

i think i scheduled my classes well- having tuesday and friday as no class days gives me a lot of time to work on homework and special projects and reading and stuff. oh, and my eye feels a lot better today- it's still itchy but it isn't swollen or red. maybe i'll take the opportunity to put my new sheets on tonight?

okay, time to get to work !

p.s. hannah sent me a video of the kitten playingggggg. i wish i knew how to post it !

walk the dinosaur

hey dudes ! i had a wonderful and very benadrylled weekend ! on friday, i came home and actually wrote my essay- i had to write an essay about huckleberry finn, and then write an essay about my essay where i went through every line and had to paraphrase each line (to say what it SAYS) and then explain what each line DOES. it wasn't as tedious as it sounds ! then i had to read a chapter of beyond the culture wars by gerald graff and do a SAYS/DOES outline for that. what a weird book- this is my first year back at school in a billion years and it is some like... weird academic-y jargon-y book about problems in academia. why would i care about that? i have no clue what he's even talking about. like, going to school to learn about going to school doesn't seem interesting to me.



the class is pretty rough. so far it is like... middle school type stuff, but the instruction is muddled and the assignments are tedious. i'm bummed, because i have a lot to learn about writing and i'm not sure i'm going to learn it in this (required) class. we have to do a class blog and i know that not everyone is a superstar blogger or whatever, but everyone's entries are so weird and tedious and are a mishmash of incomplete sentences. also even though they can be about ANYTHING, most people write about the class. i feel like a jerk complaining about it though !

on saturday, i went to hannah's to meet my new kitten !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hannah found a teeny tiny baby kitten, and i get to take her home in 3 weeks. she's about 3 weeks old now (though she seems to be around 4 weeks developmentally and 3 weeks in size? so she may just be tiny). she is seriously like... the cutest kitten in the world. she put her paws on my face and nibbled on my chin and alksjdkaslks she's so cute. hannah is a saint for taking care of her !



after that, i went to target to get some qtips and new bedding and ended up running into jeanne, mike, ryann, and ned ! and then a few minutes later, benji ! it was pretty neat, except i was self-conscious about my eye and the fact that i was sort of covered in kitten pee. i got some bedding and some qtips and headed home, where i met up with mouse and benji (again !), fresh from their jiu jitsu lesson. i made them spaghetti with field roast sausages:



and mouse and i tried to sell benji on band of brothers. benji isn't a tv person but he's a cool human so he'd probably love band of brothers. i got to hang out with mouse a little too after benji left, which was nice because i don't get to see him as much because of school.

on sunnnnnday, i did some reading for my genocide class- this week we have to read saviors and survivors by mahmood mamdani. it's about darfur, and my professor said that she considers it to be genocide denial. so far, that seems pretty right on, but i have to claim ignorance here and say that i really don't know enough about darfur to know if what he's saying is completely preposterous.



i have a lot more reading to do, because i hope to write my paper for the class about genocide denial, so i think i need to actually stick to my plan of reading when i'm supposed to be reading ! after doing some reading, though, i went to jeanne and mike's house for fake thanksgiving ! ryann came too. we made quorn roast, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and brussels sprouts, and i brought a cherry pie and some pastries. the food was so good and i had the best time, and i'm glad i got to hang out with ryann again cause she's cool. also thanksgiving is the best possible meal of all time and i want to have it again right now?


someone else's vegan thanksgiving

what else? i'm off of work today because my eye totally sucks. benadryl made the swelling go down, but i didn't take it last night so i could get up for work today, and it came right back. the hydrocortisone my doctor suggested (did i mention that? my doctor suggested benadryl and hydrocortisone on friday for 3 days, and if it wasn't gone today, come back) seemed to make my face redder, and the really itchy spot is my tear duct. this really, really sucks.

what else? oh, in times of stress, i get fixated on stupid things. troll dolls. bill paxton. floaty pens. right now, it's, uh, how i met your mother. i will say right off- this show is not funny. it has a good cast (minus the main character, who is like jimmy fallon taped off the radio, and then someone made a tape of that tape, and so on and so on and so on) and good writers and almost good jokes, but the delivery of every line is so horrible, the laugh track is really weak and oddly placed, ugh. it's a TERRIBLE show. and yet i am downloading all five seasons and have bought some episodes on itunes.



- why would the main character's voice change as he aged so he turns into bob saget instead of having the same voice?
- how do two assholes in nyc afford such a HUGE apartment?
- how do they afford to go drinking every single night?
- why bother living in nyc if they don't go anywhere but their apartment and the bar directly downstairs?
- some of the stuff barney does is super sketchy/sexual assault-y. why are they friends with him? especially the women?
- who on earth would tell their children some of the stuff that goes on on this show? why would a child ever care how their parents met?
- why am i so attracted to jason segel?

these are questions i cannot answer. i hope this passes soon.

anywayyyyyy see you tomorrowwww

have you seen my portfolio?

hey dogs. this weekend was pretty uneventful, which was cool because my mom will be here this weekend and my birthday is the weekend after !

on friday, christina and i were going to go to a college douche restaurant/bar by our offices called mad mex. they're only really notable because they have vegan dairy stuff for their burritos, they have 22oz cheap margaritas, and all their food is half price after 10. anyway, we had weird bogus chinese food at work for lunch and i felt like garbage, so i ended up at home in an imodium fog.



i ended up taking a nap and then just puttering around the house and hanging out with christina a little before we both went to bed FOR GOOD.

on saturday, christina and i got a car and went to south philly ! we were initially just running errands (grocery shopping/ac moore/home depot) but jeanne had the kitten again so we stopped over to visit jeanne and mike and this little dude:



he's pretty great- he walks around and plays and pounces and meows and falls asleep for no reason while you're holding him. he's also eating real food and pooping ! jeanne decided to come with us to ac moore. i decided to learn to embroider and learn to crochet (i learned a little to make that amigurumi chewbacca) so i could make an afghan, so i got a bunch of supplies in roxy colors.


cheap red heart yarn for the afghan


embroidery floss for... "embroidering a flower"

i have loose plans for the embroidery stuff- i want to embroider some flowers on something? jeanne got some cool paper to go on the backs of her frames, and some sour patch kids ! after that we went to the grocery store and to home depot, where i got something other than neat colored duct tape and raisinettes for once. well, it was just allergy reducer febreze and some keys, and the keys were cut poorly and don't work, but it was okay. a relatively painless trip to a store that instantly makes me feel bored.

when we got home, christina got ready to go to a show at pi lam, and i got ready to sit home and be bored and feel sorry for myself. i didn't realize how dependent on other peoples' company i am- mouse and i have a loose standing hangout for saturday nights, but he was visiting his cool nephew:



and i've grown accustomed to christina keeping me company, so i was a total grumpy baby about having to entertain myself. i mostly looked at granny square patterns, looked at crochet videos on youtube, and taught myself how to make a granny square. i didn't come away with much because i was practicing !

on sunday, i made some granny squares:


i'm going to make a bunch of them and connect them with the dark brown yarn i think

and hung out with christina. later in the day, mouse and i got indian buffet (where i ran into a germophobe in the bathroom !!!!!!!!!) and then went to see bj's band and my friend john from cleveland's band. john and i met online when we were like 17 and we didn't hang out in person until we were 24ish (well, that's how old i was? i just realized that i have no idea how old he is. good friend !!!!). our friendship is mainly based on wayne's world and farting, which is the best kind of friendship.



his band, clan of the cave bear, was really good, and i got to meet his friend/bandmate whose dog i have admired on the internet for years !!! we didn't get to talk too long though because mouse and i left right after they played. the house where the show was is kind of weird and i felt like a dork and a fraud because i was dressed like a nerd.

i only work three days this week because my mom gets here wednesday ! i'm pretty psyched because we have off monday too. my main plans are to make sure my mom has fun. i'm already planning stuff that uh, i'm going to have christina cook for her (i don't really know how to cook meat !). we haven't gotten to talk much in awhile because my mom's busy season at work ends right when mine starts, so it'll be nice to hang out and make fun of law and order with her. she also really loves going to the laundromat so maybe i'll save some dirty clothes.



i have been asking questions about what xbox to buy and like.. i don't even really understand the answers, because lots of nerds are telling me conflicting things. i'm not sure what i need for my... needs. i just want to be able to play games and watch netflix ! that's all !


so many choices

i'm going to wait until my mom leaves though so i don't ignore her for video games.

okay, back to work. i have a bunch of stuff to do today and lots of meetings this week !

p.s. ha ha lost fans !
p.p.s. there were kittens on the roof at the show i went to but i didn't get to pet them

roxy christina barcelona

woooooo busy weekend ! on friday, kristen came down from new york so she and christina could go to maryland sheep and wool. it was great to finally meet her after occupying the same space on the internet as her for like ten years ! it was everything i thought it would be and more. we met up with christina's coworker kathleen, got beer, and went to vientiane, where i once again had tofu lad na because i'm super unadventurous ! i also had an ephemere with dinner and it was a surprisingly good combination.


appley beer

after dinner we got snacks- i had um, v8 and a tastyklair pie?



while everyone else opted for ice cream (and chocolate covered nuts for kathleen !). then we went back to our house and watched the most pbs show ever, "sandwiches that you will like". it was pretty weird- the sandwiches mostly looked disgusting and the footage all seemed to be from the mid-90s. the grossest was the "st. paul sandwich":


"The sandwich consists of a deep fried egg foo young patty (made with egg, bean sprouts, and minced white onions) served with dill pickle slices, white onion, mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato between two slices of white bread."

ahhhhh ! st. paul is probably rolling over in his damn grave over that thing. i seriously can't stop thinking about it and doing like, a soft gag.

on saturday, the ladies woke up early to go to maryland, and i got up around 9 and tried to do some stuff. i uh, tried to watch some DVR'd stuff (i have like 500 episodes of "what not to wear" and "the king of queens" DVR'd because... i have bad taste in television !) and tried to read the evolution of calpurnia tate but i found it to be pretty annoying and obnoxious so i ended up shelving it for awhile (not literally, it's still cluttering up the livingroom !). i also leveled my priest a little bit !

when the girls got back from maryland (exhausted but with tales of how sheep vaginas look like people vaginas) we met up with mouse and nate and diana (!!!! so many people) and went to bobby flay's hamburger restaurant. well, *i* didn't go- mouse and i went to capo giro because he already ate and i wasn't hungry, and i had gelato for dinner.


why have most of my pictures been food so far?

we all met up at capo giro and i had a really good iced coffee. after a few hours i started to get hungry, so i uh, bought a quiche?


MORE FOOD

and then we came back to my house and met up with anna, who was coming back from like, a weekend long bachelorette party. after christina and kristen went to bed, and nate, anna, and mouse went home, nnamdi stopped by and we hung out for awhile ! that is like the most people i've ever seen in one day.

on sunday, kristen, christina, and i went to green line and had iced mochas and breakfast burritos with hot sauce. kristen left to go hang out with some other philadelphia friends, and diana went to her first haircut appointment. THEN ! mouse and i went over to jeanne's to hang out with jeanne and mike and wait for diana to come give us haircuts. we got burritos and watched the david tennant hamlet



david tennant was super over the top as per usual, but the dude playing laertes made david tennant look subdued. it was uncomfortable to watch this dude, he basically acted like when someone is trying to loudly let a person hiding in a closet know that someone is about to open the closet door.

oh, the most important part ! jeanne was kittensitting a kitten she found in the alley when he was a super super newborn. he's like three weeks old now maybe and she and her friend hannah are sharing his care. he's like, the best? i got to be assistant kittensitter while she got her hair cut !



little wolfman ! he purrs already and plays and is super cute and funny but he weighs like 8 oz and he has trouble pooping by himself (he gets lots of belly massages and wet washcloths and vet visits so i think he's okay). i love him !

jeanne, mouse, and i all got haircuts. jeanne and i just got updated versions of our current haircuts, but we watched the special features of band of brothers to pick out a world war II haircut for mouse. he ended up getting the nixon:



it looks pretty good ! i think my hair looks good too because for the first time ever, people at work are actually noticing and complimenting my hair. it's weird though because i can barely tell the difference. i had to get 2 inches of gross split ends cut off but my hair is still like two feet long.

after we left, we went to whole foods and i missed another friend opportunity. i was wearing this shirt:



and the girl at the hot bar counter was like, "oh, that shirt is awesome, it reminds me that i wanted to call my girlfriends to play d&d". whatttttt that's exactly what i want to do ! i've even made like, craigslist ads looking for girls to play with ! and for some reason i didn't say anything and was just like, "cool story bro" and left. mouse was like, "maybe we'll see her again next time you're here" and i said i'd never seen him before but he pointed out that it was unlikely that a person was making a one-time guest appearance working at a store or something.

when i got home, it was a billion zillion degrees in my apartment. christina was dutifully cataloging all of her beautiful yarn. i watched part of treme with her, which i really like


check out this cool treme photoshop someone made

i'm really bummed that the pacific is a total stinking pile of shit and garbage and puke and garbage and farts, but treme fills the void a little. oddly though, i really like it but i don't know why i like it. i don't feel any pressure to watch it on time every week but i'm enjoying it a lot.

thennnnn i leveled my new priest with paul's warrior for awhile. we got to level 10 and probably could've gotten to 20 pretty quickly, but i was really tired. leveling with paul is fun because he's very methodical and focused and i can zone out and smite stuff.

i'm going to go do work now. these are my busiest two weeks of the year and so far everyone is being annoying. my updates may be spotty and complainy until after may 16 !