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Wednesday, April 7, 2004 Okay okay, I know I am yapping on and on about the trapeze but it's true, and apparently our instructor even had this article written about her.
Today on the subway, I noticed a semi-cute boy get on at 30th Street station. Not unusual, as being married gives me free license to check out all cute or semi-cute beings, male or female. Semi-cute boy turned around in his seat and said to me, "You look bored. Here's this book. Read it and then pass it along to somebody else." And then he jumped off the train at 11th Street, like a bunny. But not before I turned red and got super-flustered. Like he knew that I had rather plainly checked him out and felt that giving me Graham Greene's The Quiet American would keep my eyes averted. And so I read. Hi Beagle.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Trapeze class number 2 has definitely kicked my ass. My feet are totally black and blue. That said, I did kick up, wrap my leg around the rope and hang upside down. Probably not very gracefully, but whatever. I fucking love the trapeze. Monday, March 22, 2004 Ease, not great: My quest for a new weird after-school activity is over: tonight I went to my first trapeze lesson. Uh-huh. And it hurts to type right now because my hands are raw from lifting my very un-lithe frame up, through and over the swinging bar. Ouch. I hung from my knees -- also a source of current soreness. But it was necessary because I thought I might drop with my legs over my head and inside my arms, dangling upside-down 6 feet above the air (in what is known to aerialists as the "pike position"). If that at all made sense then awesome. The lesson itself was at this couple's house, which at first seemed really sketchy (i.e. "are we getting involved in some kinky circus sex ring?") but was actually totally cool. They cut out part of their 3rd floor's floor so they had a two-story open space, and that is where the ropes and bar hung. We attempted all of these exercises, which I'm sure looked freaky cool to passers-by; dangling girls through open windows. One more thing: I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Saturday and loveloveloved it. I'm not quite sure Elijah Wood's character was necessary, but found the aforementioned site very random. Wednesday, March 3, 2004 Top 3 fall-down funny moments on The OC tonight: 1. Ryan warns Seth not to mock Journey 2. Seth grabs a pamphlet from the Hare Krishna at the airport 3. Seth describes Luke as possibly "discovering fire" Thursday, February 26, 2004 Check it: President Match which ranks candidates according to issues you care about. Now I know just how little my ideals and the current administration's stand on issues have in common. Don't even get me started on this whole amendment thing. Compassionate conservatism is a big fucking farce. Monday, February 23, 2004 Two easy stories Today I walked into a big, leafy potted plant at work, distracted by some minor construction work, and the maintenance guy promptly made fun of me. This was made more mockable because I had one of those double-take, first I'm calm and then oh shit I'm in the middle of this leafy plant moments, where I got sortof lost and confused inside the plant, and then I stumbled out of it, bewildered. Like the plant had reached for me and gave me a chlorophyl hug.
Also today I stepped out of the subway at 8th and Market and smelled this wonderful sweet cottoncandy smell, and it made me feel okay with Philadelphia for once.
Sunday, February 22, 2004 Sooo sorry about my crap-assy updating! It's been a long 2 weeks -- the first week I spent in London, working my tail off for some miserable eurofks, who appreciated neither time nor energy. Some might see that as a bummer, but I've been trying to view it as a learning experience or something constructive like that. See, I went over there to teach our products to a group of our employees, having been told by two managers that their knowledge of said products was limited. So I designed basic refresher courses. In the first 2 minutes of teaching my first session, the eurofkrs got grumbly and sarcastic with me. They told me they knew everything I was going to teach, it was a waste of time, etc. A bit deflating for me and thus contributed to some long nites curled up in my hotel room talking to my laptop, and re-designing the rest of my classes. Work doesn't pay me to sightsee. Instead, I found lots of comfort in the conveyor-belt sushi joint in the lobby of the hotel, where I ate every night.
Bored yet? More soon. . .
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Jiggety-jig, back on: part one: On Friday night, our friends J*M invited us to this thing called Television Preview, which was hyped as a pilot pre-screening, and asked for feedback on "tomorrow's hot new shows." They got the tickets in the mail, and we figured why not. Being an admitted lover of the OC, and remembering my nights weeping over Felicity's man problems, I kept my fingers crossed for a strong teen drama. Well, surprise, surprise. Television Preview turned out to be one huge scam! First we watched something called "Destiny" or "Fate" which made absolutely no sense and reminded me a lot of those late-night Skinimax flicks. Except this one had all of the foreplay and none of the sex. We even got to watch commercials! Wow! Just like real TV! The next show called "City" starred Valerie Harper, and looked strangely familiar – the clothes and hair were spot-on Jersey mall chic. I know, as I too had a pouf and perm in the late 80s. Something was awry, but we went along with the horse-and-pony. Weirder still, people in the audience loved it, hooting and hollering about how funny it was. I admit to being boggled but taken with the whole concept – the door prizes were basically 30-second drugstore shopping sprees, and I'm all outta tampons and Zoloft.
After each show, they asked us 5 or 6 questions about the show and made us fill out 40-page questionairres about products (mostly anti-depressants and bladder-control remedies) and commericals. You can see where this is going. Scam scam scam. Television Preview basically is a consumer research company, skimming marketing information from the hapless TV viewers they lured to the Westin Hotel. My hope to "shape America's television viewing" now crushed, I do admit to learning a few things. First, people will attend anything that boasts a door prize. Myself included. And second, people have terrible taste in TV. How do all of those cable channels survive anyway? Oh, riiiight. Best of all, J found "City" listed as a Valerie Harper pilot – from 1990.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 Po'boys vs. hoagies: Last night a dog howled at me while I walked to the gym. Today, my work friend D. told me that he had just gotten back from Prague and swore that he saw me there at least 20 times. He said he mentioned it to his friend while over there because he it freaked him out. That is the sweetest thing ever. Somewhat appropriately, today I just started reading Madame Secretary by Madeleine Albright and the first chapter details Czech history, so today has been full of weird Eastern European references and Slavic doppelgangers. Horky ano! Thursday, January 15, 2004 Token Claus: Once again, I've been lacking in anything interesting or remotely post-able. I have a ton of new year's resolutions but little resolve. Actually, that's not entirely true. Mostly I'm just lazy. Also, none of my resolutions from last year panned out, and the elastic of half a dozen thongs has gone bad from lack of use. (Yes, one resolution was to wear thongs, sigh.) That said, I thought I'd chart out my new resolutions and see how well they stick. Let me get my book of lists. Okay. 1. Read at least 20 books this year. For a while I was a librarian who didn't read books. 2003 was the year I became obsessed with magazines, and realised that it's damn near impossible to keep up with both Newsweek and the New Yorker. So I let the subscriptions lapse, and have moved back to the real stacks. So far, so good. I just finished Oracle Night by Paul Auster today, and would love to discuss it with anyone out there. (Hint!) Hillary Rodham Clinton's autobiography is done as well. While I find it difficult to believe that every single Clinton scandal was either a big misunderstanding or a right-wing conspiracy, I do think that Hillary rocks. And finally, I read In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner -- good winter beach reading.
Number two. More family dinners. It sounds weird, but we don't have our family over enough -- and it's okay now that we've had sufficient post-wedding decompression time. #3. Pare down. This is a running joke with me and Beagle because I'm a packrat in denial. 4. Lose ten pounds. This is where it gets unrealistic. So number 5 is how I plan on doing it: ride the MS 150 city to shore tour. Beagle says I'll need a "real" bike, but right now I'm relying on the stationary ones at the gym.
Monday, January 5, 2004 Quick wishes for a happy new year everybody. Sunday, December 28, 2003 Merry belated Chrizzizmaz to all my pollocks. All for now, until much later. Monday, December 15, 2003 Schockered does not even begin to describe the shenanigans that went down at the holiday party. I guess I'm not accustomed to seeing that much public workplace drunkeness but oh was it amusing. People actually dressed up like celebrities, per the recommendation of this being a party at a wax museum. Ozzy Osbourne was there, as was Bjork, Audrey Hepburn, Spiderman and Homer Simpson -- all co-workers. People danced like crazy, and I took one of the funniest pictures ever with Abe Lincoln, as he looks petrified that I'm molesting him, and which I hope to share once I find some server space.
But, I'm back Philly-style again, repainting the kitchen and watching tivo-ed episodes of The Simple Life, which I find strangely entrancing. I just can't figure out if Paris Hilton is hot or not, and so I stare and stare. Does being that skinny look good? I don't know. Anyway, Beagle finished his last exam, and so this marks the half-way point of his law school career. Velky hooray to that! Let the winter break fun begin!
Monday, December 8, 2003 Greetings from London. I'm getting a little pitatime in after a much jetlagged day. I survived the most turbulent flight over here, and almost kissed the ground upon landing. It got so bad that the cabin lights flickered and two of the over-head bins popped open. It didn't help that all of this happened while watching the in-flight documentary on the building of Brooklyn Bridge, just at the point where the bridge engineers decided to light explosives underwater to make the bridge's towers sink further into the East River. At that point, I threw off my headset and prayed. Things exploding and getting tossed around over the Atlantic just don't mix. Vodka and OJ do, however! More please! And, in retrospect, it has nothing on the emergency landing Beagle and I endured on our honeymoon trip to Ecuador.
So I'm here and it's quite festive. Cold with Christmas lights strewn about. I leave on Friday, and will unfortunately be missing Santacon on the 13th. A score of dressed-up, drunken Santas would be fun to hang out with, no? No complaints here, as I'll be going to the annual Christmas party at Madame Tussauds and dressing up like a movie star instead. That should be interesting, as my manager told me that our group likes to get "good and schnockered" every year. Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum.
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