AMA and me

Okay, so mac & cheese it is!!

I decided (maybe unwisely) to watch the American Music Awards while I grade papers.

Why do the Pussycat Dolls suck so bad?

Eek!! I almost had to change the channel.
The only thing that even remotely redeemed the experience was that Tony Hawk introduced them and he looked kind of cute and seemed nervous.

O-H

The football game was way fun. I went with a group of people to the gayest boy bar ever, and it was bizarrely full of queer men in football jerseys and other fan gear. There was also a local celebrity in our midst. That jerk won the OSU pillow that I completely could have used for my upcoming trip (that, by the way, I leave for in less than 2 weeks!!!). I drank a lot and was in bed by 10 pm.

It has happened that my family is coming to my house on saturday for thanksgiving dinner. I'm brining a turkey, making a pie from scratch (like, from a pumpkin), and steaming broccoli. I am oscillating between macaroni and cheese and this recipe in Metropolitan Home for coconut cashew rice. What do you think, mac & cheese, or rice?

bike attack!

Last night I went to dinner with RedRider at a campus sushi joint and she walked me to the Wex for this beautiful Turkish movie that I'd planned to see. While we were walking, this person on a bike came careening out of No Where and tried to snatch my bag from my shoulder!!

Here's a slow-mo of what happened:
Bag is pulled off shoulder
I keep holding bag
I start yelling "No! No!"
Snatcher keeps holding bag
Bike falls down
I fall down
Hole is ripped in new skinny jeans
My favorite boots from Philly are scuffed
Snatcher is trapped under bike, still holding bag
RedRider's hands come into view, slapping Stealer
I'm trying to hit Snatcher to get her to let go of bag
Snatcher lets go
I start to get up
Snatcher says "My hand just got caught!"
Random guy tackles Snatcher
I stand up
Look at Random Guy on top of Snatcher
Hear Random Guy say "I saw you do it!"
Feel really pissed because she tried to steal my bag
Look at Snatcher still pinned to sidewalk
Pick up bike
Think, "This is a nice bike"
Throw bike over bike rack into short brick wall.

Yes, you can read that last one again.

After all that, Random comes up to see if I'm okay and Snatcher simply gets her bike and rides off, calling us bitches.

The weirdest part about this is that later, I realized that Snatcher looked familiar, like someone I once knew from here, who, coincidentally, used to have a job which involved riding a bike.

So now my knees are all bruised and skinned up, but I still have my license and credit card that I'll certainly need for my trip to see Johnny in two weeks and now I can buy another pair of jeans without guilt. The silver lining.

on television

This is old news, but I'm still relieved that Ohio didn't fail us! Go Dems!

I can't stop watching Heroes. The official site is "unavailable." Is anyone else watching this show? If not, you need to go get the DVDs as soon as they come out. Do it.

And football, there's lots of it! There is non-stop talk about the upcoming OSU v. Michigan game this saturday. They are ranked #1 and #2, so it promises to be exciting, but my main concern is where to go. I certainly can't stay home and watch by myself. I live pretty close to campus and there is a tendency to go a little overboard for this game: excessive drinking, yelling, screaming, burning cars... so I maybe don't want to deal with that.

But now, I'm going to give the dog a bath.

voting in ohio, again

Luckily, I voted absentee before I left for my trip, but I'm already scared by the news I'm reading about how things are going in the OH.

West coast sun

I'm in Emeryville, near San Francisco for a training for work. The weather is marvelous, it is about 70 and sunny - a far cry from the freezing temperatures in the o-to-the-h. I seem to have pretty good luck here with weather -- the last time I came was in June and it was uncharacteristically in the uppper 80s.

There's a full moon and it was shining across the bay as i rode the shuttle to the hotel. it was completely lovely and started me thinking about my upcoming trip to italy, where i hope to see many georgeous things. I woke up early (for here) and saw the sun rise.

At the training, i ran into a certain red-haired person who i used to work with, which was a nice surprise! we might try to have dinner.

does anyone have suggestions for areas of SF to go to for shopping? I'm hoping to go to a few local/interesting stores, but i'm not sure where to go, so if you have suggestions, please comment.

whoa i am not a good blogger

ok, so here is what i have been doing:

• Missing Johnny


• I won tickets to see Tango Fire and while I was there, I saw a guy I used to dance with (we were slated to compete together when I decided to quit -- and I can't remember his name!!!) and also someone I knew from when I was in high school. We didn't go to school together, but our dads were preachers in neighboring churches, so we went on "mission trips" together and had teenager lock-ins. She is a massage therapist in my neighborhood and has the cutest little daughter who wore red glasses.


• Grading papers!! Lots of papers!!


• I'm leaving for the Bay Area on Sunday, for a work training. I'm excited to go somewhere. Zoey is staying with Scootking and Pixelville (Pixelville never updates her blog, so don't bother clicking).


• Went to two Halloween events and didn't dress up for either one. I need to get a good inventory of possible costumes that I can reference in the future. If you have any ideas that I should use sometime, post a comment.


• Got a haircut with new color! Photos forthcoming!


• I forgot: I also moved offices last week. I'll post some photos of that too.

dot matrix

I have this really old printer in my office. It's really, really old.



I guess that the paper, the kind with the tractor feeds along the sides, was really expensive and I have a full box of it. Thus, I feel kind of obligated to use it up.

Today, I saw that someone had actually taped one section of paper to another, presumably to keep it continuous. I don't know how long ago this happened (this is a big box of paper I'm working with here) but it must have been a while.

I am appalled. I don't know why it is so annoying, but it really was. Especially when I tried to tear it apart and the tape ripped the page.

white blazers and no socks

I'm sitting here grading papers and somehow stumbled across an episode of Miami Vice on the Sleuth Channel. I didn't know the Sleuth Channel existed, and I can't quite figure out why I (or anyone) ever thought Don Johnson was attractive. Or why he is reciting poetry.

Here's a little classic number for ya:

it's a good one

I feel joyous today.

I went to dinner with friends last night, went out dancing, was able to sleep in this morning, and I'm drinking a smoothie (strawberry pineapple) and eating stir-fried green veggies (leftovers) for breakfast.

I got a lovely email message from my girlfriend, the sun is out, I borrowed a lawnmower from my neighbor, and there is football at 3:30.

These are all indications of a great weekend ahead.

rain, rain, go away

I got a call yesterday from our friend who thought she was going into labor. We had this plan where I was going to watch her 18-month old during the delivery, so I went right over to pick him up. He's super cute and very good. I had already said I'd go to my coworker's house for a happy hour thing, so we headed over and he ate a bunch of grapes. He kept looking under the ottoman for the cat, everybody loved it.

I took him back home this morning but they didn't have the baby. I'm looking at this like a dress rehearsal.

Hail is crazy. We had this huge storm here a little while ago and there was mega-hail. I looked out the upstairs window and it was like those scenes in movies when the tennis balls are beating the hell out of the people on the court. The news has shown over 15 minutes of hail coverage, but here's my contribution to the mania:


And here, for comparison:


i heart fall.

i miss everything

I'm watching the Eagles Monday night game and I really miss Philly.

I talked to Johnny for quite a while tonight and I miss her.

I tried to hurry up and get home, but I missed the bus.

Sunday, I went to my grandma's to see her, my sister and her family, and my other neices went too. We were two hours late, and almost missed lunch.

On the way back my oldest neice had a birthday party to go to at Libby Lu's. We were half an hour late and almost missed the first part of the party. I can't say what would have happened had I been able to have parties like this when I was a kid. She got dressed up in a "rock star" outfit and they got their hair and makeup done. Um, she's five. This is the big fancy mirror that they get to look in after they get all done up. The staging area had giant heart-shaped mirrors mounted at the perfect height for the young-uns. I felt a strange mix of repulsion and envy.

Italy photos

Johnny asked me to post the links to these Italy photo albums for her:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

pow-pow

Saturday I was corralled into volunteering at the Ohio Lez Fest with the promise of free entry. Sony and I showed people where to park for four hours and then we were treated to hours of folk and "women's" music. The food was pretty good though - we went and got a couple of beers and hung out until we got fed up and cold.

Today, though, was an entirely different story -- Scootking's Birthday Paintball Extravaganza!! I'd never paintballed before and I was feeling a little anxious about it. I considered backing out several times due to the following preconceptions:

Notion 1: I will be in the woods being chased by scary people like in that movie where they hunted humans.
But actually... This was not the case. We were split into teams and given clear rules about what we could and could not do, and hunting people was not allowed. Out ref/guide actually said, "I may be a teenager, but I know that the rules are important." We gave him a tip at the end of the day.

Notion 2: Paintballs are the size of a raquetball and splatter housepaint-consistency substance all over your clothes and when you leave your clothing will be all stiff
But actually... The paintballs are quite small (about 1 in. in diameter) and the "paint" is just a yellow greasy goo which (they say) will wash right out.


Notion 3: Paintballs hitting your body will hurt.
I was right on about this. Here's a photo of my leg where I took a couple hits.

Here's the same leg, a few hours later:

See how the bruise is beginning to spread out? It reminds me of some doodles that Johnny likes to draw when she is bored.

Notion 4: I will have some serious reservations about playing with guns and shooting at other humans, especially my friends.
But actually...I liked it. It was fun to hit my friends, especially after I got hit that first time. I was really motivated after that.

I also got to work in a little Rambo-roll-over-behind-a-pile-of-sticks move, which felt pretty exciting. I was all proud because I wasn't even thinking about how dirty I was getting, or whether I was laying on a slug, or whether I had brought lip gloss, or anything like that.

trauma drama

we replaced the server at work, and it has been one of the most harrowing experiences of my work life. it is not yet over.

on the good side, though, i have been able to talk to Johnny several times over the last week, which has been great. did you realize that she is actually living in a medieval village? Here's a photo:


There are more photos here and here.

I also bought my plane ticket to Philly!! See you in just a few weeks, city!

garfield mornings

i made the best cup of coffee EVER today.

it's a good thing too because I had a hard time getting going this morning. I stayed up a little late to be sure that the Colts beat the Giants.

It was really a football weekend. I watched the Opener at my brother's house, then went to my friend's for the Ohio State game on Saturday. Yesterday, the Eagles wasn't on regular TV here, so I went to this bar that claimed to have the Sunday Ticket, but it wasn't working and they didn't tell me until after I got a drink!! So, I drank it really fast, then went two other places before I found somewhere to watch. There was a roomful of Eagles fans there (probably about 15 or 20 people) so I guess I went to the right place. I missed the 4:00 game because I was talking with Johnny and then went to the Ohio Roller Girls Championship game.

I promise I won't talk about football all the time for four months, but I am really excited.

I'm also excited about learning some Italian. I feel really motivated about it right now, so I am trying to incorporate some language learning into my schedule. I have a podcast to listen to on my way to/from work and then some online lessons to do at home. I requested some parallel text and kids books from the library, so I'm hoping to work up to some reading. Does anyone have any additional suggestions?

Thursday night lights

Football season officially starts today.

But then, I had this dream last night that I was trying to watch this Saturday's OSU v. Texas game and I was stuck at the Mets stadium. I was asking about how to watch the game and some guy dressed up in Mets gear said, "Football doesn't exist in New York."

What could that possibly mean?

pictures

Here's the promised photos from the exhibit I went to:


(Click on these to go to Flickr and view more)

I found out today that we might be moving out of the library a little later than originally thought, maybe a month or so later. I decided to go up and take some photos of the disappearing books. Now, for those of you who haven't been there, there are 11 floors of books. This is just a couple of them (from the lower floors). There's this semi-creepy mini-staircase that goes all the way up and the quite scary old elevator, so I just got a few photos of the lower floors. I will venture up further as things clear out more.

This first one is from the 3rd floor, looking down on the gallery with empty cases.

From the coffee shop

Internet still not working at home, but at least I got in touch with the company and they think they'll have it back up tomorrow. woo!

Saturday I watched the first Ohio State game at my brother's house. The whole thing is really crazy and they start early. Here's my niece.
(.wav)

Before the game I went to the Russel Wright exhibit in Lancaster. It was beautiful, and I'll post some photos tomorrow. There were a few images of his house in Garrison, NY which is now on my list of places to visit when I'm back on the east coast.



Yesterday I went to visit my grandma. She's so great. It's always nice to have some time to visit with her, she's got great life perspective and really helps me see all the great things that I have in my life. I hope I'll be that kind of person when I'm a grandma.

The computer is still broken.

The computer is still broken. I can't even startup from disk. On top of that my ISP is having server issues so i'm posting by txt.