purple power.

i'm still on the fence about whether it's liberating or mortifying that i accidentally flashed the whole of cafe steinhof last night when all the buttons on my shirt decided to come undone simultaneously.

at least dom seemed to enjoy it.

and sometimes...

...sometimes, life likes to turn itself into the biggest farce of all time.

fuck's sake. if this were a sitcom, i would have tuned out by now due to total fucking implausibility.

ketchup.

i know you think i'm neglecting you, or perhaps i'm dead or just plain boring. i assure you this is not the case. i am very much alive and well, and perhaps i am a little boring, but not entirely. things are percolating, just not things that need to be released into the ether just yet.

i will say this: i was contacted by a recruiter this morning (unsolicited!) regarding a copyediting position; i said thanks but no thanks--but very politely. because i think he might be coming in handy in the not entirely distant future. in a good way. not in an 'oh-god-i'm-about-to-be-fired' way, in a 'i-have-a-master-plan-ticking-over-in-my-head' kind of way. it's all very exciting. plans are very exciting.

i will also say this: what the fuck are they doing down there at the post office in washington DC? they've had my fucking passport application for TWO DAYS and haven't delivered it! (oh yes, my passport application got returned to me the other week, did i forget to tell you that? it happened right after i found out that a drag queen in chicago had trademarked my perfect ultimate band name. it was a real winner of a friday).

and finally, i will say this: my new punching bag? rocks. my. face. also stiffens the muscles in my back because i'm a weakling punkass. but rocks my face.

everyone's drawn to the scene of the crime.

grand central terminal is a shining beacon in the horror that is midtown--a blazing stronghold of beautiful architecture and good taste that managed to escape the wrecking ball and the fate of its poor sister penn station. it is also home to a surprisingly decent food court, as i demonstrated to dom as we waited for the 12:23 harlem line to the BXV. we were going back to the scene of the crime, the hallowed halls of my alma mater and i was damned if i was going to go on an empty stomach.

when i graduated, i thought i'd never go back for any reason. naturally, however, the world wasn't going to let me keep that particular promise to myself; and so we found ourselves tripping up kimball ave, he for the first time and me for what i know better than to say my last.

as you may or may not know, college was not the most satisfying of experiences for me--i didn't drink, didn't do drugs, and didn't have many friends. so, not much fun for me; despite the fact that the school prides itself on offering a good environment for the different, being different there is no different than it is anywhere else. you're still a pariah. as i was, because i was not as different as everyone else there.

the campus hadn't changed much--it was still absolutely beautiful, and the campus residents looked the same as they did when i was there four years ago, featuring blue hair or close-cropped crewcuts, pajamas and tee shirts, and palpable clouds of political outrage. they still wafted around sleepily at 2pm, discussing race relations outside the cafeteria through clouds of smoke. the squirrels were still aggressive and the mailboxes were still broken, and apparently, irony was still currency.

it was, however, different this time. because i am different. i'm older, more confident; i have a narrower list of criteria that i use to determine whether someone is cooler than i am, the first entry on which is 'are they nice?' i've come to terms with the fact that i'll never work at paper magazine again, because i'm not fucking hip enough, and never will be again. and that is completely okay. that irony is not cool when it governs your relationships with other people.

what i learned from college is that being sincere is sexy, being kind makes you beautiful. because friends for whom you never feel you have to perform are cooler than any who take pains to let you know that you're widely considered the little sister, tolerated but not enjoyed. that providing a shoulder to cry on is cooler than demanding a stiff upper lip, and that having a shoulder to cry on is more valuable than being cool and aloof. i know these things now, thanks to my college education, though it would have been handy if the lesson hadn't been on a time-release.

but then, i suppose that's the sign of a good education--that you keep learning even after you're long out of the system.

anxiously.

i have problems with anxiety.

this is common knowledge, despite the fact that i've managed to keep it under excessively good control these last few months. what's less common knowledge is that it has chosen this week to make a special returning visit. with a vengeance. you see, it's been a Very Bad Week at Work. the kind of week where every stupid mistake you've made in past weeks (forgetting to switch up a graphic, failing to forward a non-time-sensitive email) comes back to haunt you, where every time anybody important needs to speak to you is during the fifteen seconds you've chosen to switch songs on your ipod or look to see why your phone has started chirping uncontrollably and how can you shut it up or your computer freezes while you're searching for stock photos (through a reputable site)and the results you've gotten are a mime, a woman in a garter belt and a japanese bride. this results in you getting chewed out a lot, and wondering if they're actually secretly planning to fire you because you clearly CAN'T BE TRUSTED and you ACTUALLY ARE USELESS.

i have no idea if that's the case or not; i have no idea if i really shot myself in the foot this last week. but it's really bothering me a lot, and i can't shake it. i'm trying to bolster myself with the knowledge that i'm a good employee, i do good work quickly, that i'm resourceful and have a lot of specialized skills that we need around here. but, i'm also chronically late by anywhere between five and fifteen minutes (though rarely arrive AFTER the brass), a second-tier domain name expired while under my watch (emphasis on the second tier--it's generated us precisely Zero hits in the last year AND i got it back), and yes: i occasionally forget to do things like switch graphics and forward non-urgent emails when we're in the middle of huge, out of control projects that keep the IT guy up all night for three nights and me furiously churning out copy and graphics all day and through lunch and into a tenth hour at the office.

so anyway. for the first time in several months, The Fear is upon me, and i don't like it. because it's on in a big way. a BIG way. and my question is: am i just being paranoid because i'm actually a good employee and this is all going to blow over, or should i start moving my summer plans up a few months?

weekend wrapup.

on being part of an elite team of super-secret ninjas: the work of six long weeks came to fruition on saturday, with the splendid execution of a surprise wedding shower for our very own little owl. there were crustless sandwiches and lemon cake, cheez balls and spanakopita, and most importantly, a happy owl and a collective sigh of relief from the co-conspirators (myself, biscuit, swr, fish, le kate and la mere d'hiboux) that we no longer had to keep the damn thing a secret.

on being a green eyed jealous bitch monster: at last night's engagement fiesta for dom's good friend and former roommate, i met one of dom's old paramours. and god help me if it didn't take a significant amount of willpower to keep from clawing her eyes out (which really would have been poor form). and i ask myself this: where the fuck did that come from? i'm not exactly the jealous type, or so i thought. nice to know i'm perpetuating centuries of negative stereotyping.

on perfect sundays (excluding the bitch monster episode) perfect weather, perfect morning spent lounging in bed, perfect brunch, perfect wander, perfect perfect.

better uses for doctors. (or, something to tide you over until i have more to say)

biscuit: While you're at it, you should have them wire you for cable.
shivery: or broadband.
biscuit: You have to wait FOREVER for those technicians.
biscuit: TOTALLY.
biscuit: Though I would find it disturbing if my bodyparts had their own email addresses.
shivery: spleen@biscuit.com
biscuit: HAHAHAHA
biscuit: You have to wonder what a spleen would choose as its password.
biscuit: And if it would even go for spleen@biscuit.com
biscuit: or if it would be more like biledaddy031@biscuit.com
shivery: i bet its password would be something like bl00dyhell. or maybe redpulp6969
biscuit: BAAHAHAHA

punchy.

realization number one: we have a basement that we're allowed to use for storage.

realization number two: there's totally enough room in it for us to set up a punching bag.

realization number three: WICKED.

twelve hours in boston.

i will gladly admit that i was nervous en route to boston, though it's possible that had more to do with the fact that i'd gotten a 7:30 am bus bookless, with a juicless ipod and no chance in hell of getting to sleep. either way, i was in a questionable state of repair when we arrived, exhausted and travel worn but looking forward to the events at hand.

having taken the chinatown bus, we arrived about an hour earlier than we'd anticipated and took the opportunity to jump on the T and catch a late coffee and breakfast combo in harvard square. we watched the chess players as i shared my croissant with a very gregarious baby sparrow, and then strolled slowly to the venue. immediately before entering, i got a bad case of the shakes, having not seen al in several years and with no idea if meeting again was going to be horribly awkward to the point of severe pain. unsurprisingly, however, it was nothing of the sort.

al remains the same charming gentleman i knew, and it was lovely catching up--we had lots to talk about, and i was excited to meet his bride-to-be, who was every bit as warm and intelligent and delightful as i'd expected her to be.

we saw some old friends, and new faces, ate frighteningly yummy cake and drank champagne; dom and i were laughingly accused of spending the whole reception making eyes at one another, which we gave the obligatory denial though we have readily accepted this as our default state.

we excused ourselves a little early from the reception, however, as we had a city to explore and a bus home to catch. so we wandered; i photographed obsessively; we saw a falcon in the public garden, as well as a wedding which featured men in all-white tuxes with white top hats and canes; i oohed and aahed over the swan boats and the very cute puppy that sang in response to her owner's 'where's iris?'; there was proper clam chowder and walking down newbury st., a stroll through beacon hill, and near exhaustive collapse when we arrived to catch our bus at south station.

i managed to sleep on the way home, but it was still an exhausting trip; it took an hour longer than the way out, due in no small part to the fact that we took a detour through elmhurst, queens to drop off the driver's friend. we arrived back in chinatown just after four, and home fifteen minutes later...and yet never quite recovered on sunday, which was a fest of sleeping late, flolloping on hillsides in prospect park and finally finishing the movie we'd been watching...

and all in all, really, the weekend was pretty bloody fantastic, i must say.

not what you'd expect.

this week has been interesting in that it appears that the office has finally figured out that i can be remarkably useful at times. this is good because i've finally gotten stuff to do, interesting stuff that challenges me, and makes my nine-hour work day go by much more quickly. it's less good because they do have a habit of springing an entire day's work on me around 2pm, resulting in me running around at such speeds that i've had one colleague swear she caught the doppler effect in my wake.

having said that, i have a few more things to complete before i get whisked away for the weekend. wherein i will be spending sixteen hours in boston attending my former boyfriend's wedding shower/engagement party thing.

serious.

invisibility.

when i was a child still in the single digits, i thought that if i held my breath and remained very quiet, i could be invisible, nobody would notice me. i thought it was cool.

as i got older, i discovered that sometimes you don't even have to hold your breath or be quiet in order to be invisible. sometimes you can disappear at high volume. i find that less cool.

i hate commuting.

8:23 am : give up battle with hair in the sickly half-light infiltrating apartment; stuff it into a hat and bolt out the door.

8:28 am: arrive at subway stop. discover that there is no manhattan bound Q service.

8:29 am: discover that there is no manhattan-bound service full stop--and that includes the F, B, N, R, M and Q trains. the person at the booth suggests that we catch a bus.

8:34 am: the sound of a train rattling into the station alerts the herd; we hurry down to catch what appears to be the last train out of brooklyn.

8:37 am: the train pauses for breath en route to the next station. which is atlantic avenue.

8:49 am: the train arrives at atlantic avenue. we're instructed to decamp and find another damn train.

8:59 am: i muscle my way on to a 3 train, promptly finding myself with my face jammed into someone's chest and more hands than i care to recall snaking around me, effectively pinioning me to the pole. i breathe carefully, willing myself not to have a claustrophobic fit.

9:04 am: we discover that the 3 train has decided to cruise along lexington avenue; it hasn't turned into a 4 train per se--it's still a 3 train, just going on the 4 line. clearly, i'm missing the subtle nuances that highlight the difference.

9:23 am: we pull into the station at wall street. i get cuffed in the jaw by the briefcase of an icebox in pinstripes, who's clearly decided that the best way to get around me is to go through me, and he very nearly knocks me over. i snarl at him on his way out. he and his piles of money and sense of entitlement just tell me i should have gotten out of his way.

9:27 am: we pull into the brooklyn bridge station.

9:42 am: we pull out of the brooklyn bridge station.

9:48 am: we arrive at union square. i struggle out of the train so that i might catch a local. again, working hard not to have a claustrophobic fit.

9: 55 am: the local train arrives.

9:59 am: i emerge back into the overworld, cursing every living thing that walks upon it, being sure to focus heavily on the MTA. the day is off to a glorious motherfucking start. sometimes i really hate this city.

pass go.

you know, i've been trying all morning to write an entry about the ridiculously packed fiesta that was my weekend (suffice it to say, it involved my sister and the second double bridge walk in two weeks, as well as a great shindig and some gypsy jazz)...and i've got nothing. so, instead i will treat you to a quick rundown of what's really spinning around my head today:

i sent in my UK passport application on friday. after several long and irritating years spent waiting for all the necessary information, and all the necessary paperwork, i've got the damn thing in the mail. if all goes according to plan, one month from today, i will have in my possession two fully valid passports, one US and one UK (or EU). at the moment, however, i have neither. a fact which is making me inexorably twitchy. not that i'm planning to necessarily need one in the next month, but the fact remains that this is the first time in my natural life i will have been without a passport. and it makes me feel a little...exposed.

ah well. thank goodness we're in the lull between the election and the republican convention. hopefully i can keep my nose clean until then.