Traveling and insomnia, like friends. Before my flight yesterday I had the worst time getting to sleep, and then I woke up an hour early, getting like four hours of sleep. I decided not to nap on the flight because that always makes me feel groggy and horrible. So I fell asleep pretty quick last night, but then 5:30 and boom, I'm awake. Fuck. So, I hope tonight's party is fun but not too crazy.

Oh, and I am going to New York. It seems insane, yes, but it will be fun and it's not that bad. Even with working the half day of work beforehand.

Hmmm, maybe my angry rant during my conversation with Pro tonight should tell me something...

So far, vacation has been pretty good. But too fucking fast!

I'm feeling less and less into the NYC idea as the week goes on, but I certainly haven't come close to nixing it yet. I'm just pondering the three straight days of travel... hrm.

Maybe in the three days before I leave I should actually see my friends! I'm so bad! But it's been very busy. Today was mad shopping day. I love the week after X-mas. I bought so much stuff. And I still need to buy new tennis shoes and sports bras. Yikes!

And damn the internet working very well at my house at the moment... spent more dinero at Amazon. One thing was my book for class (hooray for Amazon preview... I could compare it with the syllabus to confirm that it is indeed the right book), and the other thing was wonderful, wonderful Kiefer. I mean, 24. It was much cheaper than at the store. And free shipping!

Sweet. Looks like I might go to NYC for New Year's.

So, turns out that this study does not only provide free lunch, but ALL of my food. Of course, I am not allowed to eat anything other than what they feed me, which means never going out for dinner or lunch on top of no drinking, but it's not like I do terribly much of that anyway. It's going to be a little wild. But, I will lose 15 pounds and get $1500. And I get to spend 8 days total in the hospital. I think spending time in the hospital when I'm not sick might be kind of fun. We'll see if I can get email hooked up. :-)

I am utterly worthless at work today. I have done a few little things here and there between phone calls. But despite starting the day kind of late thanks to my screening, I think I will leave right after my last phone call. I also do not feel like going to the gym. I feel like feeling like I'm on vacation. Maybe I'll go into Harvard and see what's up.

Fucking men are fucking bastards.

There is some sort of crazy party going on downstairs... like, bongos and maracas and singing. I keep expecting to look outside and see a festival in the street.

Dear Stomach, please shut up and drink this coffee.

My room has been casuing me insomnia the last few nights. I really think that my room is just too hot. The only way I got to sleep last night was with no covers, wearing shorts and a tee shirt. I love heat, but come on, I love sleep too, and I don't mind sleeping with lots of blankets. This problem is always worse when it's cold, and the couple of days have been real cold. It's supposed to get nice the next few days! And then I leave and it gets colder again, muahahaha.

Another way in which I feel like a broken record: why have friends if you don't tell them anything? Why must I discover things through unix commands instead of through, I dunno, real conversation? ...I'm beginning to wonder just what it is I'm getting out of this anymore.

I hate days when I haven't really slept enough, and I'm just in a fog all day. Like part of my brain just won't turn on.

If I get into this study on weight loss, I can't drink through April. Wow! That would be crazy. With my birthday in there and all. I may not pass the screening for various reasons, but we'll see. I think it would be good for me.

Oh, and not to mention free lunch every day. Free lunch!

These are really the last days, my stomach can't hold in my growing hatred any longer, and I can't pretend things have returned to normal, and I can't pretend I don't despise all that happened and all that's happening and all that will be. I entertained a fancy that everything would eventually come round and be right, but I don't really believe that anymore and that's better anyway. Goodbyes I say to myself, muttered under my breath, but maybe that will change things beyond myself.

Fall Session. Spring Session. Intersession. I don't know how many times I have to say this.

Citizens Bank is my hero. I got this coupon in the mail that offered to give me $25 if I set up this thing called Steady Save, in which money would be automatically transferred from the my checking to savings account once a month. I've been doing this myself online, but I thought, hey, free money! So I go over there today, and this guy who was helping me looks at the coupon. These must be new because he hadn't seen one. So he calls over to his buddy in some other office, and asks him if there is a fee for Steady Save. Turns out there is, and it's like $3 per month! So, in a year, all the free money would be more than gone to fees. So, he tells me it's not worth it, and I figure, end of story, no problem. But then he proceeded to fill out a deposit form for $25 for my account, had me sign a form to solve an unrelated problem I was having with my statements, and sent me on my merry way. So, I got free money just for showing up and thinking I was going to get free money, without doing any of the things for which the free money was offered. Woohoo!

My other roommate has not been around so much. Today I come home and she is hanging out with cute boy in her room and they look all guilty when I enter and cute boy says hi but no introductions are made. Deduce with me.

SUCK: 1) Tomorrow I have to work, and I really have to go in because I have a 10am phone interview and an 11:15 meeting; 2) Fucken Band Christmas Party is tonight, and doesn't start until 10:30; 3) It is wicked ass cold out; 4) It's almost nine and I have not yet eaten; 5) I cannot attend a Christmas Party without being all dolled up. Though I can't for the life of me remember what I wore last year, while the year before (worst Xmas party ever) I was stunning. So maybe it don't matter; 6) I have no self control, and if I go to this party, I will not be able to leave, will miss the bus, will drink too much, will not sleep enough, and will be miserable beyond repair tomorrow; 7) SANTA! Arg! Denied!; 8) I really wanted to buy little bottles of whisky for said gentleman, but I never went to Mall Discount this weekend; 9) I'd at least have to paint my fingernails, having knawed off all of last night's work on them. Easy peeling when you have like five layers on; 10) I slept like crap last night, and therefore must sleep tonight. Rar. I love the Xmas party.

Aw, my first student loan payment was electronically debited from my bank account today. Life milestones!

My roommate is a notorius sleeper. She can sleep through any amount of alarm racket. She has this one alarm that is truly useless, that can go off forever without waking her up. It doesn't even wake me up, and I wake up for alarms three miles away. I do notice it when I am awake, however. A trick that amuses me is my remote alarm control... my cell phone. For some reason, the phone does wake her up, even with just one ring. So I just let it ring once, and then hang up, and then I can hear the alarm turn off. And I giggle.

Oh, how sad, the dumb guy in Roxanne is from Albuquerque! Dumb guys should come from Texas.

I turned on my computer this morning, and it hung loading stuff. And then it died. Actually, it's not completely dead, but the screen is itty bitty right now because I must have busted video card drivers. Or a busted video card! Then I noticed the date. Rar.

I bought this French Market coffee stuff at the grocery store, you know, the kind with chicory in it. I thought it might be like that stuff I had this summer. It might be similar, but at any rate, it's tasty. But, it may not have enough caffeine. I get to work, and I still don't feel the caffeine buzz.

This time of year, I am so sooo happy not to be in school. It's totally nice just to work for eight hours, go home, and do whatever. I can go to the gym for two hours, I can go shopping, I can watch movies, and hell, I can stare at the wall for all that matters. I can do all of this without that horrible feeling of guilt that always plagued every moment of crunch time at school. Now I only feel guilty for impinging on my beauty sleep.

Uh, sorry for gloating, people who are still in school.

There are two boys, 88 bus cute boy, and CT2 bus cute boy. 88 boy doesn't know I exist, so I will discuss him first. Begins journey: Lechmere. Ends journey: unknown, but past School St. He is cute enough, but then he just has the most amazing eyes. Like, wow. He always looks kind of melancholy and listens to his discman. I am doing no justice to the amazingness transmitted by this boy's eyes. Besides him not knowing I exist, his other major flaw is that he seems to have stopped shaving. While he had stubble it was sort of hot, but now he's getting a little bearded, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. As long as it doesn't ever cover his hot eyes!

CT2 boy. Begins journey: Kendall Square, by the movie theater. Ends journey: Fenway, Landmark building. JA said, well, maybe he works at the research areas over there. Or maybe he works at Best Buy. Ha. Given that he has been on several buses of varying times, he must not be at a job where he has to be really on time (in other words, like mine). He is quite cute, mostly because he has a great smile, which makes me smile. And today he said hi to me! We had kind of made eye contact the first time I noticed him, and today he was sitting across from me with his coworker friend and actually said hello and we grinned at each other like shy stupid idiots. It was great. I fished around in my purse afterwards pretending to be occupied because I had no idea what to do and I couldn't possibly begin a conversation. Then I stared out the window a lot.

Somehow, spam about enhancing my breast size just doesn't interest me at all!

Okay, either I'm terrible at guessing people's ages, or people's appearance and presentation and age are, like, not at all correlated. A few instances have occurred in the past few months where I think someone is a few years younger than they really are. Okay, no biggie, just kind of weird. But I was really off on this one. The security guard who always chats it up with me a lot I assumed was older than me. Like, at least 25, maybe up to 27. I find out today that he's 18! This does not compute at all! I mean, he's kind of a goofball, but I just assumed it was his personality, not that he's still young. Man, fucked up.

I have discovered the joy of the MBTA complaint web form. Actually, I think I knew about them at some point, but I forgot. Today I decided I need to start griping when the bus service sucks, because otherwise no one knows. I don't want to be like all those folks in L House who would never tell us when their network connections were down, because they assumed there was some central command center with bleeping alarms and flashing lights that went off whenever network connections died around campus. Today's incident didn't really affect me. The bus I wanted was on time and I got a seat. Unfortunately for the dozens of folks also waiting at Union, it was the first bus in about an hour. So, not only did some folks freeze their butts off for an hour, then they had to stand all crammed in on the bus (yeah, I'm mean and happened to get on the bus first, so I sat. It's a dog-eat-dog world). And then the bus lady tried to tell people to "wait for the bus right behind us" once the bus started getting too full. Oh, right. I'll just stand here and wait for the magic carriage pulled by unicorns and driven by magic elves that's right behind you. So, she gave up on that speech after people just found a way to cram in. It also took 40 minutes to get to work because it took so long unloading and loading at each stop. So, when I got to work, I unloaded on the complaint forms, because it's better to do so when I'm not furious, just annoyed.

One thing I have been trying to do as part of my anger-reduction thing is to give people more benefit of the doubt. But some folks just don't deserve it because experience tells me to trust my initial suspicions.

Mmmm, sleep is good. Waking up with a headache is not so good! Advil has been ingested, but now I just have this residual feeling of head tension. Maybe I slept too much. Maybe this coffee will help.

Yesterday I discovered that Google does something a little strange... I searched for my name in quotes, and it came up with the front page for this site. There are not a lot of words on the front page of this site, and certainly not my name. Turns out that I am linked from Sha's page under my name. I guess that if an exact phrase matches a link, the linked page shows up on the list too. This causes me to wonder... if I link someone on may page as "Stupid Asshole" or "Totally Wicked Awesome" if they will randomly come up if you search for those phrases. They must. This could lead to all sorts of trouble.

Today I visited the Shrine of Consumer Goodness, Tarzhay, and I finally got me a George Foreman! Ah, so wonderful. Now I can cook beef to my heart's content. The manual also suggests that hash browns and grilled cheese can be cooked on the Foreman. Brilliant! I have had hash browns sitting in the freezer for a while, because the cooking instructions were kind of longish, but with the double-sided cooking action of the GFG, cooking is a breeze! Mmmmmm.... Anyway, I also bought some more sheets for my bed, because one set really isn't enough, and these were on sale and they are yellow! My bed will be like sunshine. They did not, unfortunately, have a replica of my wonderful scarf that I had to sacrifice to the god of Ralph on H-y weekend. Perhaps when they restock... I do love "burgundy" far more than the other colors.

I also bought some toys, as there was a nice policeman collecting them for kids in Somerville who wouldn't otherwise have much. I sort of agonized over them, more than the agony of being in the toy aisles during holiday shopping (good lord, it was the only packed part of the store). I wanted to get something that would be wholesome, in the sense of non-violent, non-anorexic (looking at you, Barbie and friends), and possibly even brain-power inciting. But most of the really educational toys look lame to me, and I remember when I was a kid that while such toys had their value in my world, the really great toys were more subtle. So, of course, the first thing I pick up is this totally adorable little elephant with baby tusks, which is totally frivolous, but then again, great stuffed animals are wonderful because kids make up little stories about them and use them as general props for the work of their crazy imaginations. So, okay. Then I got a little Lego airplane set, because Legos are fab and the height of fun and creativity combined. I also noted that they have a giant tub o' Legos for not that much... I must stay away! Odd to me was how boy-directed a lot of the sets are... big scary looking monster ships and stuff like that. Not to be stereotypical, but how about a nice house or farm or ambulance or something generic? All the toys came with male people too, as far as I could tell. Too bad. They also had plain old Monoploy for not that much (all the special sets, however... wicked pricey!), but then I realized that it doesn't come with other people to play with me. So, I thought I was done, but then I went by sporting goods and just had to get a softball, in case there is some little girl in Somerville lacking one. Basically, if I can agonize over stuff for kids I don't know and will never see, what is going to happen when I have my own kids?

Though Cast Away is a big ol' FedEx commercial at times, I idid enjoy it, especially the island. I was hoping at the end that he would decide to go back to the island in a helicopter, bringing a cell phone and, like, matches and stuff. I mean, really, with his chick dissing him, the island was really what he had left to call home. The bit with Wilson made me laugh a lot, but resonated with my recurring thought that our relationships with other people are about the projections in our head of them as much as it is about them. It's amazing how much character that silly volleyball had just based on Chuck's interaction with it.

Man, I am so tired this evening. I've been tired lately... staying up too late, mostly. That seems dumb, eh? I'm tired, so I stay up late. Der. But I have been reading recaps on TWoP of, you guessed it, 24. I've decided that last season had no plan from the start, and thus the twist at the end really isn't consistently hinted at and you have to make all sorts of streches about why characters did what they did to make it work. Kinda lame, but the show is still so exciting. Anyway...

Despite being tired, I have been in a pretty good mood the last few days. I have been getting work done pretty well too. My three-month review at work (given at 6 months because paperwork is so far behind in the administrative end of things) convinced me I have to stop being such a pain in the ass sometimes. It was really funny, actually, because Holly put in this very tactful way things I had been feeling about myself. Basically that I am a total bitch! I gripe too much, I piss and moan too much about things I don't really enjoy doing, like phone calls, and about everything else, like the weather. So, really, I just need to stop. I had already started to decide this before having it so kindly reaffirmed by Holly. It does me no good to be such a pissy whiner. I do love to complain, but it doesn't make me feel that much better. It's my most persistent personality flaw, this anger which kind of takes over everything in my mind and makes everything so annoying to me. There's no reason to be so angry all the time about stupid shit. So, I am working on it. And that in itself makes me feel better already.

I also need to stop being a lazy ass and get to the gym... I knew that the honeymoon would end and I would have to go through a time where I have to force myself to go a bit. I like it when I'm there, but when I feel tired it's hard to convince myself to go. But I figure, little by little I will work out this being an adult and doing things I'm supposed to, like cleaning my room and going grocery shopping and going to the gym, and I can't get down because I'm not doing it perfectly. I'm doing it better, and it all takes practice, so I just gotta keep practicing as much as possible.

The chair outside looks so wicked awesome right now. It is this cheap black metal thing, but now it has this cushion of snow on the seat, and it's covered in icicles. I really want to reproduce this effect on the chair once it warms up. I don't know how to make fake ice... hmmm.

I did like this most recent snow storm. The snow flakes this morning were huge and perfect and detailed. And the icicles were also very cool. Big snowflakes and icicles are good in and of themselves, but they also indicate that it's about as warm as it can get and still snow, because any colder and these things don't really happen. So it hasn't been that cold, which is great. I'll take snow over bitter winds any day.

I feel like it's a weeknight. I should have big and bold plans for this Friday night... but I do not. And I don't really care. I have movies if I get bored. I could stand just to go to bed. It's good to feel like being lame when I have no plans. :-)

Man, it is sooo cold today. Holly said she was wondering what to get me for Christmas, and I said, a heated bubble would be nice. I would live in it. Then Jeff thought the Biosphere II was in New Mexico and hilarity ensued. Okay, not really.

Oh man, day totally ruined by bad news. Bad news that doesn't even affect me directly... but which affects my brain horribly. In horrible ways.

It's just the cosmic injustice... and the residual guilt. And the inability to really talk about it all. But mostly the cosmic injustice, and the feeling that I'm part of it.

I love that last hour of work, when one old lady has no answering machine, and another old lady is on her phone and I keep getting a busy signal, and there is nothing I want to start in particular. Blargh!

This morning, if a plane had dropped right in front of me to take me home, I would have got on for sure.

So, I slept pretty poorly last night and had weird dreams about co-workers (who are not real people from real life) killing each other and random intrigue (still too much 24 on the brain?). I was all crappy-throated and crampy this morning, but despite not feeling great overall, I got myself pepped up to go to work and be productive. The 8:42 bus was early again (why am I surprised), so I thought, no matter, I often take the 9:02, and maybe it will come early too and I won't have to sit in the cold that long. So, about 10 minutes later I saw not one, but two! CT2 buses heading toward Sullivan Station, and I thought, rocking, one of those will be back soon..... Except, one didn't come. There was no 9:02 at all, and I had to wait 20 more minutes for the next one. I spent 40 minutes sitting outside in the butt ass cold, already feeling crappy. Once I got on the bus, I thought about my hatred for Boston and got teary to the point of crying. I seriously pondered how hard it could possibly be to quit my job, sublet my apartment, and move my ass back home. Work today made me feel better, somehow. But, man, I fucking hate the busses and the cold. HATE.

I started to read a new book today, and I realize how utterly tiresome I am currently finding stories about men who pretty much act like idiots but who go off and discover important things and do exciting things and remain pretty much idiots. Okay, that's not entirely fair to all these things I have been reading and watching, but sometimes it feels like that. Especially when many of the women in these tales are one-dimensional nothings who just seem to hang off these loser men, or, if they have more character, it's only because they are evil or about to die. Anyway, though this particular book is supposed to be pretty good, it made the Maybe-Later pile because I just can't deal.

On that subject, while I love 24 and obsess over it, I am bothered by it. At least in the first season, we have some teenage girls who are complete tools, a woman who seems okay but who is killed off, a woman who is psycho power-obsessive and manipulative and who is the classic stereotype of a woman who is with her husband for his power, a woman who is a big tool of the bad guys (though she is doing it to try to help out her family... a trait which is only okay if it's Big Jack Bauer running around blowing shit up to save his woman and child, but which is not okay if it involves less-than-perfect behavior by a woman, espcially a single mom), and another woman who seems awesome but who ends up also being with the bad guys. Oh, not to mention the bad-guy lesbians, one of whom gets killed for being in the way and being an idiot, and the other one of whom is trapped by the bad guys forever. Oh, and how can I forget the woman who goes along with psycho-wifey's scheme only to lose her job and self-respect. Yikes. Not to say all the guys are superheroes or that things turn out great for all of them, but they aren't all scumbags, or, at least, they are glorified in their lameness. One guy is sort of a by-the-books tool, but he's kind of funny and we like him. One guy starts out being a total evil tool but ends up being one of the only trustworthy characters around. El senator is Mr. Perfect, incorruptible and always doing What Is Right, even if it is difficult. And Jack Bauer is the hero, even if his plans never work, as Matt says. Maybe this season will redeem the show from its sexism... it's just kind of frustrating because throughout season one it seemed not so sexist at all, but by the end of the season, when it's all said and done, we either have women who are bad, tools, or dead, and nothing else.

I keep wondering how 5 days off work can go by so fast... maybe it's the sleeping through half of every day. I'm so useless! It's so nice not to be in school in that way, though, because everyone else is worried about the end of the semester and feeling guilty for not working, and I just feel bad for not going to the gym and the grocery store. Ah well.

In my neverending quest to stop being lazy about cooking, I cooked tomorrow's dinner tonight. My problem is that whenever I get home after the gym, I am hungry NOW, so I end up eating whatever crap I can put together in 10 seconds, like chicken in a can with tomato sauce. Which is really tasty with goat cheese, but I digress. So, I have green beans, I have pasta. These things can be eaten at lunch and dinner, and then when I am full and happy, I can cook up broccoli for the next day. Yes, I realize this is like eating leftovers every day, but I hardly ever prepare anything that is both nasty after a stay in the fridge and that takes a lot of preparation.