Oh gosh, I forgot to dish out the dirt on Brett's girlfriend for you all. She's awesome! She totally gives him hell, and it's great. They're adorable!

Urgh, I'm so bored. And unmotivated to do things like laundry and grocery shopping and jogging. I just wanna go out for coffee and veg somewhere.

The plan was to go to the beach today, but I had too much fun last night. :-) And it's sort of overcast, at least here. Anyway, those Kinnaird St kids throw a good dinner party.

Life is going pretty well. :-)

Beh, except for the part where I have to go to work tomorrow. And I'm way behind on phone calling, for which I have no really brilliant excuse.

I knew the Walnut St Park was pretty cool, but yesterday I discovered that it is indeed the best ever. There are these big flower decorations on the fence, like big daisies on sticks... it turns out they're big sprinklers that spray onto the playground so you can play and be cool in the summer. Sweet!

OH MY GOD, RIDICULOUSLY CUTE. That is all.

:-)

As Jeffrey K would say, perfecto.

I'm never going to make it to any yard sales today with this kind of laziness. I should do laundry anyway, and besides, even if I did find something good, I'm not sure where I'd put it in this disaster area at the moment.

So, last night we went to Emma's, which is a great little pizza place in Kendall... think pizza like Bertucci's, not like Tommy's. I highly recommend it, at least from the pepperoni with peppery tomato sauce we had. (So now I have more solid Kendall recommendations than Withers, who friggin *worked* there for a while, but who had little for me when I called him for suggestions... but at least I helped him find his broom) Matt had these passes to the Kendall, so we saw Bend It Like Beckham, which is an absolute must-see for it is cute and fun and thoughtful. After that we went on an investigation of the river up to the Longfellow Bridge... the sidewalk does this crazy hanging-out-over-the-river thing for a while, with a not-so-high guard railing. It's kind of exciting, really. It's a really top-notch view of the city from there, unobstructed by trees or big buildings, full sight of both downtown and the Copley/Pru area and Fenway/Citgo sign. We even found the Hatch Shell though it was unlit. The Longfellow Bridge is also very cool, though I can't figure out how all the stairs on it work... there seemed to be stairs to and from nowhere... or at least no sidewalks we could find. I never realized you can walk around the towers on the bridge... it's awesome becuase you can stop on the bridge and look out over the water without feeling like you're stopped right in the middle of the bridge and people have to walk, jog and bike around you. All bridges should have such observation decks. We ended up at South Station, where we ran into Lisa (up from NYC this weekend) in a feat of coincidental timing. Matt had to meet a friend up from NJ, and his train was late, so I took off as to make it home via the last of public transport. I had a few brain farts and ended up walking home from Davis, but it was a lovely evening, so no biggie.

Man, there are some shitty yard sales out there. Then again, when you start at 1:30 pm, a lot of the good stuff is gone. But I came across this one down by the Cube that friggin rocked, and I got a scale for $2 that I think functions properly (though I have yet to fully test it) and is totally light, an air matress (a nice one!) and pump for $15, and three little coffee/end tables in great condition and cute for $15 plus $5 delivery. A steal. Now if only I could find some decent stuff for the deck.

So, the rommate with no stuff is fully packed and ready for her boyfried to arrive so they can load up the rental car and take off to NYC. The roommate who is a pack rat has barely made a dent in the vast quantities of crap that need to be packed (and then there's cleaning to be done... yikes). Remind me not to be so disorganized when I'm that age.

Jamie and Jamie's mom are goddesses for actually getting through and getting these Springsteen tix! The online thing totally failed for me. Thank goodness I ended up just being backup.

Okay, I'm so not going to get any work done today.

Adding to the lack of work was a great free lunch in Coolidge. Ryan won it by putting his name in a fishbowl, and then we had to listen to some guy from Am Ex talk about financial planning, but then we got to eat whatever we wanted. Rawkin. But since then, I have accomplished oh so very little except for putting Dean for America links all over my webpage and pimping him to hubba. I'm certainly guilty of a lack of political activism, but damn, it's time.

Oh suck! Ticketmaster's phone system of death mangled our ticket order, and upon further review, we ain't got no tix. Jamie is very upset. But she should not feel bad about it any more than the rest of us are bummed, because it's totally no one's fault but stupid Ticketmangler.

Went to summer band last night. It was okay... percussion doesn't have a lot to do really. I kinda think I should stick with it to get better at reading percussion music. There's one problem, which is this girl who's been around summer band a long time, and she helps hold the whole section together, but dude, she is such a condescending bitch. And I feel helpless to put the smackdown on her because 1) I can understand some annoyance on her part with the crappy state of some of the percussion in Lowell, the crappy state of some of the kids playing in the summer band (like me!), and the general unfollowability of Tom's conducting; 2) I'm sorta part of the main Band and feel like I somehow am a representative and therefore cannot be bitchy back; 3) she's holding things together, so what can I do? Well, I can not go, for one thing. The rehearsals are long, I don't have a chance to talk to my homies anyway because I'm stuck in the back, and I really don't know if I can bite my tongue week after week.

All the pressure is on me to successfully procure tickets to the Fenway Springsteen concert when the virtual doors open tomorrow at 10 am. I hope I don't fuck it up like Sam did! :-) Matt has suggested a detailed training program to make myself a ticket-buying machine. Now I know all the tricks they'll throw at me to try to make me fail!

I seem to want to send out a jillion emails today. I wonder why I'm so hyper.....

I've been giggling an awful lot lately.

Man, this week has turned into craziness. Tonight I think I'm going to summer band, and maybe out after, if kids are interested, tomorrow night is maybe meeting with my new roommates and then showing the house to a possible subletter, and then Friday night is out to the movies. So far nothing set for the weekend, but it's supposed to be nice, so the beach is in order for one of those days. Laundry and house cleaning should be in order for other day, but those things have a way of becoming low priority.

I stayed up way too late last night IMing, but it was an overall productive time, so I can't complain. I also have a greater capacity in the summer to do more on less sleep. Okay, so I'm not doing a lot at work, but I don't feel so tired!

Dude, I have some nosy coworkers. This is what I get for working with a jillion women my age. I'm trying to keep up a PG image at work! But I happen to be a terrible liar when faced with direct queries.

Ha ha, they've issued a special weather statement warning folks about the "heat wave" starting today, by which they mean, "normal summer, but y'all ain't used to that yet." That's actually kinda what it says.

My work email is broken in a weird way. I'm not getting all my messages, but I did get some this morning from last night. Maybe they're catching up.

I thought people were being weird asking me if I've lost more weight since the end of the study, but I went up and weighed in today, and sure enough, five pounds since the end of the study (well, I might be dehydrated today, it is hot). So I'm having a candy bar. :-)

Went and saw the free Guster concert at Gov Center tonight with the (mostly old) crew. Muaha, there are so many more kids I can count as "old" now. Anyway, it was short, but fun, and the drummer was really insane playing with just his hands for the most part. It looked like he was having a fistfight with the bongo drums and cymbals... him smacking the cymbals was especially wacky. Dude's gonna have major hand osteoarthritis when he's old.

Back to H Sq, where I walked one Kinnaird St kid home, viewed a little "It's the Sneak", and walked the other K St kid back to the beeyar, where I hung out until really later than I should have, but these things happen.

It's weird when someone moves into your rader from just outside of it, the odd sensation of meeting someone for real that you already knew. It makes it all too clear that there are lots of weird circumstances, silly biases, and simple limitations of attention, energy and time that keep people apart who have no fundamental reason to be that way. It's sort of unnerving, actually.

But if you get past those things, it can be very good!

I just wish I could be more of a take-charge woman in my personal life. I just always want someone else to take the lead.

:-) :-) !!

Remapping names in your brain is really interesting and challenging. And jarring, certainly.

Aha, this is more like it! Housing has come together in a big way. A nice design school student came by tonight and snatched up the other room starting in August, and this other dude came by and took one space for July. So now I just have one vacancy for July, and it's quite possible that I'll fill it, but even if I don't, it's not the end of the world by any means. But dude, all in one night, and two out of three rooming problems settled.

It just breaks my heart.

Ah, and in other despair, I'm so far beyond panicked about housing that I'm just feeling used to the idea that I might be paying an awful lot of rent for July...

But, everything else is going really well. Jenn was up this weekend, and last night we went out with the kids, and today we went to the outlet mall at Wrentham and bought roller skates at the Skechers store. The mall there is awesome, and there were some majorly good sale prices to be had. I was glad to see J-money, and she promises to be back up for the 4th.

Friday was also great. I have a good feeling about this.

And now for something completely unexpected!

Feeling better here at the end of the week. Tonight should be fun. Matrix Reloaded on the IMAX screen, and then Harry Potter Redux, complete with pregaming and terrorizing the square. Faboo. And I even get to leave work early if this girl ever calls me so we can go see my apartment. Oh, speaking of which, Katherine maybe will come live with me for July, which would rock the house and everyone in it.

And we'll see if other things will take an upswing...

On old notes, it's a good thing I stopped giving a shit a looong time ago.

It's pretty easy to trivialize the effect of a situation on one's quality-of-life when it's physically impossible for you to ever be in that situation. And when it's thereby impossible to also be fully emotionally and psychologically in that situation.

Leaving work early is just so great. I'll just work harder next week, unless by some miracle I get work done this weekend. Ha! It looks like Jenn will be in town which will RULE! Haven't seen that girl in ages.

So, I hope this girl I took work off to show my apartment takes it. She was very cool, though I am jealous of her Coast Guard muscles and her Maui tan.

More feeling sluggish and wretched today for no apparent reason, though I actually feel a bit better this afternoon. I keep hoping to get energy so I can slug through the things I want to get finished this week, but I feel like poo. And yet I can't make myself sleep at a decent hour.

Sunday all I did was wander. Up to Winter Hill, down Broadway all the way to Tufts, around Tufts a bit (found the Library of Awesome View), down to Davis, from which I became a wanderer of the MBTA, making a huge zigzag across the city until I eventually returned back across the river to Harvard Square. Parked on the riverbank and talked to mom and sis until my phone died, and then home. Then last night after work, I took the bus all the way to Sullivan and walked back on the rest of Broadway I hadn't seen. So now I know: there's nothing good north of here! But it was cool to see new stuff in this dull old town of ours, and actually Tufts is really pretty. And now I understand the hills of Somerville.

If I'd been really cool, I'd have called various folks along the route to say hi or hang out, but alas I am lame.

I don't know what's wrong with me... I just feel out of sorts. Too much going on.

What a lovely evening!

So, last night, I introduced the kids to Redbones. So much meat. Everyone was thrilled by it. We hit the packy for some 12-packs of PBR-in-a-can, which inspired some kids on the subway to smirk mightily. We watched Old School, which is pretty entertaining, and then off to Peabody for more beer and fried food. Peabody, though ugly and far away (well, in that Harvard-centered sense), has some amazing views. From their kitchen, the kids have a perfect view of the Boston skyline, and from the balcony on the other side, a lovely sight of the river houses and points west... oh, also a bit of the river, which completes the picture. Matty K and I stood out there chatting for a long time... the weather was pleasant, it was overcast, but warm and a little breezy. I can handle summer evenings like that.

I'm starting to freak out more about housing... I need to get everything squared away!

At the beginning of every summer there's this little time that reminds us of what life was like before everyone had email... a few of the kids aren't hooked up at home yet. I want to hang out with people, but I don't want to have to call anyone. With email I can pretend to be apathetic about exactly who I hang out with, but with the phone it's like, I want to hang out with *you*. Yes, I am lame.

Okay, the glass of merlot at lunch is definitely inspiring the sleepy more than the worky.

But my review went awesome, and I am loved. I'm not only going to get my merit raise, but I will probably get an additional raise on top of that when I change positions to RA II (though HR is more in control of that one). Woo!

So, like, I check my Verizon email today, and there's this message that's like, hey, we're going to start charging you $15/month less for DSL. Uh, cool! I guess if the idea is to make me not switch over to cable or to someone else, it's working!

Okay, I love MTV2, but whoever puts the videos on is ON CRACK. Must also be the same person that puts the little label on the video... I thought that was part of the vid, but I guess not, as it is so often very wrong.

Actually, it had stopped raining by the time I left work yesterday. Instead, it was muggy. And it still is. Muggy and overcast. Yech.

I'm starting to get nervous about the housing thing again. The girl who was really interested was supposed to call me back to have her friend come see it, but she hasn't called lately. Some folks came to see it last night (one was a guy I have seen on the bus like almost every day! it was pretty funny), but they found a place in Alewife they like... I dunno man, I see Boston and the T so differently than most people. I think Alewife is like the end of the earth, unless you're interested in buses to the west, but because it's on the T somehow people think it's good to live there. But I feel like I'm able to get all over the place relatively quickly without having to be at any one place. I travel about much more now than when I lived on the T. People are just scared of the bus. The bus is our friend.

Today is just the longest day ever. And at the end of it I have rain to face!

I've been waiting for this take on taxation from Christians. Finally someone takes on hypocrisy!

Hey, anyone notice how similar the Bush administration's claims about Iraq before the war are to the claims of the Iraqi Information Minister? Silly, and flat-out lies.

The world will bend us away from any notions of simplicity, security, and fantasy. Life is chaos, complication, discomfort, but real, always very real, and reality will always have the last word. The worst thing one can do is let one's will die, to let those silly lies settle in, for ultimately the will is the only way to discourse with reality, to make a shape into it and carve out the space for oneself.

Day 2 of getting my act together... and I have a cold. I've managed to get some stuff done for work and I ran out and grabbed some toilet paper, but other than that, I think I will accomplish little. Fuck laundry, I just don't feel up to it.

Showed the house again today, to someone who is actually my neighbor. She lives just down the street. She is also very cool, and very interested, and she might have a friend who would be interested too. Only bummer is that earliest she would move in would be Aug 1, which leaves me searching for subletters, but that might actually work. We'll see. I'm feeling better that something will come together one way or another.

My apartment woes may soon be solved! The girl who just came and saw it today really liked it lots, and she's very cool, *and* she said she has a very cool friend who is also looking, who she's lived with before, and who has furniture! So they will probably come back later this week and check out the place, and if they both like it, I'll be set! How rockin' is that?

I'm such a bipolar shopper. Last time I went out shopping, I didn't want to try anything on, and the stuff I did try on I hated, and it was all a lot of pooey. Today I go out, and I found tons of stuff I liked. Totally flexed the plastic today. And I'm dumb... it's pouring out (but it's warm... I'm in shorts and a tank top... otherwise I would have never left the house), so when I was at Target already carrying two bags from the mall, I should have realized that aiming for two hands worth of stuff to haul up the hill was overdoing it BECAUSE I NEED TO HOLD MY UMBRELLA. Fortunately, the umbrella has a hooky end, so I can hang bags from that.

Since I had energy, I went out to Trader Joe's. You can buy single bottles of beer there! I bought an oatmeal stout for 84 cents. Mmmm, beer buzz. Then I headed to Harvard Square, but it turns out Great Cuts does not stay open very late on Saturday (which makes no sense), and nothing else does either in the hair cutting world. I should get a real haircut anyway. I'm just cheap.

One of the things I bought today was a new bathing suit. I think it is pretty cute, though we'll see if and when I get brave enough to bare my pasty soft midsection. But halter top and longish short bottoms are good, and they look sporty. Now if only we could have sun on the weekend. I also bought a beach towel that is fuzzy.

After discussion, I discover there is all the more reason to discard. I really have no use for the kid.

Ah, another Commencement over, and now I'm C2 (crustie year 2), and the kids are all one year older. Wednesday was the Yard concert... I forgot what mixed feelings that concert gives me. My freshman year it was one of the first things I returned to face, and it gave me that horrible feeling (one I hardly ever get anymore, thankfully) of being surrounded and suffocated but simultaneously completely isolated and invisible. My senior year I boycotted it because the senior soloists weren't Bandies, and Bandies hadn't even been asked, so Matt and I sat way in the back of the first section of yard seats and made fun of everything and then said hi to the kids after, but it was all a little bitter. Then there were the two unremarkable years in between during which I think I just played or did stuff. At any rate, this year's was pretty good, though I was slightly annoyed to have gone to so much rehearsal this week just to have another crusty come in and play cymbals on the fly along with me. Maybe I'm just a fame whore and wanted to be the sole cymbal player, who knows.

After the concert, it was back to Kirkland for sleep... I was in the suite of sexy boys, with Doug, Clark, Lee and Josh. Doug got pictures of Lee in my bed. All too early was Commencement call. The day was overcast, but it never rained, and the temperature remained perfect for us wool-coat-wearing types. I forgot just how damn long the processionals and recessionals are for the ceremonies... and of course, percussion plays through the entirety, not like the rest of the kids who get to rest between songs. At least now I think I have all the cadences down, thanks to abovementioned crusty, which I guess is worth more than my annoyance. And I got to conduct, which was fun, though not earth-shattering, and I think I had more fun playing. :-) One thing a lot of the kids have never understood is that part of our performance is about looking engaged and like you're having fun. Even by the end of the day, when my arms were about to boycott my body and my fingers were rubbed raw, I was still having fun and smiling and trying to sing. It makes a big difference for the people watching. Of course, when we're not playing during the afternoon, it's more than okay to look bored out of your mind, because only then can the tyranny of the alumni meeting be abolished. Or something.

I would have taken a monster nap, but I drank too much caffeine, so instead I laid in bed half asleep for many hours, but I think it was worth it. It was sort of like sleep. The party was good. There were several sad moments with seniors who are actually leaving town (I mean really, what the hell), but for the most part the graduates are sticking around, and for the summer, a lot of the kids will be around all or part of the time also. So, not a ton of goodbyes overall, I must say, which is kind of happy. A certain person was not around to say goodbye when it was my turn to leave... he was apparently "busy" somewhere in the back... but you know what, fuck 'im. Summer will bring along better prospects, methinks, maybe even people who actually, like, wanna hang out with me and/or talk to me like a normal person. Heck, maybe even a guy who is not a complete scumbag or fiercely aggravating (when he walked in the door last night, K turned to me and said, "Every time he walks in, I just want to kick him in the balls" and I said, "Wow, I have the exact same feeling!"). As much as I apparently like boys who inspire a mixture of affection, desire, and venomous rage, I think maybe it's time to go for amiability and mutual respect. You know, for a change. In the grand scheme of things, this little affair meant more for its timing in my life than anything else--a fling to kick me out of some inertia. But in and of itself, it means very little.

Hey, maybe I should get some work done today! Nah....

I went out to go get a map to put everyone's summer locations on, and who should I run into but John P. Fucken Morris! I've worked here for a year now, and today was the first time I ever have run into him. He was spazzy and manic like normal... I guess someone finally told him to go out and get some Vitamin D before he imploded. It was pretty funny.

It's much easier to stop caring about old crap when you have an outline of a new plan in your back pocket.

I could not remember the word "jilted" for the life of me on the bus today, and it just popped into my head. I was like, you know, like girls in the 1950s who get ditched by some guy... what word did they use? I kept getting "spite" or "smite" stuck in my head... those don't even sound the same!

I'm going on a trip to Harvard for a few days, I think. It seems that extra beds exist in Commencement housing, so cutting out commute time here and there will allow for more sleep or more fun or more of both. It's just seems weird to pack up a bag for the next town over.

I've been such a pig the last week or so. I think it's the relative lack of sleep... my body confuses tired with hungry. Doesn't help that I need groceries so very badly. Ah, well, a couple more days of college living, and then back to adult life.

Snippets of dreams... I was sitting next to him, or laying on a couch next to him or something, and he was reading and accidentally elbowed or jostled me in some way, and then he reached over and rubbed the spot where he'd bumped me softly and apologetically, and so I snuzzled up next to his arm and fell asleep... I was at some talent show, and I was apparently going to sing, but before me was a band, and it turned out that my first boyfriend from high school Steve (my sister does a great impression of him) was in it, but then it turned out that he was like their prop crew and took video and moved mics around, and they sucked, so he was a roadie for a terrible band. We never got to me singing, thank goodness.... There was a bakery owned by this Italian woman, and she had these four sons who helped her run it who were all *hot*, and for some reason they let us wander around the house, and the woman was making chocolate cake....

Gah, midday zonks... hey brain, back online.

I need to push the big reset button on my life after Commencement. Grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, exercise, making this roommate thing happen... I feel insanely behind in everything. But I'm more motivated to see the kids right now and to help out with gigs as they need percussion so very badly.

I'm getting discouraged. It's stupid. It's not even a good match, I just want it to work because I want *something* to work. But it's just not happening, not with this cast. But what is it I'm doing wrong that causes this inevitable failure?

Stupid fucking bus that never comes. And then missing it when it finally does come because I think I'm going to maybe stick around instead and play capture the flag until that nitwit idiot boy makes some comment to the effect that, hey our team is all saxes and trumpets, and we all know how I love being ignored and we all know how I even more love it when people assign a null value to my section (which is not percussion, though it seems to be my regular job, but no one who has ever watched me play really wants to call me any sort of musician), so fuck you! No one really cared if I was there anyway, so I walked home. Which I should have just done in the first place because it's still nice out and it's not that far at all and I always forget that.

Okay, I've decided it was fun while it was fun, but now I think we've passed the threshhold of More Trouble Than It's Worth. Unless things change, I'm through with this silliness because I need something else and I need something better.

Wooooooo! I just found out that a) I'm getting promoted to RA II for my annual review next week (a raise! Maybe a good one!), and b) when we move to our new space in July, I get my own office! I had a choice between getting my own space without a window or getting the part of a shared space by the window, but having my own room is just too good to pass up. especially since it's rather spacious, and it has a huge filing cabinet in addition to shelves. The desk space is also great. I'm psyched!

So, the person I was supposed to show the house to today stood me up. Not that I gave her stellar help with directions... she probably thought I was a moron. Still, I'd rather be notified, so I could have returned from Harvard Square at a more leisurely pace.

I totally should go grocery shopping, but I'm too tired and I think I'll just do the work I brought home instead. I can think of something I'd rather do...

Rehearsal was so great today, at least, it was great once the choir showed up and I felt vindicated in my contention that I really can play the cymbal crashes in "O Clap Your Hands," but only along with the words. That made me feel so much better about this whole gig. Funny how I can be so nervous about silly Commencement. Oh! It was so nice, Tom remembered that I didn't get to conduct last year and he asked me if I wanted to this year! I'm so psyched!

When I think of how I'll remember this time, it makes me laugh.

Also, fuck you light for starting with me before I get to bed. Stay dark!

To avoid melodrama I remind myself that this is really just infatuation, and while it does sting a bit when a crush isn't quite requited, it's certainly nothing to get worked up about. To get worked up is to take out all the fun, and the fun is what's worthwhile at this point. So maybe the course of action is to push the boundaries of the fun while I have the chance.

I feel bad, that it's so easy for me to tune myself into my much simpler world, and tune out that which I don't currently understand.

Rehearsal: I can't count! Maybe when the chorus is there, I can figure out where to crash better than I can with just sheet music and filler accompaniment.

I dunno, I shouldn't be so irked by a misplaced line, but I'm still pretty annoyed about many things regarding that.