<0003>

Happy birthday to Am (on the 24th), and happy good luck bar exam Tues and Weds.

My house is clean! But I still have laundry to do (and I never did get around to cleaning the car... maybe tomorrow morning). I should have started the laundry earlier, but the thought of having to move Bill's damn clothes *again* made me wait in denially hope that he would magically move them himself. So irritating.

But my mom will be here tomorrow so woo!

<1529>

I was surprised to discover that Haley Joel Osment is 18, and then depressed to remember how much younger than my age 18 actually is.

Last night Lynn, Tim and I went to see Midsummer Night's Dream at the outside place where BSC does their shows. It was good, and there were swingy things hanging from the trees that I wanted to play on. I guess they've had trouble keeping the "unauthorized" cast from sneaking on them to play around.

Tonight I think I'm going to stop by fiz happy hour, then go home and watch Grey's (so addicted, but only like 6 or 7 eps left) and do some cleaning. My mom is going to visit next week if flight reserving goes well, so I need to make the house less disgusting. Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to ArtScape. Sunday the crew and I are going to Annapolis for a play, and maybe some tourism.

<1620>

Last week and weekend were pretty busy. Weds I had dinner with Roxanne. Thursday I went to a goodbye dinner for one of the astrofiz kids at delicious Helmand and then chillaxed at Lynn's while waiting for my landlord to return. Why was that? Because for the first time in two years I had locked myself out of the house. Boo. Friday I went swimming with Lynn and her mom... her mom is poolsitting for a coworker. Then we had dinner. We also went swimming Saturday and then treked to Arundel to see Pirates. I need to go back down there and do some shopping. I'd never been, and so I had no idea how much stuff is there. Yesterday I watched a lot of Deadwood and Grey's Anatomy, since Lynn got me hooked by showing me the first episode when I was locked out.

Today I'm actually at work. I drove in since it's like 100 degrees out. I think it's actually not too hard to park east of here, as again I found a pretty good spot with others nearby (and a few better). I hate the idea of always driving in, but I also hate the idea of never coming in because getting here and back is a huge asspain.

Anyway, I finished and sent out the Honduras manuscript, finally. My new boss gave me this book chapter to read, but as usual, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it when I clearly don't have all the materials I need. God forbid I'm ever so disorganized. I also spent some time printing and looking at the NRSA forms. I think it's going to be a huge asspain, but plenty do-able if I just buckle down and work on it.

Speaking of asspains, is it the internet that makes people annoying? Everyone who contacts me first through the internet irritates me immensely. So I can't tell if these people are irritating, or if it's the internet's fault.

<1700>

Oh, so the other thing that happened this weekend was that after swimming on Saturday, Lynn's mom chopped my hair off. It's not fancy, but it was sorely needed.

<0120>

Pro made the argument I was going to make in his name before I had the chance. Seriously, as much as I enjoy watching a good headbutt to the sternum, there's totally no justification for it. Just walk away and kick his ass in the actual sporting context in which you are involved, and then you win twice. You don't get to assault a guy and then be like, wah, but he said mwean words to mwe.

<2058>

Yeah, so I realize I've been incredibly lazy about updating. It's kind of a theme of the summer so far.

So, let's see. Engagement party was fun, met law type peeps. I also finally figured out that the fast easy way to Greenbelt is not off of 295, but the DC Beltway one stop down. I knew the first time I went it was easy, but the last 2 times we/I got lost.

Atlantic City is super tacky, but we made it there before they had to shut down for a few days because New Jersey had a budget shutdown. The drive up sucked -- 20 miles an hour for large parts of 95N. The congestion was just so bad that there were all these self-perpetuating traffic jams all over. I could see them happening on the other side too, and they just looked ridiculous, all the cars stopping only because the ones in front had to, ad infinitum. I got there and peeps had all gone to the boardwalk, so I changed and caught a shuttle down there. The boardwalk is hugely long and a combination of Vegas tacky with Jersey boardwalk tacky. Awesome. We chilled and caught up with the concert kids and then went to sleep. The Boston crew had left at like 3 am to beat traffic, so they were tired.

Sunday we bummed around the pool (idiotically without putting on sunscreen for my part) and then david and I drove in. We went to a little diner for lunch and then caught up with the rest of the crew at the Irish Pub. Josh had joined us, WITHOUT LONG HAIR. Yes, all his lovely long hair was gone, but fear not, ladies, he remains dashing even with hair more befitting a law school boy. We hung out there for a long time outside, cracking jokes and offending parents whose abilities at that occupation were so lacking that they thought it was a good idea to bring their children to a BAR in ATLANTIC CITY and to subsequently sit next to a huge group of drinking twenty-somethings who clearly are up to no good at all times. There were also discussions of grammar that Rachel and I had to make stop several times.

Once we got ready to move, we went to the boardwalk, stuck our feet in the ocean as it got dark, and then went to the Taj Mahal for mudslides because we all wanted ice cream or something close enough. As we sat on their outside balcony, we watched the springy ball go up and down on the Steel Pier. The Steel Pier is an amusement park like area, and the big ball (technically called the Rocket) is this pair of seats in a ballish frame that is sprung into the air on these springy things. Damon wouldn't go ride with me, even though I bugged him to for two days straight (turns out that shiz is $20 a person, so I woulda prolly cheaped out anyway). But we did soon determine that the seagulls were attracted to the lighted areas at night and seemed to fly over the ball with no apparent fear for their lives. We kept watching to see if one would get thwacked by the initial spring of the ball, and sure enough, one did and went spiraling to the ground. John and Rachel immediately decided they had to go ride, so we all took off. They have these videos of people's faces that they try and sell, so the girl in the video booth showed us the one of the kids who hit the bird. They both were laughing in that OMG WTF just happened kind of surprised way. And the guy definitely got hit with some nast that he was trying to shake off for the rest of the ride. Ew. J&R got to ride twice, and the second round may have been because the ride operators admired their determination to fell a bird. Anyway, they got their DVD with their two rides AND the girl put on the dead bird ride also. Quality entertainment, I'm sure.

We went back to the casinos and did some very minor gambling. Loren insisted that I play something -- I told him 21 would be a waste of money for me, so he popped $5 into a slot machine and sat me down. Okay, can I just complain about slot machines in AC for a moment? They don't take change! You either have to go get dollar tokens or put in $5 bills or higher. And then! When you win? It doesn't spit out change! When you're done you hit a button and it spits out a piece of paper with the amount on it. LAME. Anyway, the machine was really well suited for me, because 1) it had real spinny things and not the computer crap screen; 2) it was called 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall; 3) it had a handle to pull, which I quickly begane to use instead of the button. On like the 4th or 5th go I hit 500, which translates to $125 since it was a quarter slot. I told Loren since it was his money (and I hadn't done anything with skill to it), he should keep the proceeds, minus a cut for me, of course, so he gave me $40. I figured that was pretty great for betting nothing myself. We cashed out and ran into Danny and Lane, who had fried Oreos to share. OMG, decliciousness. Seriously, squishy hot Oreo goodness.

We didn't last too much longer, so I took the early shift back to the hotel. We got stuck in a DUI checkpoint on the way back, and it was lame because they didn't even talk to everyone, just made us merge from two lanes to one and then waved us through at the end. I guess maybe they pulled over a random sample or whoever they probably profiled to pull over using what I can only imagine were completely discriminatory criteria.

Monday we had a big breakfast at Denny's and I think impressed upon the waiter that we could eat more crap as a collective than any group in the world. The drive back was pretty good, since most people were already where they planned to be for the 4th weekend.

On the 4th, T had a rooftop party in just about the best location to see Baltimore fireworks ever. It was a dessert and drinks party, which was fun and Lynn made her patented mint chocolate death martinis. The weather was lovely (way less hot than it had been earlier in the day when I sweated the four blocks and back for liquor), and fun people were there.

I did nothing of consequence the rest of the week. When I went in to work Weds, my boss was like, I won't have time to look at the lastest draft until next week. So I left. I did meet with my advisor on Friday, and I did some work after that, but mostly last week I did nothing useful. I have no idea how I managed to spend several days doing nothing. I felt kinda bleh Thursday, I think in minor post-AC letdown. I like seeing the Boston crew.

Friday I went to SPH happy hour briefly and then headed to physics happy hour. Lynn, her mom, and I then went to newly reopened Tamber's for dinner, and then we went (sans mom) to Mike's for rescheduled TV Night. Saturday I drove to the Eastern Shore for a party at E's. We had lots of crabs and other food. Before dinner some of us tried to go out in the bay, but we were quickly frightened by a number of pretty but looming jellyfish. I managed not to get stung, and it was all pretty comical, how weenie we all were. The crabs were fun to eat, and we sat around chatting for a long time after dinner and dessert. There was an endless fireworks show across the Bay, in an unknown town. Then we went inside, had a failed dance party, and finally settled on games. Mostly we played Cranium, and it was determined that a) the game is more fun when you forget about Club Cranium and everyone just plays on their turn; b) me, Danielle and Tara were not the major causes of the badness of the last game of Cranium we played with our cohort, because we had a perfectly civil time playing with the cousin cohort peeps.

In the morning, we had some breakfast on the shore. The weather was perfect. Alas, I had to go so I could meet up with Ami, who was in town looking at apartments. She called with perfect timing right after I had returned and showered, so we had lunch at Paper Moon. They have really good sandwiches. I'd never had one there. She went off to look at houses (with disappointing results: she took a place for more than she wanted and missed out hanging out with us because she looked at places up until she left), and I met up with Dave and Court and some friends of theirs at Max's. We watched the World Cup final, and then we headed up to Brewer's for dinner. Fun times.

Today I was again mostly useless, but I talked to my mom on the phone, partly cleaned the house, and exercised. Kinda lame. But I stayed up late watching Deadwood, so I slept late, and I had a bunch of internet to catch up on from the weekend. I've also had such a lack of energy lately. The diet and exercise was supposed to cure all that, but laziness seems to be back.

No major traveling planned (yet) for the weekend -- there's a party in Boston, but there are no good flights. I really should get going on my dissertation proposal/NRSA application in a serious way, however.