Mary Mack

Huzzah! I'm going in for a haircut tomorrow evening, and I'm thinking about lopping it. I'm so sick of having long hair. Yes, I will cut a lot off. Any suggestions for a particular style? I need your help! I don't want it to be as short as it once was; maybe chin-level? I want to be able to put it behind my ears.

Oh, and in case you were holding your breath for this: my bike was waiting patiently, in one piece, for me when I returned for it.

In other news, I'm sick of working! I can't wait to be back in school. My brain is atrophying. I've been doing logic puzzles, but I don't think they're helping! I do love logic puzzles, though. And the internet is full of them!

I'm worried about my bike.

Sammy is in Scotland right now. I'm pretty sure he's having a great time; I checked the itinerary for his Model UN conference, and he may be engaging in some bitchin' afterhours activities, like a pub crawl and a ceilidh, whatever that is. I think I would like to be in Scotland, too, even though Boston is very nice today. I rode my bike this morning, but only to the Green St. Station about 90 seconds away, because I was running really late. I hate parking my bike at the Green St. Station, because I am always pretty convinced it's going to be defiled in some way. It's not the greatest place to park one's bike. There's one bike there that used to be a full bike with a baby seat (that had a "copilot" sticker on it), but it's been reduced, piece by piece, to a bare bike frame. The baby seat was the first thing to go.

Speaking of biking, my Easter Sunday consisted of a glorious bike ride with my friends. We were a real bike gang! It was me, Rachael, Ben, Erich, and Erich's roommate Zach. We went to Spike's Junkyard Dogs, which is an amazing hot dog place in Allston, and then we went to a bookstore that had millions of unorganized books and records and a bookshelf full of videotapes. Rachael bought A League of Their Own and Son in Law. They also had Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War and D3: The Mighty Ducks. This bookstore was great, and it had two lovely cats, but the cats were making Rachael die, so we moved on to Brookline Booksmith, which is another great bookstore.

After the bike ride, I met Nicki in Jamaica Plain near my home and I gave her a birthday present, even though her birthday is not until June 19th. The birthday present was too exciting to hold out on, though; I found a fantastic book about clipper ships at Cobwebs, the antiques store on Centre St, and I had to get it for Nicki. The book had a lot of pictures, and I inscribed it with the following message: "To my little 'Sea Witch:' Here is some Clipperature! Hah! Love, Emily." I even inlcluded the "Hah!"

Nicki and I then rode the bus to her and Rachael's apartment, and that night, Nicki, Rachael, Andrea and I all ate french toast and fruit and watched A League of Their Own.

I also received something great in the mail! It was a poster of L'Amour de Pierrot. I'm guessing it's from Sammy, because I talked to him about it after seeing it in a really nice book I got from Rachael. Anyway, I was pleased to see it, since I had forgotten how much I wanted it a few months ago. He's pretty nice, that Sammy.

Or am I just a page in your history book

Ohh, I laughed and laughed when I saw this headline:

Paula Abdul: Caught in a hit-and-run?

Hooray I have an income

I just bought a satin sleep mask and a Leatherman SuperTool from Amazon. Now they have no idea what to recommend.

Just for fun, here is a list of things I've purchased from Amazon in the past 6 months:

• Satin Sleep Mask
• Leatherman SuperTool 200
  
• Arrested Development Season One DVD (for Sammy for our 2-year anniversary)
• The Sims 2 University Expansion pack
• Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits
• Louise Rennison's Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
• The Best of OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark)
• Tilly and the Wall: Wild Like Children
• Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, etc)
• Loudon Wainwright III: History

I haven't received the two top items yet, but all the others were great buys! The only possible exception is Tilly and the Wall, which I bought because I liked the song called "Nights of the Living Dead." The rest of the album did not live up to my expectations, but they seem like nice people, so I don't mind paying for the whole thing. And maybe if I listen to it more it will grow on me. I also liked the song "You and I Misbehavin'"

They sing like canaries in the Phillipines

If you're wondering what is up with the title of this entry, just ask the guy outside my cubicle what it's all about. He said it to another guy, and I was sure it was some kind of code phrase, but the other guy was just as confused as I am. I actually really got a kick out of his response, which was an aghast "whaaaat????" Unfortunately, they were walking as they continued the conversation, and I missed the explanation of the phrase, if there was one.

The other day, I was purchasing a plane ticket for my July 4th weekend trip to MKE, and I made a mistake online, so I had to call and change it. The woman helping me asked for my confirmation code, which had an F and some V's in it, and she had a few letters wrong, so I said, "F as in Fox," and was saying "V as in..." but the only V words I could think of were vagina, vasectomy and vivisection, so finally I just gushed, flustered, "I can't think of any V words!" Luckily, my helper assisted me by saying "...as in Victor?"

Rachael and Ben and I went to the huge St. Patrick's Day parade in South Boston, which was really great, and there were lots of bagpipes and kilts and daggers, and then suddenly we saw a horde of Storm Troopers and Royal Guards. At first, I only saw the royal guards and did not recognize them, because it was so out of context. I thought it was some kind of supremicist cult or something, and I wondered if this parade was going to turn ugly. I was pleased to find that they were just a bunch of Star Wars freaks!

And yesterday, I saw something unbelievably amazing! You know how buses have the little screen on the back right corner that displays the route number? Well, I saw a bus whose little screen was displaying not a number, but the letters "ICE T" !! I'm guessing the driver was a huge Law & Order: SVU fan, as am I. I should have boarded that bus.

You're the permanent one.

Nicki and Andrea and I had a sleepover party this weekend! It consisted mainly of eating Twizzlers, playing Trivial Pursuit, and taking pictures of our own eyeballs. My eye shots were mostly hilariously bad, because I was in the most light. I was also the only one without brown eyes, but I don't think that mattered much. Anyway, here are some pictures. (It should be noted that my shirt has two glittery kittens on it--Sammy got it for me for my birthday).

...someday I'll make the pictures look nice in the template. Sorry it looks terrible right now.

Also, I finally brought Rexford back home! He had obviously enjoyed his stay in Cleveland Circle, and the cats at Frank & Jess's apartment were clearly in love with him, but Rexford is an aquatic turtle; it would never work out. Soon, I will post pictures of Rex and you will love this.

I'm no Nanook

Ugh. I just looked outside the window and saw that it was snowing, and I actually felt a pang of nausea. It's kind of like when you make a delicious sweet potato dish, but you make wayyyyy too much of it so you have to eat the leftovers every day for a week, and the dish goes quickly from delicious to completely disgusting and for the next year, whenever you think about sweet potatoes, you kind of gag a little.

Anyway, the snow does not make me happy.

cannot find a quotable lyric.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I've been spending much of my evening jamming to some '95 Oasis tunes; that's cool, right? I'm really having a great time here.

Also, I went to the library at school today to check out some books. During my trip, I encountered four people I knew, and all of the conversations went something like this:

Other person: So, you're on co-op right now?
Me: Yes.
OP: So, what are you doing in the library?
Me: I'm just checking out some books.
OP: But...you're not in classes. Why are you checking out books?

Seriously, is it really that bizarre that I read books for leisure? What the deuce?

I'd rather die

Ug. I feel sick and really dizzy. I want to go home.

Okay, fine. I either want to go home or to H&M to purchase clothing. I haven't gone shopping in "a coon's age," as they say. The funniest part about the last sentence is that I had to google colloquialisms + age to find the correct saying. So what do we say? Should I go leave work? If so, should I make a stop at H&M before going home? Please help me!

Love,
Emily

March 8th

handgrab
Originally uploaded by pizzaface78.

A case of the what-whats ?

Ahh, the joy of arriving late to work and sneaking out early. Whatever, man, I feel like poo. Also, Creepy Sociopathic Idahoan asked me about the tea I've been drinking all day, which I attributed to my fight against a terrible impending sickness. Then he Creepily suggested I "be careful not to get sick, because [he's] getting sick and people might wonder." I remained stony-faced, but inside was more What? People might wonder how it's possible that two co-workers who barely talk could both be sick at the same time? He's totally weird. And he wears alligator-skin boots and acts like all of the rape suspects on Law & Order: SVU. You know the ones who act so meek and Ice-T is like, "I don't think he could hurt a fly" but Benson is like, "Dude, trust me on this one" and then it turns out that he acts meek but is consumed by rage, and the rage controls him? I try to avoid him.

And the guy in a cubicle near me who is the worst ever at keeping a silent workplace, and who talks like a kindergarten teacher to adults and children alike, keeps playing a soundclip that sounds like a small monkey listening to the part in "She Blinded Me With Science" where the guy yells "SCIENCE!" You know what I mean.

From the desk of Robot Queen/Safety Star

My weekend was full of robot competition in Manchester, and now I have a serious cold and sore throat combo that isn't making me happy. In other words, I'm in the depths of despair.

One hilarious thing that happened at the robot competition is that one of the priorities for this year's competition was safety, so people ran around telling everyone to wear safety goggles and tape the cords to the ground and everything. We had gotten a few safety citations for random things, so my team was kind of disdainful toward the safety officials. At one point, we were working on our robot's arm and the hook was out in the aisle. I thought it would make my teammates laugh if I went totally overboard and made a big sign to put on the hook. On the sign, I wrote, "WATCH YOUR FACE!" My teammates did laugh, and shortly thereafter, a safety official came up, saw the sign, and asked who created the sign. I fessed up, prompting the safety official to award me a SAFETY STAR OF THE DAY nomination! Hohoo! This was wholly unexpected! I got a goodie bag and my picture was taken and put up on a poster and everything. The picture can be found here, and keep in mind that I spent the whole weekend sleep-deprived and indoors and frankly, I look like death warmed over. And I'm wearing safety goggles on my head. I wanted to wear them in the picture, but the photographer said there would be too much of a glare.

Also, look in Boston Magazine in the coming months for an article about our team. We were followed by a journalist who turned out to be totally hilarious. Apparently, most of his stories have either been about losing teams or middle schoolers.

Oh, also, we lost most of our matches and got knocked over and our robot is not as great as we had originally thought. 'Tis a shame!

My virtual model

Hey, this is pretty fun. You can make a virtual model of yourself here and then shop online and virtually try on the clothes. It's not really that accurate, and there are only a few online stores that support the virtual model, but it's pretty fun. It makes me want to play the Sims 2 and make a version of myself. I think I'll do that sometime soon. Too bad I'll be in the throes of robot competition tomorrow through Sunday. Actually, that will be very fun and I will probably post pictures next week.

Lorem Ypsilanti

You know, I used to kind of like snow. As recently as mid-January I even was excited about snow. Maybe it was the 8 billion inches of snow that have fallen in the past two months, or maybe it's that I have to walk 0.5 miles in aforementioned snow each morning (because the path is not plowed until the afternoon) that has created an irrepressible snow antipathy within me. A half of a mile is not that much, I know, but when there is a foot of snow on the ground and you are going to work so you're not wearing your galoshes, that half a mile can make the difference between a happy commute and a commute in which you miss the commuter train by mere seconds and consider just hopping on the departing train, but being mind-read and yelled at by the conductor, and then having to wait in the cold for the next train, which isn't until 30 minutes later. My feet are cold.

My sister and I rescued a dog named A.J. but Lisa did not want to call the owners for some reason. I was really confused about her sudden shyness. She finally called the number on the tag, and the owner came and got him. Afterwards, my mom asked me about a hundred times if we put the dog in Lisa's car. This story was much better in my memory. Also, I am typing about two words per minute. I think I'm distracted. I'm trying to listen for my boss, because I need to flag him down to ask him if it's cool if I don't show up on Thursday or Friday. He walks so fast, and I only see him about three times a week anyway. I hear him much more often than I see him. He talks so loud and laughs a lot and bangs the tables in meeting rooms. He's very jovial and high-energy. I find it pleasant, but I can see how others would not love this. He sports a mean Boston accent and pronounces his name "Ritchid Ahht."