burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Question on Millionaire today: "A unibrow is a fashion faux pas remedied by what type of grooming?" Dude, the levels of wrongness. "Faux pas"? Like Frida Kahlo wasn't a total hottie.

After a comment thread with ranaeressea last night, I was thinking I could use an androgynous person icon; and I've been wanting a "real women have curves" icon for some time (I lack any picture to use for it); this makes me think I need a Frida Kahlo icon (complete with unibrow and mustache) for a "nontraditionally beautiful" icon. [Though I would still like a "real women have curves" icon. And no I don't endorse the "zomg, you are so skinny you must be anorexic" type of thing; I don't mean to elide the women who are naturally skinny; being a female who has passed through puberty you have some curves, though, so you are not being negated by the still-theoretical icon.]

I was thinking about writing a disclaimer about choosing/owning your own aesthetics and I remembered that last night kurukami posted a poll about preference for smooth-chested vs. hairy-chested (for those attracted to males) and in this context it got me thinking about how when we're talking about men the hairiness issue gets to be an aesthetic choice, but with women it becomes this huge deal -- and interestingly, women are in many ways less restricted in terms of appearance choices (women wear pants all the times, but how many guys get away with wearing skirts?) but whereas guys get to make choices about shaving all the time (facial hair especially) it's a given that women will shave everything except their heads (and that one's okay either way) and if you don't shave and don't cover that up then it's this huge deal.

I was, as previously stated, very hungry, so I called Mary Alice about going to lunch on the early side. Turns out there's a Resource Fair from 11-2 with snacks. The snacks turned out to basically consist of cookies -- no water even :( -- but it sated my hunger. And I did pick up some schtuff.

CommuterChoice is as always my favorite people.
April 7: Walk to Work Day
flyer: Join us for food, fellowship & prizes celebrating National Walk to Work Day and the faculty and staff who walk to work. At the Malkin Athletic Center Quad. Friday, April 7 (rain date April 11), 7:30am-9:30am. Please pre-register by email to: commuterchoice@harvard

They had a "Getting Around in Cambridge Map" but Amanda was disappointed because she was hoping for an updated version of her Professor Pathfinder map. Looking at said map I could see why she was disappointed. So I did some Internet searching. Way cool. And one of the viewable details for the New England college map is the Five College Area :)
The Bargain Bin section of their order form includes:
Mystery Pack: as many old and damaged maps as we can fit in a 9x12" envelope ($15.00)

Millionaire today I remembered the University of Chicago nuclear question (because my dad went to University of Chicago). $250thou. And the next guy's easy questions were very familiar. Clearly a rerun. Maybe we came in late last time? 'Cause I didn't remember seeing the $50thou question -- which I got right thanks to Skarda's class :) Byron & co. storytelling during a storm led to the creation of which literary monster? And they even said it right. (Frankenstein's monster rather than Frankenstein.) Must e-mail Skarda. Eric was all up in arms that it was such a high dollar question, but I pointed out that who besides English majors was gonna know?

In other news: musesfool was talking about a rock 'n' roll Firefly AU and mollita wrote a third installment of her Nashville AU.

Edit: Job tasks today have included photocopying, attempting to track down a library copy of a book, and further discussing comma splices.

1. hi-res X3 poster images

2. a download of the Bones ep w/ Adam Baldwin -- which I downloaded last night and which plays as a blank avi, wtf?

3. Gina Torres is being hot on The Shield? *is sad to not get FX*

4. Prompted by the X3 pictures on my wall, Eric told me that the Ghost Rider trailer is gonna be attached to the X3 movie. He is annoyed that Nicholas Cage is playing Ghost Rider 'cause he doesn't like Nicholas Cage. I said I didn't particularly have strong feelings either way.
     "He named his kid Kal-el." (Kal-el Coppola Cage)
     "Not his best moment," I admitted. But not as bad as "Moon Unit," I pointed out.
     "Moon Unit"? Apparently this was completely new knowledge to Eric.
     I couldn't remember the other one ("Dweezil") so I Googled. And thereby learned that Frank Zappa had 4 badly named kids. (Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, and Diva) I totally thought there were just the 2 (Moon Unit and Dweezil).

5. glossing made my day like whoa.

I am yet again considering getting a del.icio.us

Probably as public service much like tagging since LJMemories-dump basically works for keeping track of the stuff I personally have yet to read/officially rec. [Though I could also tag by themes etc., thus aiding my own searching/referencing purposes. *ponders* And yes of course my tagging system function as a search aid probably even more for myself than for anyone else. I mean, it is about me first and public service second.]

This is gonna be the part where nobody responds and I ultimately decide to go ahead and do it, right?

(Ooh, if I did del.icio.us I could also do it for fanart. Though, see, the danger in that is that then I might never do up a fanart recs page on my site.)

---

Day before Break? Yeah, 's been a slow day.

My trains ran fast this morning, so I was in at like 8:35. (Usually I'm in around 8:40, 8:45.)
Greg (who's always in before me): Do you live sufficiently close, or do you get up sufficiently early from far away?

Yesterday I decided not to bring a brownie with lunch and ended up craving one and bought a Snickers bar.
So today I brought a brownie and (before I'd eaten it) Barbara came back from a meeting bearing (among other things) fruit and cookies.

Wednesday's Metro there was a kerfluffle about IHOP coming to Harvard Square. 'Cause, um, it's a chain.
Non-kerfluffly, The Hempest is coming to Upstairs at the Garage. Oh the Northampton convergences.

Millionaire the other day I was wrong. Synovial fluid is cracking your knuckles, not popping your ears.

The receipt from a previous person who had my Martín Espada library book has 2 items on it:
   Imagine the angels of bread: poems
   Betty Crocker's Step-by-step cookbook
I was amused.

Rich's cell phone alarm went off and I jumped.
"I startle easily; it's not my fault."

---

Edit: Almost forgot: club_joss is doing BK's "Cry Havoc" -- which still makes me cry.

Wednesday

I dreamed that I talked with Joe about Mardi Gras and Lent.  And that pardalis05 called.  Gee, do we think I miss people?

Then on the Red Line that morning a girl asked me if I'd gone to Smith.  I didn't recognize her, but we probably had class or something together at one point. She was a Skarda advisee but not a groupie. Now working in the Kendall area.

Florian gave Amanda and I Lindor chocolates.  And the orange wrapped one turned out to be peanut butter.  Yum!

On the Red Line home I saw a woman with an HBS Exec Ed bag and a dark ash smudge on her forehead.  She was the only ashed person I saw all day.

Going back and tagging entries, December 2002 I was watching Ice Wars.  Who knew?  I remember seeing ads for ice skating events in TVGuide when I was in high school or whatever and not watching them 'cause I didn't have time, so I just assumed I'd stopped watching all together.

My mom was watching these performance feedback videos for work and zomg, make my brain bleed.
The employee gets difficult-to-read information from sales reps and so she guesses as to the numbers for the purchase orders because she doesn't wanna bother the sales reps (plus it slows down her process since she often gets their voicemail).  And when she gets their voicemail she just leaves her name and number.  That was the killer for me.  Who doesn't know to leave a detailed message with the reason for your call?  [I know it's a scripted scenario, but you only include things you think might actually happen.]  Even when I called friends when I was in high school or whatever I would say why I was calling (just to say hi, question about homework, whatever).

Midday ABCNews: 1 in 5 could name all 5 members of the Simpsons.  Only 1 in 1000 could name all 5 freedoms enumerated in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
My reaction: Come on, who remembers freedom to petition?  Press and peaceable assembly maybe.  But basically everyone knows speech and religion, and everything else kinda comes under that umbrella anyway.
Later my dad told me about Dale Carpenter further problematizing it.

Assorted Millionaire questions for you:

Before Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, the last state to join the Union was:
+ Montana
+ Arizona
+ New Mexico
+ Utah
( Answer )

First baseball game broadcast on tv was:
+ Syracuse-Ithaca
+ Ohio-Penn State
+ Harvard-Yale
+ Princeton-Columbia
( Answer )
I enjoyed that Mary Alice and I both had the same random guess before they listed the answers -- Red Sox-Yankees :)

Oprah premiered in 1986 (!) with the following topic:
+ celebrating teachers
+ finding the right person to marry
+ loving your body
+ moms who do it all
( Answer )


Thursday

Amanda called a theatre in Arlington and its automated menu had showtimes "through Feb. 30" (theatres do Thursday-Thursday schedules).

Searching for contact info [name, title, address, phone, e-mail] for profs was way more difficult than it should have been. Boo on unhelpful university faculty pages.

Prof.D: "Do I really have to reformat my whole CV?"
Prof.B: "No.  You get your assistant to do it."
Me, who supports both of them: [something like, "Gee, thanks."]
Prof.B: "Yeah, I knew you'd love that."

carpdeus and I on the Monty Python's Flying Circus "Spam" sketch.

Friday

Reformatting Prof.D's CV I decided I needed background music to sustain me, so I did Yahoo!LaunchCast.  Apparently the majority of my musical taste is "Adult Alternative," which I suppose isn't all that surprising.

'Twas amusing seeing why it played certain songs.

+ "Flake" by Jack Johnson [Reason: Recommended by fans of Coldplay]
+ "Insensitive" by Jann Arden [Reason played: Recommended by fans of Matchbox Twenty // Genres: Soft Pop, Adult Alternative ]
+ "Ordinary Day" by Vanessa Carlton [Reason played: Recommended by fans of Evanescence ]

I've heard "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child a lot before, but listening to the words this time I couldn't help thinking of "Don't Ever Call Your Sweetheart By His Name" by Christine Lavin.


I had a Huntington mailing waiting for me when I got home. 
+ Breaking Ground Festival of New Play Readings: April 6-9 [That's a Thurs-Sun.] at the Calderwood

The flyer had blurbs about 4 of them.
+ Kind Hearts and Coronets, which movie I swear Emma has mentioned to me a million times. (This version is a musical; book by Robert L. Friedman, music by Steven Lutvak, lyrics by Robert L. Friedman and Stevenm Lutvak)
+ Persephone (Noah Haidle) "Guiseppe is trying to carve an image of the Greek goddess Demeter from an unyielding block of marble --- she's the love of his life. But relationships are always hard, especially when stretched over centuries."
+ Property -- based on the Valerie Martin author also of Mary Reilly, for you Skarda Telling & Retelling folk novel I read in UMass Brave New Worlds class.  I'm undecided as to whether I actually wanna see this play.
+ Voyeurs de Venus (Huntington Playwrighting Fellow, Lydia Diamond) -- "Sara, a black scholar specializing in pop culture, is writing a book (or, trying to) about Saartjie Bartmaan, known derogatorily as the Hottentot Venus. Sara's own issues of racial identity emerge as she struggles to recount Saartjie's life for a largely white audience. All the while, Sara navigates a minefield of personal intimacies between her husband and lover. Past and present merge as their stories collide in this piercing drama."

Saturday

Went grocery shopping with my mom and picking up a box of Always cleanweave my mom initially thought it said cleavage *g*

On a whim we purchased this.

Stacie Clayton performs at Singspiration a lot, and tonight they sponsored a concert by the Community Gospel Choir (which she directs).  There were five little girls -- three in black with dashiki print sashes and two in gypsy/pirate type white blouses.  The adult performers were all in black, women in dashiki print stoles and men in orange ties.

(It felt a little bit odd to schedule a "We Shall Come Rejoicing" concert for the first Saturday in Lent. My mom wondered if perhaps they could take the giant, brightly colored, "King of Kings" and "Lord of Lords" banners down from the front of the church for Lent. Did we mention I come from a church that really isn't very liturgical calendar oriented? :) )

They opened with a reading of Revelation 7:9-17 and JoeF read it I don't know where from but not the front of the sanctuary though they had the sound wired so that's where it came out. Very nice.

I actually wasn't all that taken with most of the concert. The spiritual "Hold on," with its line "Keep your hand on the plow" was very powerful, though. And I really liked "Le Lo le lo lay lo" (William Loperana, Puerto Rico) -- text from the Sanctus (Heaven and earth are full of your glory ... Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord ... etc.) Also ♥ the male soloist on that one. He reminded me of Chris Dalton.

Saw JoeF briefly afterward. He asked me "what world [I was] going to conquer next." I literally threw my head back and laughed (okay, that was partly because my mouth was full). He knows I'm a writer (he is, too) but it's not like I wrote much of substance for the Times, and my writing for the Bulletin was Letter(s) to the Editor articulating views I'm fairly certain he disagrees with. And yet he thinks very highly of me. About the world conquering he said something like "I have no doubt that you will." So hey, I'll take it.

Wednesday

The $50thou Millionaire question I had no clue about (The Model T originally sold for . . . ( answer is )) and usually when you switch the question the new one they give you is nigh impossible, but this one was "which gemstone, whose name comes from from the Greek meaning against intoxication, was supposed to protect one from the effects of drunkenness?" and I knew the answer even before they listed them (only because it was in something I'd read recently but can't recall -- possibly "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe in Flights: extreme visions of fantasy ed. Al Sarrantonio, but that feels wrong; probably some Cicada short story) ( and the options are )  I should have known the $100thou ("Exit, pursued by a bear") but didn't ( and the answer to that one is ).

Afterward we watched the beginning of the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."

O'Brien: chroniton particles...
me: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

O'Brien: There's a ship directly in front of us.
Mary Alice: It's the Enterprise!
Viewscreen: [shows the Enterprise]
Mary Alice and I: [surprised and impressed at Mary Alice's random guess being right]

Odo: "She called it a Tribble!"
Worf: Grr! and fear.
me: I was wondering if anyone remembered.  So he [Kirk] has the biggest file on record; something like this should stick out.

We dispersed back to work not long after, and I Googled to get the gist of the remainder of the episode.

Isabel:  I get out of class at about 5:30, so we can meet for dinner whenever you get out from work (any suggestions about where to go?).
Me: [suggests Veggie Planet]
Isabel: YES! Finally someone who'll go to Veggie Panet with me. I've been wanting to try it, but I'm friends with carnivores opposed to green and grainy things.

One of these days I'll order something other than the same thing I always order there, but this was not that night.  We saw Crash [lj entry here] and because I had plenty of time before I needed to leave to get my train home we hung out in TeaLuxe for a while afterward.

Overheard in Harvard Square: "my LiveJournal post."

Oh, I forgot to mention.  When I was at the library, Saturday before last, some girls (age 12 maybe?) were printing stuff out and I totally saw the fanfiction.net logo on top.  I restrained myself from enquiring as to the fandom.

Proof that I am not all about Teh Gay, Isabel was telling me I needed to see Capote, and what sold me was her talk about a connection between In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thursday

Really tired again this morning, natch.  (Home ~11:30 the previous night.)  Was really tempted to ride the Red Line out to Alewife and then back to Harvard so I could get more nap time in, but I didn't.

I was strangely awake all day, though.  Which was good, as I didn't really want a repeat of the previous day when I was ready to fall asleep at my desk around four o'clock.

According to the 2004 Census, the median age of first-time brides in the U.S. is: ( have a guess? your options are . . . ).  They also asked asked the real name of the horse who played Mr. Ed -- ( options are )

I learned that Laura lives in Braintree.  It thus stuns me that she drives in to work.  I mean Braintree is at one end of the Red Line.  Though I don't know what HBS's employee discount for parking is, so maybe it actually is cheaper to drive in to work than to park at Braintree and drive in.  (I didn't ask 'cause we were talking after work and I really had to be heading to the Square -- as it was I ran hardcore.)

Watched Fantastic Four with my mom [lj entry here]

Friday

As previously mentioned, this was a very slow day.

I'd brought a coat in preparation for the evening but didn't wear it at all in the morning and was surprised at just how cold it had gotten when I left work.  I walked to the Square with Alyssa, and we parted ways where the galleria thing is

I was a couple minutes later getting to the T Station than I sometimes am, but there were a lot of people already waiting, so clearly a train hadn't come too recently.

There was a guy playing accordion, and he didn't look so great but the music was quite good so I gave him money.
little girl: "What are you doing?"
guy: "I'm trying to make my rent; that's what I'm doing."

The travel experience was downhill from there.  The little kids weren't that bad -- the "I hate trains" little boy shut up after a couple stops -- but the mom made me seethe.  As the train got more crowded she jokingly yelled "I can't breathe!" and I was willing to let that go 'cause she'd had a long day or whatever, ditto her scolding her daughter like three times for hugging a stranger (as far as I could tell, the girl did it once, but the mom scolded her repeatedly).  One of the kids was calling someone else a vampire and I wasn't sure if it was another kid or a passenger -- by this point there were multiple people in the aisle between us.  Then the mom was griping to her friend about feeling faint (I guess) and how she might fall into some guy, and her friend commented, "make sure it's not an ugly guy" and she responded that it would probably be a lesbian (in this "that would be even worse" tone) and I was kinda seething at this.  Were it not for the fact that there were a lot of people in between us and (and really this was the primary reason) the fact that she was getting off one stop before me and I didn't wanna hold up this ride any more than it already was I like to think I would in fact have lectured her.  After she got out one woman actually vocalized "I'm glad she's gone" (she had been loudly complaining the entire duration between Park and Downtown about how she was gonna have to turn this stroller around and people needed to get out of her way, and I imagine a lot of us were thinking, "Well there's no space to move until the doors open, and what were you thinking at rush hour Friday before a 3-day weekend anyway?").  Park St. was the start of the stupid people standing on the yellow line as if there would magically be more space in the car, and when I got out at South Station I ran almost all the way up and got there at five-forty-one.  My train leaves at five-forty.  I was pissed.

My dad mentioned on Thursday that NHS was doing Doctor Faustus as their competition play.  I'd been meaning to read that (as well as Geothe's Faust) for ages.  Getting in to Norwood Depot ~6:13 would give me plenty of time to walk up to the Savage Center old Junior High North, but 6:45?  Cutting it much closer.  The train got in more like 6:50, and uphill in the wind?  Ow, my legs.  I actually wondered if I should just go home and go to bed.  I only got there a few minutes late, though.  I really like the way they did Mephistophilis and don't really have any other comments, in part because I did doze off at the end, due to the aforementioned tiredness.  It felt like all the events of the play happened way too fast, so I got the play out from the library so I can better critique Marlowe (and also compare Goethe; yay Harvard Classics putting them both in a single volume).

I was gonna go to bed early but got sucked into watching bits of the Olympics with my mom.  I learned that ice dancing is teh boring.  Watching the slalom I told my mom about the Ani lyric -- unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent and undo, from the stupid circumstances we slalom through.

So yes, I saw Lindsey Jacobellis.  ( Read more... )

Saturday

I was the Great and Amazing Sloth, which didn't entirely make sense to me as I wasn't that tired during the day on Friday and though I stayed up a few hours later than I would have preferred it wasn't that late; and I'm mostly over my cold.  So yeah, my Saturday was far less productive than I had previously intended.

I went to the library (as mentioned above) and weather.com said it was 24F feels like 9F.  I actually felt less cold coming back when it was supposedly 22F feels like 7F.  Shrug.  I was pleased by the cold both times, natch.

Oh, and my dad made stir fry tonight and he made stir fry tofu for me and I appreciated the protein but . . . flavor. My dad said he thought when I said I didn't like food with flavor I was just joking. Now okay I have had food that I find unpleasantly tasteless, but clearly he hasn't been paying attention. :) [Course, we so rarely have food at my house, how would one even know ;) ]

Friday morning the flist was all aflutter over the nudge feature.  It's not on news and I didn't even notice the button on UserInfos.  Supposedly it sends a form letter.  Apparently it only works for mutual friends who haven't posted in a week or more, and I'll concede that the list of inactive journals could be handy, but a form letter seems tres gauche.  (This is an interesting idea for using the function if it let you nudge any user and write your own message.)

Catching up on the flist now, I hear S1 has tag support.  This should have happened from the very beginning, and I still find the tag thing problematic because tags only show the 50 most recent entries, so people using tags instead of Memories (as opposed to using both, since I do grant the convenience of tags) makes me right pissed.  [Sidenote: Is there any reason Memories is forever giving people the message "The memories feature is temporarily unavailable." forcing them to refresh umpteen times?  Couldn't the LJ team expend some effort on that?]

Back to Friday:

musesfool: Speaking of which, I have fic wanting to be written. Why it's not writing itself, I will never understand.
hermionesviolin: Word, yo. I have assorted fics from last year that need to be kicked into shape and somehow they have yet to turn themselves into finished products.
musesfool: It's unacceptable! Lazyass stories, making us do all the work!

'Twas a slow day, and I was attempting to work on my fic for seanarenay's resurrection of the incest challenge, but writing pr0n at work is weird.  I was also attempting to work on another one of my fics and realizing I may have two mutually exclusive timelines happening in the same fic.  I need to actually write down a timeline so I can keep it straight (the fic switches between present and past) and finish the fic.

Jasmine and I were talking just on Thursday about evolution of language and suchlike, but dude, it's spelled "Shepherd."  One who herds sheep.  Okay, the SGA character's last name is spelled Sheppard, but when you come from an Abbey and it's a title, it's Shepherd.

Watching Millionaire, the $100 question was: Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl are representatives of what organization?  (Or something like that.)  Heart the D. option: Bureau of Self-Righteous Icons.

'Round 3:00, my temp agency dropped by, with balloons and a gift (jelly beans and an AmEx giftcard).  "Associate of the Month" (for December; no idea why it takes them so long).  So cheesy, but hey, gifts.  Prof. MW came by and saw the balloons and asked what the occasion was and I explained and said I got jelly beans and money too and he said, "I hope it's lots and lots of money -- so much money you don't know what to do with it."

A note came with the gifts, reading in part: You have always stepped up to the plate whenever we have called you for assignments with many of our clients.  Your supervisor has rated you as an excellent Associate and we are proud of your performance.  You have received positive feedback from your supervisor on your assignment such as: "Elizabeth has been doing a great job- good enough to consider her for a full time position."  The American Express gift card is our way of saying "thank you" for your outstanding job performance, flexibility and positive attitude.

Cynical people might have comments.  Proving that I sometimes do have a filter between brain and mouth, I just thanked them.

No way was I taking the balloons home with me, but it occurred to me to give them to Mary Alice to give them to her son (it's a bunch of normal balloons filled with helium and one shiny one saying "Congratulations").  "I won't tell him they're second-hand," she said, "I'll just tell him they're from a colleague" -- which is true enough as far as it goes.  She told me multiple times how thoughtful I was, and I was so glad the balloons could go to a good home 'cause it would have been so sad to come back in Tuesday morning (yeah three-day weekend!) and see them all wilted.

After work, I went out to dinner with hedy and my mom (onwingsofeagles).  I got an avocado & havarti melt, half-size fruit salad, and a smoothie.  Yum.

Then we went to see Home -- which I had gone to the staged reading of last summer.  (Staged reading reaction here; reaction to this version here.)

Came home and slept for a huge amount of time, which was bliss.

Then I watched Pulp Fiction with my brother.  Um, okay.

We had my grandma over tonight to celebrate her birthday (which actually happens on Monday).  After dinner [complete with Riesling :) ], presents, and dessert, we watched March of the Penguins.  Nice, but not as amazing as it had been made out to be.  The anthropomorphizing was kept to a reasonable minimum.  I would have preferred more tragedy, but (a) I'm nobody's target audience, (b) it was marketed as a family film.

We rounded out the evening with DVD of my brother sledding on the hill outside his dorm at school.  (Choice quotes from the cameraman: "You're officially an idiot" and "You suck at sledding.")

( UCN Sunday sermon etc. )

PB had been preaching for about 20 minutes (he ended up totalling just about exactly 30 minutes) and said the sun was in his face so he couldn't see the clock.  I was sitting like 6 pews back and said, "It's ten minutes to 11."  People laughed, and a whole bunch turned in my direction.  Marc said something like, "Oh, no," as if PB was going to hurry up and finish and really he would happy to listen to him talk for ages.  "I was just trying to be helpful," I said innocently (which, admittedly, is a lie).

I hadn't realized the Sunday after Thanksgiving was the first Sunday in Advent until it got mentioned during the service.  I had been thinking of going to the Baptist this coming Sunday and then wandering around during Advent, including checking out Grace Episcopal since I think High Church (which is usually so not my thing) would actually be enjoyable during Advent.

I went to United this Sunday because there was supposed to be a "Continental Breakfast."  I was expecting tables and some sort of buffet setup.  It turned out to be regular Coffee Hour but with fruit and store-bought danishes instead of the usual sweets.  Laem.

John P. said hi to me quickly in between things, asked if I was gonna be back.
"This hasn't been my church in 6 years."
"Yes it is; you still have me."

I think I could count on one hand the people I care about still at United -- in the sense of actually wanting to maintain real relationships with them.

Jean H. asked me if I was visiting and I said yes, surprised at her astuteness.  Turns out she thought I'd already moved out of my parents' house and was thus visiting from Boston.  Oops.

Bev looked so drained.  At one point I pulled up a chair behind her and started massaging her shoulders.  "I'll even sit up for that," she said.  It reminded me of why I wanted to do massage seriously in the first place.  (And also reminded me that I need to sign up for the chair massage workshop.  Except it turns out to be the weekend of the UCN fair.  And also necessitates missing an Advent Sunday, since it's 10-6 Sat&Sun.  Should probably wait until I'm living in town -- it's offered again March 18 & 19, 2006 -- since Franklin Line Sunday schedule means I'd have to have somebody drive me in on Sunday anyway.)

Megan had called Saturday evening saying she was gonna be in Boston on Sunday, so we made dinner plans.

I got my boot taken care of at Payless and then went to TJMaxx, where I actually found shirts I liked -- though I was wearying by the end and suspected I might have been settling, so we'll see how they look after some distance.

(I think it was when I was walking to Park Street) I saw a white horse pulling a carriage -- the winter rides have begun.

Megan really likes this place Ankara Cafe at Kenmore (its neon sign is pink and seizure-inducing) which I had never been to before.  The food was pretty good -- though I was sad that my sandwich had more peppers than mushrooms -- and they also have frozen yogurt (yeah cookie dough) and fruit smoothies.

Waiting for the Red Line at Park we saw a mouse on the tracks -- something I hadn't seen in ages.

Meg was worried about their vehicle and wanted to go check on it and then drive to Maria's -- said I could come with if I didn't mind squeezing 3 people in the cab of a pickup truck.  I said that was fine, mentioning that, "I've done 3 people in a pickup truck before."  "Oh really?" Meg replied, in that tone.  I started explaining how my uncle has a pickup truck and then I realized what I'd said and started punching Megan, mostly because I was pissed at myself for taking so long to catch that.

Lou convinced Megan her vehicle would be fine, so we walked to Maria's.  I saw Sylvia there, because of course Smith/Boston is that small.  The Emperor's New Groove is still very good.  I had to make my train, though, so I left almost immediately after it was over.  Walking through Harvard Yard, I hear "Is that Elizabeth?" "...Yeah,"  I reply.  'Twas Isabel.  (In my defense, it was dark.)  I had to go make my train, of course.  A Red Line pulled in immediately after I went through the turnstile (for which I was grateful).  At South Station, the board was messed up, so I had to ask at the Info desk.  (At least there had been nobody on the escalators; oh the rage I have at lazy people on the escalators when I am in a rush.)  I got on my train with about 1 minute to spare.  I've really gotta start making hang-out plans with people where I don't have to run away to catch a train.

I was in such weekend mode that I'd forgotten I had to get up and go to work the following day until Meg asked me at one point early in the evening when I needed to go home and I started actually listing the train times aloud.  Even though I'd had the Monday 10am video conference in the back of my head all weekend.  [Said conference ended up working out fine; I know you were all worried.]

Isabel was the first to mention the Harvard-Yale game to me (in LJ, commenting about how everyone was away at Yale) but I didn't really think of it as connected to me until YDS Sarah mentioned watching the game on TV.  Then Monday morning waiting for the train, Jay mentioned he'd gone to the game -- said it's like a reunion for every class.  He said it was a pretty good game in that both teams were pretty evenly matched -- that is to say, equally bad.  He said it went into 3 overtimes because of fumbles.  I knew there was a reason I never got into the sports rivalry thing at the college level :)

10:02am: Max to somebody: "You're early; 10 o'clock coffee doesn't start until 10:10."

I win at Millionaire sometimes.  I guessed correctly that the longest snake is the python, and I remembered that the U.S. govt used the UNIVAC for processing Census data.  (Last week I knew that white is the Chinese color of mourning and guessed correctly that Japanese tatami mats are made of straw, but those were far lower dollar denomination questions.)  Last week I learned that a single axel in figure skating is a 270 degree turn and that the nuclear reactor at U Chicago was under the squash court.  And this week I was reminded that mint julep is made with bourbon.

Overheard on my way to the Harvard T: "We're having a deep, intelligent conversation about stereotypes and emo."

I got the 5:15 Red Line out of Harvard per usual, but it was so crowded.  Am not entirely sure why that was.

At South Station, a guy wearing one of those Saved By Jesus/Lost to Hell billboards we've seen at Govt. Ctr. and Park St. was talking -- amicably, it appeared -- with the Green World/Extinction guy who so often has a table at South Station.  I really wanted to engage them in conversation, but my train was gonna be leaving within minutes.

As of today, MLN has restored AV requesting (though you can't request stuff that's less than a year old -- which totally makes sense, since they're high demand and interlibrary request items spend lots of time in transit).  And lo, there was much rejoicing.

And lastly, Autumnal Equinox is an NC-17 S3(?) Buffy/Giles fic.  Why is there not more discussion about it over in club_joss?
The next read is eurydice72's  Flight Patterns, which I am excited to reread (and dude, I added it to the rec queue; I win).