jeffy

..while creeping around j. crew.com with me on skype..

"what i'm gonna do is go buy a badass suit. and i'm not gonna ever wash it or take it off and it's just gonna get nasty. where you can just see the nasty. and then i'm gonna wear it to formal parties and pretend like i don't look disgusting."

"ohmygod who would pay $80 for a soft v neck argyle sweater?"

and he sent me this video which is pretty funny actually.

touching hands.. reaching out

i just had one of 'those mornings' this morning. i changed outfits literally 10 times, was running late, realized i left my phone at home once i had gotten to the metro, and there was no raspberry iced tea at CVS. i ended up going back to my apartment on my lunch hour because i felt so off without my phone.

i'm trying to think of something else to say, but i think i'm just out of ideas tonight. it's getting truly cold in this city and it's just so nice to be inside, under a blanket, with the heat on.

i'm thinking about cutting my hair so it has a little more movement.
too short. and the bangs. i had those until i was 19, friends. this was an impromptu photo shoot (by myself) while i was reading a book for english as a sophomore in college.
too long.
wayyy too long.
too layered.just right. i think.

your golden wings

this is one of those days when a picture is going to say 1,000 words because i'm running late and i want to get through a chapter or two of my book before i pass out at 1130. these pictures are gram's house leftovers. i always like to see inside other people's houses though, don't you?
this is the downstairs bathroom. my mom liked the border so much that she changed our kitchen wallpaper so now it's the border in our kitchen.
see? ours is up high.
back to gram's. this is the porch and it's my favorite place in the house. it was an addition that's more or less just stuck to the side of the house on the second floor. it feels like you're in a tree house. there's no better napping spot on earth. and they bring you snacks if you just sit there long enough.

mom sent the light-up garland for gram's birthday.
spanky made those hanging halloween things. i still have an extra if someone needs some handmade halloween cheer for next year.
could it be any more grandparent's house in this picture?
'be my guest'.
aunt tiny, gram's sister, found a box of old stuff. this is gram's autograph book from school in the '40s. they all signed with funny little rhymes that i wish i could remember. stuff like 'roses are red, violets are blue, no one at school is as sweet as you.'

time to read! woooo friday!

the baffled king

on the way home from work, i text john to see if he wants to have dinner. we usually get together a couple nights a week because we live in the same area. so we agree to meet at open city. i was there for 5 minutes or so before he got there, and i was sitting at a little tiny table next to a man who was also sitting at a tiny table by himself. he was 40s, balding, glasses, businessman.

i don't know if it's apparent on this blog, but i've become obsessed with mussels. i had them at marvin a month ago, had them at gram's, had them at home. so i was deciding between the half order ($8) and a whole order ($12). and while i was sitting there, i asked the man, who was eating mussels, if he got the whole or half. he says half.. he can never finish them, much less the whole. i say nonsense! the whole is $4 more, and i can eat hundreds of mussels in a sitting.

then john got there and i stopped talking to the man and started trying to talk john into splitting a big order of mussels with me so i wouldn't have to eat them by myself just to save $4. john isn't having it. he wants a burger. meanwhile, i'm arguing with myself outloud about whether or not i'm going to order the half or whole.

SO then the server comes to take the man's mussels away and give him a sandwich that he also ordered. the server is holding them and the man says 'before you take those, this young lady might want them'. i look over (totally blushing.. story of my life) and say 'weeeelll actually if you're just going to throw them away, yes i'd love them.' BUT the server didn't hear me, so he starts walking away and all 3 of us yell 'SIRRR! excuse me!' and we explain that i'm going to eat them. he was very confused.

so in the end, i got to eat 10 mussels, which totally hit the spot, and i ordered a side of baked macaroni and cheese which is really a giant plate full of it. so, lesson of the day: talk to your awkward restaurant neighbors. they might give you the leftovers you've been craving for weeks.

this is halloween

i cannot. stop. blushing. at work. literally a couple times an hour i just turn bright red if someone speaks directly to me. i try to remember that i'm a teacher! i'm confident! i tell people what to do! but i think the nature of being an intern is that you always feel a little unsure, you smile a little too much and laugh at a few too many bad jokes.

i was telling my roommates how a lot of the time i feel like people probably think i'm a little dippy because i get excited easily and i'm bouncing around a lot of the time when it seems like the staff is so even-keeled and serious. but that's me, so. and they definitely know that i get a lot done. not tooo worried about it.

miriam and i made [reheated] dinner tonight. spinach manicotti, salad and crescent rolls! now we're watching the nightmare before christmas on VHS from the condo collection of '90s tapes. claymation is amazing. i know i'll be singing these songs all week though.

p.s. there's a new boy on the horizon. updates as they happen.

p.p.s. from yesterday - it was 'a really cool guy'. his name might rhyme with lodburt fibs. :)
and turns out that the screening was full so i didn't get to go afterall.

all these places feel like home

p.s. no swine flu for this girl! and my arm isn't even sore.

a girl worth fighting for

this is the contents of my purse right now which i just found amusing. a wallet, keys, lotion, chinese candy and black beans.

well miriam's been in north carolina on a great halloween adventure tour with her friends who fly in from everywhere all weekend. there are 7 or 8 of them and they dressed up as oregon trail one night (it was a computer game that every kid who grew up in the 90s played at school) and peter pan one night. so i've had the room to myself, and i have to say, i much prefer having her here. even though most of the time either one of us is just sleeping, it's nice to have company in here.
(this is where miriam's air mattress bed usually is).

i think i'm getting back into the american swing of things or my biological clock is going off or my love of interior design grew a lot while i was in taiwan, but i keep getting the strong urge to nest. i've been admiring lamps, thinking about decorations and kitchenware. i almost forgot that i have an entire apartment of stuff packed up in the shed at round rock. so maybe i'm ready to settle here for a while.(funny how a messy room somehow seems more organized if you just pile everything in one spot.)

oh i forgot to tell you.. at the halloween party at work on friday, i was talking with a volunteer of asian descent who was dressed up as a chinese farmer and we got talking about how i taught in taiwan for a year and how i might want to get fluent in chinese and use it for whatever i do next and she said "don't EVER think your chinese will be able to go up against a native speaker. you will NEVER be good enough to get to that level unless you devote your whole life to it, which you don't want to do."

!. it was a pretty hurtful moment for me. she wasn't commenting directly on my accent or anything, it was more of a general attack. but it still left me feeling like i had been kicked in the stomach. i don't understand why a stranger would ever say something like that to someone.

that's my weekend update. i'm excited to go back to work tomorrow.
time for shantaram! i borrowed it from nirav and i'm super excited.