london day 2 - post work

hello all. today was a very jam packed sight seeing day... i was taken out to lunch to this very cool place that had a french influenced menu. very gourmet, and pretty reasonable. you could choose an appetizer item, and a main course item for 6.95 quid. ( that is roughly $12 each). i had some chick pea falafels with aubergine mixture topped off with hummus as my appetizer, and then a vegetable/squash curry on top of a lentil patty. everything was soooo flavorful and great!

at promptly 6pm we left the office and headed to a bar for the nightly drink. i tried two types of samuel smiths..



i had the soverign best bitter and the old brewery bitter. i like bitters, so far they have a relatively mild taste. the guys seem to drink more mixed drinks. or some of them don't drink at all.



after the pub nik showed me a bunch of places. i didn't take any pictures with him really, but after we parted ways and i walked back, i took some pictures of the places i recognized again. we walked through soho, trafalgar square, leicester square, picadilly square, we walked over the thames and to the south bank, we walked near waterloo. i am going back to the waterloo area too tomorrow night with some other guys from the office.

nik is an excellent tourguide. he told me more then i will ever remember. here are the highlights:

burberry
we walked by a burberry store and i asked him if that was the designers store, he kind of chuckled and said that burberry is only worn by the english equivalent of white trash, he called it something else that i can't remember now. apparently there are so many rip offs of burberry, and be them fake or not, no respectable british citizen wears burberry. :)

snow
he said it rarely if ever snows in the city of london. if it does snow, it doesn't stick. but 10km outside the city it does stick.

homeless people
i have not noticed very many, i think only 2 so far, he said they do have them, but they usually come out more in the rain to be more pitiful.

clean streets
i have noticed that the streets are genuinely clean and picked up. the streets remind me of the downtown crossing area of boston, they always seem so picked up.. i have also noticed people that walk around in yellow vests and pick up trash all the time. i saw one at 10pm even on my walk back to the hotel.

firetrucks
look very much like the double decker red busses. only they are solid and red and squarer.

horn honking
i didn't notice till it was pointed out to me, but pretty much noone honks their horns. they will run you down if you are not looking though. crossing the street is pretty scary

cars
ive been told that there are tolls you have to pay to drive into london. like 8 pounds. as some sort of pollution tarry. gas is also 2 pounds per liter. curiously i have not seen a gas station yet. nor a laundromat. those two things are on my list of things to look for. actually, i have not seen a grocery store either.

vegetarian meals
very easy to eat vegetarianly here. there are whole restaurants that market the hell out of their all vegetarian menus.

alright, although its 723 for you guys, its half midnight for me...

here is a link to my pictures so far. i am just going to keep adding my pictures per day to this same link..

london day 2 - morning

I forgot to write last night that I went to the front desk to get the power converter so I could plug in my alarm clock. First let me tell you that I had my pjs on under my jeans and track jacket, and I had already taken out my contacts, so I had my glasses that have a prescription that dates back a good 5 years, maybe more. I get down there expecting the woman I had just spoken to on the phone, but it was a man. I had brought a cord down to make sure it fit in the converter before I got it back up to my room, and when I handed it to the guy he asked me which part of America I was from. I told him Boston, and then he goes, “I love your country, And I love Americans.” He was uncomfortably serious. It was very surreal. I felt like I didn’t really know what was going on anyway not having my contacts in, but it was akward at best. I said, “nice” and left… weirdo…

I think the mattress pad on my bed must be made of wool. I woke up drenched this morning. I guess I was too tired in the night to notice that I was sweating so much. It was so bad I literally was stuck to the sheets and could not roll over this morning. I know you think, why don’t you open the windows?… well. I was expecting windows with no screens in them like we found in Ireland. And while the windows have no screens, they are double windows. And only the inside set opens from the top down. Very peculiar.. out of the three windows in my room only one has the 2nd set of windows open a bit. Before I go to bed I think I am going to drag the chair around and see if I can’t open the other windows.

The weather here is actually sunny at the moment. But its just generally overcast. I am very surprised how dry it is though, (unless it’s just that I am immensely dehydrated from sweating so much last night) I have needed my chapstick 2 or three times since I’ve been here.

The team is taking me out to lunch in a few minutes. I’m excited. The street I work on has so many little places to grab something though, I can’t wait till tomorrow! I stopped at bagelmania on my way to work this morning and had an everything bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese. It was really just plain cream cheese with sun dried tomatoes on top. It was sooo good. I might get another one tomorrow. Oh shoot. I forgot to get a receipt.. hopefully tomorrow she can give me one for 2..

I am going to be uploading all my photos to a photo album soon, and I will just continue to update it.. so you can check there as you wish.

1st day.

so i was able to work till 6. i don't know how i found the energy.. nik offered to take me down thru soho on his way to the tube and show me some sights. it ended up being a small group of us, going to "the french" as its called. it was real small inside, very local, they only served 1/2 pints, and no mobile phones allowed. i saw the bartender kick one guy out for being on the phone. it wa pretty cool. the only negative is the smoking laws. there are none against smoking. :) i had two half pints, a john smith, and a something else that i can't htink of the name of. the one i can't rememebr was better. other then those two beers they had guinness and fosters on tap.

here are some pics of my hotel room. note the shower. see how high it is, i need to crawl up into it really. and i have 2 single beds side by side.. strange.. and the cutest little tea station. i borrowed a plug converter from the front desk and i think it broke my alarm clock. great!!!

monday january 30th

i arrived safely. its about 11am and i am headed to the office. i was able to check in early and take a shower and change. heavenly.

i'll write more later.

sunday january 29th...

630pm
i'm waiting for the plane to take off.. the guy in the window seat across the aisle from me is sleeping... i am so jealous.

KT and i arrived from MD at about 1030 this morning. in true gormally fashion, our "ride" was unavailable. i was supposed to get us a ride to the airport on thursday, and KT was going to get us one for sunday morning.. how did i know that she'd be calling people from the airport? we ended up taking the silver line to the red line, and then a cab to her house. i walked into my house at 12. not too bad. i intended to sleep a little bit before i repacked, but after i watched the one and a half episodes of sopranos that i had, it was around 130 and i started to stress that i would have to shower while all of LKs family was eating her 3rd birthday dinner, so i forwent a nap and showered early, plus i was getting hungry.

i was able to celebrate a little with a majority of LKs family on their first trip all the way up to somerville. her mom makes a mean cupcake and swedish meatballs.

for the 2nd time today KT was ontime in picking me up, such a godsend!  i arrived at the 2 hours before the flight time, no problem getting thru security, or finding my gate. there was a little african boy with a strong pair of lungs on him. he cried for a solid 30-40 minutes while i waited to get on the plane. luckily he is not on his way to london.

this plane is pretty huge. its 3-4-3 i walked by a bar on my way in and the staircase to the upperdeck. each seatback has a television in it. my plans are to watch 40 year old virgin, the march of the penguins, maybe pride and prejudice, flightplan, oooh, crash is one of the available movies. maybe i'll watch that too. :)

i watched about 16 or more lady flight attendants board this plane while i was waiting to board myself. they all had LONG red wool coats. was it because they are british? or because virgins colors are red? because i have a US passport i have to fill out a card. they want to know stuff like family name, forename (first name perhaps?) and my address in the UK. good thing i know that. shiiiiit.

this planes seats are definitely smaller then the jetblue plane i was on this morning. jetblue was a nice airline except the plane we were on was too new to have working tvs. this plane, although it is large has smaller seats and the room between the rows is narrower. also...i am TOO fat to fit in the seatbelt. fantastic!! i hope that they don't really check, how embarrassing..

845pm
alright, great news.. in the 2 hours i have been waiting to take off and start watching those movies i managed to get the seatbelt fastened, but it kind of cuts off my circulation.

about 30 minutes ago the captain made an announcement that we are going to need to "get rid of some cargo" in order to take off from a shorter runway. i have a sick feeling that my luggage will be part of the disposable cargo. i had reservations about checking luggage with my history of bad luck, and i hope that my bad feelings are not realized.

some random observations...

• i just walked all the way to the end of the plane. there are so many empty seats its crazy! i could probably move and have my own row if i wanted. i might.
• they handed out these very curious pretzels a while back. they were potato pretzels that had been soaked in worcestershire sauce. very interesting.
• since i have been waiting so long i decided i am going to have some baileys and some white wine. shiiiiiiiit.

nice, we are finally ready to go!!!! only an hour plus late!!!

730am (from now on i'll be on GMT so subtract 5 hours those of you on the east coast)
just heard from the pilot that we will be landing at about 810am. i was able to sleep about 25 minutes. the headrests in these seats bend outward so that even if you are not next to a window you can still lean your head on them. the guy next to me slept pretty much the ENTIRE flight. he must have taken drugs. i don't see how anyone can sleep on planes, let alone for 7 or more hours. bastard! good thing i got the seatbelt to squeeze on, when the seatbelt light goes on the stewardesses (or seatbelt nazis as i see them) come RUNNING down the aisle with flashlights, if you are sleeping, they will wake you up. so nice!

i watched the 40 year old virgin. not too bad. not as funny as everyone said, but i liked it. steve carrell is cute. i started to watch the march of the penguins, but morgan freemans voice lulled me to sleep for the 25 minutes i managed.

ive gotten some kinda neat free things from the seatbelt nazis, speak of the devil here they come......  they gave us eye patchy things, toothbrushes, earphones, toothpaste, and earplugs..

more to come...

lots of laughs

during the day AL and i ran some errands..



missy arrived yesterday from albany. we went to on the border for dinner with MV, BR and MG. i ordered enchiladas and they brought me this...



so not enchiladas, more like mini burritos.

we played papparazzi in the car on the way to the restaurant.

i'm off to maryland!

so i got done all i had to get done today as far as getting everything all set to go to london. i think i will need to repack my suitcase on sunday. i packed for 2 weeks once in the same bag, why isn't everything fitting now???

i am letting a friend borrow my car while i am away. hopefully he takes good care of it. :)

i'm excited about this weekend, tomorrow night is dinner out, and saturday is a big old game night!! wooooot!!

alright, i've been getting some good feedback about where to go. i will surely report back as to if i've made t to those places or not. :)

i was also given the green light to take my team mates out to lunch on the company. lets hope my checking account can handle that!

alrighty, i'll see you guys online!

its a go!

i have hammered out all the details and i will be definitely going to london for 8 days and 7 nights! i am staying at the grange fitzrovia. and i am flying virgin.. i am pretty psyched about that. i hear there are individual TV's inside each seatback.. the plane is double decker. it seems like the biggest plane i will have ever been on. i can't wait. .i'll take pictures!

this weekend i am going to MD with KT to visit my friends, and KT is from there. we scored a sweet flight on jetblue, otherwise we would be driving and i would have had to fly to the UK on monday.

i have no idea what we are going to do in MD, but i know i will be taking lots of pictures... cause AL is pregnant!! i will probably see L & K's baby too.

last night was LK's bday party. i had a great time. friends came over, we ate, we drank, we cooked, we told stories. we didn't sing very enthusiastically, or at all, so apparently that makes us all bad people.

i got disks one and two of Lost:Season 1, i am going to bring them with me to London. in case i find some downtime.

it's almost official....

i have been told i am going to the UK, and have been told that the company is picking up the tab.. however i have not been given the company card to make the flight plans yet. grrrrr. frustrated. if all goes as plans i will be flying in from MD sunday morning, running home, packing and getting back on a plane bound for london at 730pm!! i will land in london at 7am monday(UK time... 2 am our time) and then find my way to work for 9am and work all day. :) then of course i will have to hit the pubs!!! :) i plan to totally take advantage of the pubs there. katie also said a new law was passed that allows the pubs to stay open all night instead of closing at 11pm. visiting the pubs is the one thing that i feel i didn't see enough of in ireland. i wish we had spent MUCH more time drinking.. i wonder if absinthe is legal in london and if i can get some..

i am soooo excited. this is what i have on my list of things to do while i am there. please chime in if you see something that i didn't list and you think i should see.(i've left a lot of the typical touristy things off the list because having seen and done a lot of that crap in ireland i realized that most of that crap is over-rated, and if and when i move to london, i can take guests to do those silly things then.

1. the nutcrackers that guard the queen.
2. i want to see where prince charles lives.
3. i want to see the camden area.
4. london bridge falling down.
5. The Tate Modern
6. katie tells me there are movie theaters where you buy a seat, like at the theater. the closer you are the more expensive.
7. this place looks cool for lunch some day. however we are located at 77 oxford. hmmm. that seems to be a long walk.
8. i see that a cirque show called algeria is there too. from 16 quid to 55 quid. i'm gonna get in trouble over there, cause i looked up the money and its all different colours (hee hee) it'll be just like in ireland when we were playing with all that monopoly money.

on a non london related note.. i made the fondues tonight for tomorrows dinner. and god damn if the cheese fondue is not the best shit on earth. its a mushroom brie fondue. sooooooo good.

billy joel day!

today is a billy joel day. so far this week has been two days johnny cash, one day billy joel. today was almost neil diamond day, but i will need to save him for another day. the website i use to download all my music lets you listen to entire albums without buying, so this is usually what i do at work. its pretty sweet. plus if there are tracks on the disk that i don't like, i can delete them from the playlist..

earlier this week we had some serious winds and the top part of a tree in the parking lot fell onto a car. luckily it wasn't mine. it wasn't anyones at my company actually. makes me want to make sure my insurance would cover something like that. with what i pay them, if they didn't cover it i would have to go into their offices with a bag of guns.



i finished the 4th season of 6 feet under last night. wow. pretty great!! i saw that arthur comes back for an episode or two in the next season. that comes out in march. woo who! now on to lost and the 5th season of sopranos... then i need to fins someone with HBO that will be watching the new season of sopranos in march.

today is the first meeting of "art club". it going to be fun i think. :) i think i'm gonna get a 12 pack at lunch for us...

catch up

wow. 4 days without writing. i'd say that is almost a record.

i have been hella busy here at work, so busy that i have had to cancel 2 after work activities 2 days in a row. :( i hate to have to do that. but my plans for tonight cancelled on me, so i can't wait to watch the next 4 episodes of 6 feet under from the comfort and safety of my bed.

last night i found the colin farrell sex tape online. ask me about it in the real world if you are curious. i think its pretty "convenient" timing that his "new world" release is tomorrow. anyone want to go see it with me this weekend? i want to see it for myself before all the critics pan it and skew my opinion of it.

last night i went to one of the places on my list of place to go before i leave boston. the publick house. its a beer bar in brookline. i tasted a couple of pretty great beers, and their garden burger was pretty good too. LM and TP told me they are having their wedding this summer at a castle in NH. how cool.

i leave for MD in one week. how fun! i haven't been to MD in over a year.

it got so cooooooold!

damn is cold, it was like 60 degrees yesterday, and now it feels below 0.

i couldn't wait for my next two dvds to arrive later this week, so i went out the video store and rented the next 2 discs.. but as i sit here in my room, my fingers and toes turn to ice. i've put on my snowpants, and my wool jacket on top of my black fleece.

brendas new boyfriend in season 4 is justin theroux. totally hot.. but i have a feeling that they will break up soon. brenda can't keep relationships going, esp when she is still sleeping with nate.

i even resigned myself to turning on the heat in my room, and while i was trying to see what i had to move in order to turn it on, i burnt my hair on the candle. :(

i love weekends

last night KT and i went out on an improptu bar crawl with a friend from work. after the 1st bar and an unsuccessful attempt at a 2nd bar, we ended up back at the first bar. we did find 2 places in boston that have dollar drafts.. how can i have lived here this long, and never have found these places? we snapped all kinds of pictures, we looked like papparazzi. :)

i slept till 2pm today. :) so nice. its 530 now, and i'm still not really out of bed. i watched the 2nd episode of six feet under, season 4 and was so excited to see the next three episodes, but... they sent me season 2, disk 4 instead of the opposite. grrrrrr. sooooo mad!!

so i went back to bed. i'm going to get up now, and take a shower. LK is coming home, and we're gonna go watch the game. goooo pats!

if you giveth, they will taketh..

i gave "D" another chance.. and wouldn't you know, she blew me off again. this time, she blamed it on her period. she gets no more chances. i'm done with her.

i woke up early, got dressed, called her, left a VM, and then finished making my pulled pork and went to back to bed. :) i'm surprised i wasn't later then i was. i slept till 8:15. he hee

i watched the season 3 finale of six feet under. such a good one. i cried almost the whole episode.. luckily i have the next 2 disks of the next season waiting to be watched... maybe friday night.

tonight i am bringing my pulled pork over to TGs, then he, his sister and i are going to eat it. yummmmmmm.. i should have grabbed some wine too. oh well. maybe TG will have some beer.

my good friend "the fish eyed faggot" will be joining us in vegas. its gonna be such a good time. i am getting really excited. what i am most excited about is the direct flight. :)

i feel like i am spending outside my means more then usual lately.. i think its because i can't get the advice EH (of all people) gave me the other day out of my head.... "well, you can't take it with you when you die"..

who wants to catch a beer tonight?

i think i really need to get a beer tonight, anyone game?

this morning was the first day i was supposed to start my walking with "D" from craigslist. she seemed normal. so i wake up at 6:12, throw on my walking clothes and walk out the door to meet her at 630.

at 6:30 is DARK here. real dark. this morning was trash day, so i'm maneuvering my way down the sidewalk avoiding trashcans, jumping over recyclables. people are stirring in their apartments, lights are turning on, and just as i start to realize that there is a window WIDE open at the next house a stream coming from inside the window splashes on the sidewalk not 5 feet i front of me... good thing i am so agile and i was able to jump out of the PISS STREAM! good f'ing god... someone was pissing out the front window of their house at 630 in the morning. who the hell does that???? at least piss in the backyard in a corner, not right onto pedestrians walking by. jesus christ.

then when i got there, D wasn't there. so i called her at 635 and got her VM. she called me this AM to say that since she didn't hear back from me yesterday she didn't set her alarm.

i'm going to give her one more chance, cause i'm a nice person. :)

my latest adventures on craigslist..

i have been pursuing a morning walking partner via craigslist... i have had a handful of responses so far. my post states that i am looking for a male or female that is preferably in the 'ville. really that is it.

this is the kind of thing i have been getting back.

"i walk 10 to 15 miles a day.. would you like to join... i live in boston. i could call if you would like"
- holy crap, does this guy work?

"Normally I work 7:30 -3:30 but sometimes that changes to an hour later."
- i can't understand why she has a hard time finding the time to walk....

this next one takes the cake...

[him] "somerville is not that far would you care to chat? Normal guy here"

the "normal guy here" should have been my first clue. "normal" people don't have to advertise that.. all his correspondence was one line, and didn't copy what i wrote back to me, leading me to believe he was on a cell phone. we set up a time to meet tonight. i sent him directions to the place to meet that i found online. apparently the directions weren't directly from his house so he needed them from newton. jesus christ.. then he just wanted the address so he could put it in his GPS in his car. that was my first clue that he was older.. then he asked me my age, then he told me his. 52. when i don't respond instantly i get emails like this...

[him] "is that aproblem??", and "so you still interested in meeting??"

does that really matter when we are walking for 2.5-3 miles? then he wants to trade pictures. so i send him a link to my website. then he asks how tall i am ... none of which should matter. then he send his pic. he looks like maury povich.. i don't respond. about 2.7 minutes later i start getting emails like this...

[him] "I guess you changed your mind"

so i respond with,

[me] "i didn't change my mind, i am working, but this is becoming too much trouble then its worth, what do i care how old you are, or what you look like, we were going walking for 1 hour tops... i didn't think i needed to go through this gamut of questions. forget it."

to which he replies...

[him] "never mind sorry to have bothered you"

in total he wrote to me 26 times between 12:30 and 3:30. why are people so f'd up???

cold....

can anyone else see their breath when they wake up in the morning? our apartment is completely on the cold side that i can see my breath when i wake up. but i'm not cold overall usually, because i have a down comforter. to further illustrate my point, our gas bill was $260 this month. there are two of us in a 500 square foot apartment, and when we shut out bedroom doors our rooms freeze right up. shiiiiit. we've decided to shut off the gas and try the baseboards. wish us luck.

i am almost to the season of six feet under that i have not seen yet. i'm getting very excited. lisa is about to die, and rico is about to cheat on vanessa with a stripper.

i have 2 painting ideas floating around in my head. i think i am going to flush one out tonight. :)

check out this phat chandelier i saw at "on the border".

resolutions... pshaw!!

i don't believe in resolutions, like M. they are just ways to set yourself up for failure... i don't even like to vocalize my dreams anymore, cause when i don't accomplish them i feel like a hypocrite.. and who wants to be a hypocrite. not me. practice what you preach. hee hee.

but i do plan to customize my blog interface here. i am a web designer for godsakes, i should throw some original shit in here. shiiiiiiiit.. that is on my personal "to do" list..

i have taken a bunch of photos lately. a series of which are my workspace here. since it is a big majority of what i do and who i am i thought you might like to see it. coming soon, i will also be updating prior posts with some bling bling... i mean pics.

tonight i am going out for drinks after work in the woo woo! at LM's favorite place, on the border.

i have been thinking about and flushing out an idea for my boston birthday dinner. i'm thinking it'll be feb 18th.. maybe i should send out a "save the date" of sorts... if you are reading this, save the date... i'm turning 30, in case you didn't know!! and... it might be my last birthday in boston.. :) and the sky could fall tomorrow, so seize the moment! LOL!

I was doing so well!!

I haven’t gotten lost on my way home from work in at least 3 months.. last night, after I saw 42nd street in Lowell and had a beer at “the old court”, we drove back to work to pick up our cars.

It was around midnight, I was psyched that I was going to get to bed before 2, so psyched in fact that I put ‘Live like you were dying’ on repeat and was singing along at the top of my lungs.. “… i was finally the husband that most the time i wasn’t, and i became a friend a friend would like to have…” and I see a sign for the mass pike. Goddamnit!!!! Its at least 10 minutes to turn around, and then another 15 or so to get down route 2 and to my house. So I get off at the pike and am going to go in that way, and up 93. of course, there is a detour at exit 22 on the pike at 1245 at night, so I get off at the allston/brighton tolls and head in via storrow. Well, wouldn’t you know. You can’t get on 93N from storrow at that time of night.. so I had to go mcgrath obrien highway. Ugh. So frustrating. I don’t think I got home till like 1.

I was however greatly impressed with 42nd street. It was mostly tap dancing, and a musical. We missed prob the first ½ hour, and weren’t able to get programs… we had to wait for HEK to show up, even though we were so late ourselves. So we decided to get Chinese food cause we parked right next to a take out place. I almost felt a sense of déjà vu when LK told the lady that she wanted her sweet and sour chicken to go. I couldn’t fit a sesame tofu in my little purse… it was just as ridiculous as putting enchiladas in there.. I ended up eating up most of it in the lobby of the place while we waited. The thing I liked most about these dancers was they were real people. They didn’t look and act like dolls/ballerinas. It was refreshing, some of them even had CURVES!!!

I wish I had videotaped some of the “tap dancing” that happened afterwards. I didn’t realize that everyone I went with had taken years of tap. They proved why they didn’t become professional dancers afterwards on the street, all the way to the bar. It was very funny. People were honking their horns at us even.

We walked a few blocks in Lowell looking for “the purple shamrock”. Couldn’t find it, but we did find the “blue shamrock”… apparently that is a gang hangout of some sorts. The music was so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves before we even walked in and it was full of sketchy looking guys. The irish pub was much more our speed.

brokeback mountain.. beware, this is somewhat of a spoiler.

so the opportunity to see brokeback mountain arose yesterday and of course, i jumped.

this movie illustrates perfectly one of the reasons i like to see movies as soon as they come out. movies that garner a lot of hype, never live up to it, in my opinion!! i have heard nothing but praise about this movie. its getting all these oscar nods, its controversial, blah blah blah.. i tried hard to see why heath ledger was getting nominated. but by the end of the movie, i've decided he's not going to get it.. you need to really pay attention to be able to understand what either of them are saying. they speak in this cowboy accent and they kind of mumble. heath talks like he has a wad of chew in his mouth at all times.. i had talked about this movie earlier in the week with a couple of girl friends and how it took place in wyoming, and there was that story a while back about the gay guy that was beat and left to die on a fence post in laramie... so, the entire movie i kept waiting for heath ledgers character to be accosted and beat to death. and it never happened. there were definitely some memorable quotes from the movie though that i think will stay with me for a long time.

what will make this movie memorable for me is who i went with. seeing a movie with fjk is pretty hilarious. let me give some examples. first off, we meet in harvard square. i get to harvard square, buy our tickets, and head over to the border cafe. i mistakenly thought we were meeting at the restaurant. so i'm waiting outside for close to 40 minutes, talking on the phone. let me remind you that fjk doesn't have a cell phone and takes public transportation, i am used to waiting sometimes, plus i was on the phone, so i thought nothing of it.. so at 9 i see her coming down the street. she had been waiting a block away for the last 40 minutes.. we must have just missed each other.. now we only have 30 minutes before the movie starts to sit down and eat at the border cafe. good thing mexicans work fast. we had our food in about 6 minutes flat. :) fjk suggested we get it to go and hide it in our bags and eat it in the theater. i can just see myself jamming my enchiladas and guacamole in my little purse. hee hee.

once the movie started i got a time update about every 45 minutes... the movie was supposed to be 2 hours and 35 minutes, so after the fist update i thought, oh god. she's gonna walk out! she stuck it out like a trooper.

there were some intense scenes and some scenes on the sadder side. both of which were HYSTERICAL to fjk... giggling most definitely, almost laughing out loud. i still can't figure out that part. But we all know that laughter is contagious. So I had to laugh too…

overall, the movie was "eh...", the company was 5 stars, 2 thumbs up!!

can't sleep so good.

i am having the hardest time sleeping lately (unless its sleeping at 4 in the afternoon). the past two nights i have not been able to fall asleep till 2am or later. and as i lay there, stressing out about how much sleep i am not getting, it keeps me up even longer..

i think i need to exercise off some of that stressful energy. i am thinking about looking on craigslist for a walking partner in somerville. someone who will want to walk with me in the mornings before work.

i think also some of my late nighted-ness might be because i've had soda with dinner 2 nights in a row now. i'm quitting that tout suite!

i think art club is starting on friday, gotta check with JG. i am excited, cause i have a bunch of painting ideas floating around in my head!

oh, something else of note.. LK got this new showerhead that is pretty fly. its about as wide as a frying pan, i think that a 7foot tall person could stand under it now. but i guess the idea of it is to mimic rain.. its pretty nice. the only drawback i see is that it drips longer then the other one did after you shut it off.

a new restaurant in central square.

after my week plus away from home i was exhausted. i got home on sunday, unloaded my car, and slept, slept, slept.

when i finally got up i had lunch with KT and pep for pep's bday. we went to a place i'd never been to in central square. tavern in the square... it was really good, another place that has lettuce wraps. mmmmm...

after lunch i undecorated the house. i love packing things more then i enjoy unpacking things i think! then KT and mel wanted to go see the family stone, LK said it was really funny, so i agreed. jesus christ, not funny. it was sad. damn sad! bring kleenex if you go see that movie. jesus...

happy birthday!

MA loves her picture taken!

i'm loving this new camera, in case you haven't noticed yet.

not too long ago a friend of mine wrote me an email equivalent of a bitch slap. i had been venting some frustrations with my life on the blog and was just down in general.. i kept that letter, and will keep that letter, its inspiring. it was a different perspective of me, who i am and what i do.

over the break i was thinking about where i am in my life and how i'm feeling, in comparison to how i was feeling back then, and i came to the conclusion that i am doing well, really well. i am meeting whoever, whenever, and going here and there and doing what i want, what i want and
most importantly that makes me happy. i don't really know what my point was in starting this, i guess i just wanted to say that i feel like i am doing very well, and i'm very happy.

new years eve

since i was in syracuse all week, it was natural that i stop in albany on my way back to boston for NYE. i had lunch in the afternoon with MK, her place is so cute! but the ice skating rink hidden by the freshly fallen snow where she parks has got to go!! i totally fell and bruised the crap out of my shin.. anyone want to see pics?

MK, having a good time, per usual.


the MK pose!

after lunch i drove up to northville to hang out with MD and JS at their new house on great sacandaga lake. its so cute!! it has 4 bedrooms, 5 acres, lake front.. totally cool! we couldn't get any sort of reception on the tv, so we went outside at around midnight and started the bonfire. it was real cool to be outside in the snow warming ourselves in front of the fire. then afterwards we trekked to the frozen lake. some of us were brave enough to venture out onto the lake.

it was nice to see all the people i knew from college. i had no idea who would be there. most of these people i only see now-a-days at weddings.