I Am Alive

Okay, I realize it has been a few weeks since my last post. I apologize for the absence. It hasn't been due to a lack of excitement in my life, I've just been very, very busy. Not all bad either. As soon as I pack my boss off for two weeks tomorrow afternoon I will catch you all up on the last three weeks or so. I can't promise I'll remember everything, but what I do remember will be fun.

New Music Tuesdays

Oh how I love NMTs. They take any irritation caused by co-workers and make it go away. It's great to hear an entire new album of an artist whose single you've been listening to for a few weeks and find out the album is just as good as the single. Ahhhh....happiness in a little metal disc.

Weekend Recap

I had a great, albeit full weekend. Friday night I went home and stayed in alone which was pure heaven. I decided to let myself sleep in Saturday morning which my body took to be 7:30 am. Lazed around for a bit reading and resting then got up and cleaned my entire apartment. Now, for those of you who know how small it is this probably doesn't sound too time consuming. Unfortunately, I have a cat, a very dust-prone apartment and a ton (near literally) of laundry because I haven't been home long enough to do any for over a week. So five hours later I had a very clean house and closet and a very dirty me.

I cleaned and prettied up and headed out to a Derby party at some guy's house I'd never met (Jim invited Agie and me to join him at a friend's). Turns out some guy is the son of a very well known, Pulitzer prize winning journalist who is a particular favorite of mine (I own 2 or 3 of his books as well). He is a really nice, down to earth guy who works over 80 hours a week at a law firm doing mostly pro bono work. The Derby was fun, Agie's horse (picked at random) won which made her first Derby watching a memorable one. Paul met up with the stragglers from the Derby and the 7 of us went to dinner. More fun was had and we convinced Jim and this guy Andrew we'd just met to join us on our trek to Bethesda for our co-worker's birthday party. To sum it up..... twenty-somethings, a keg and bad rap music. We had fun for the 40 some minutes we were there, then took our old selves home. Quote of the night goes to Jim yelling out the car window at the very young looking girls in the car next to us: "What high school do you go to?" their reply was, of course, a local high school.

Sunday was nice. Paul and I slept in then he walked me to my office, where we grabbed lunch at a nearby restaurant. I then headed to the office for a couple hours (ugh...but so glad this morning I did) while Paul ran some errands then met me back here for a movie. Let me just say Kingdom of Heaven is not worth the 2 1/2 hours I invested in it. I can't put my finger on why I was disappointed by it, but there was something about it that was off. Maybe the editing, maybe the tension headache that is still with me today, I don't know. Anyway, we grabbed food, headed back to my house and vegged for the rest of the night. Overall, pretty relaxing fun weekend, which is just what I needed after last week.

Upcoming this week: Event at US Chamber honoring a number of Central American Presidents, lunch with Matt (journalist's son), dinner with Paul's dad and our first kickball game of the 2005 season.

Meet The Fams

Paul and I booked flights to Boston for Memorial Day weekend this morning. I'm very excited. It will be great to see my mom, brother and sister-in-law (hopefully they will be around, I should check on that...) again. Haven't seen any of them since my brother's wedding in July so I'm really looking forward to the trip. There is a chance that Paul will have to work that weekend which would really suck, but hopefully that won't happen and we'll get to enjoy the city. I hope it's not seen as a big deal that we're meeting each other's families. After all, I've already met his dad, aunt and uncle. I guess I'm a little nervous only because my family never really meets guys I date.

Still Better Than Paul Moyer

As I do most mornings, I started my day with Katie, Matt, Al and Ann. During one of the commercial breaks they had a snippet for the local news and what stories would be airing this evening. One extended piece detailed an "alarming health crisis" stemming from not getting enough sleep....News at 11 pm. If it's detrimental to your health to get less sleep, wouldn't it be good to show this piece on the earlier news show?

Clowns Are Evil

A few months back my wonderful sister-in-law sent me a link to www.ihateclowns.com . It's a great website by someone like myself who can't stand clowns. I laughed, enjoyed the kill the clowns games and sent it to some friends, most of whom mocked me for my "irrational" fear of clowns. I've become used to the mean, inconsiderate comments, the people who think it's somehow funny to terrorize me with pictures of clowns. I now suffer silently most of the time. Until now. Heather pointed out the front page of today's Wall Street Journal. Right there, beneath the fold, is a picture of a t-shirt with a clown in a circle with a line through it and a banner that says "I hate clowns". What is the article about you ask? It doesn't really matter, but it is about how the t-shirt selling business is booming on the web. Regardless, finally, after all these years of being taunted about my (seriously) paralyzing fear of clowns I feel slightly vindicated.

Former Co-worker and Good Fun

I had dinner last night with a friend who used to work here. I miss him terribly and our schedules are such that we hardly ever see each other so last night was a major treat. We got all caught up with the goings on here at the office and with our respective lives. So much fun! He knows all of my secrets and never judges me which is a great quality to have in a friend. Plus, he is so funny, witty, sarcastic, intelligent, bitchy, caring....I could go on but I won't. Anyway, I absolutely adore my friend and have been in a good mood all morning as a carryover from last night.

We Can't Be The Only Ones Who Find Us Amusing

From time to time my dear friend Debby and I have a gift for upsetting people or being misunderstood when we make jokes. We were delighted when we found this out about each other and now whenever we make one of these offhand joking comments we both think "Well, Debby/PlanB would have thought that was funny" and we laugh. Generally we run into this problem with men in our lives that we are currently or have been involved with in a romantic nature. We joke, they take us seriously and then talks result. Sometimes we even get lectured about how unfunny we were being and how it's not right to be joking about such things. We were just being funny. Sigh. It's so difficult to be misunderstood.

Metro Hell

I'm sure y'all are tired of my bitching about the metro and maybe if I could get my ass out of bed earlier I would have enough time to walk to work, avoid it altogether and spare you metro stories, but for now you are stuck because I am working too much and too tired to wake up early. This morning I took the short way to work (see above about waking up late) which entails transferring trains at Gallery Place. It's a nightmare every morning which is a large part of the reason I take the long way. Floods of people walk lemming-like up the escalators (well, most of them stand on the escalators in the way of people who would like to walk up them), around the corner and over to the platform where the red line train will appear to whisk them away to their next metro station. For me it's one stop so I like to walk all the way down the platform towards where I get off the train and then try to be one of the last on the train so that I don't have to push my way through the throngs of people between me and the door. So after puttering behind slow zombie commuters to the end of the platform I waited for a number of them to board the train before I got in. There was room for about 1/2 a person behind me. The rudeness of morning DC commuters came into play and fit two more people before the friendly "doors closing" lady made her announcement. Just then one rather large man Heismaned his way into the train pushing the people (including me) into the train as the doors shut. This left a couple of us teetering on one foot, trying to hold onto the closest bar (which in some cases was a foot or so away) so as not to fall on the people around us. I looked at the guy and said "Are you kidding me?" as he stood there like he had done nothing wrong. I'm not sure if I've become more confrontational since moving here or if it was the protection of music in my head that made me unaware I was speaking out loud.

To make matters worse this guy's utter disregard for all people not him had put me in such a position that as I lowered my arm to get out I hit a woman in the head with my elbow. I immediately apologized, she was nice and understood, but it still sucked. To prove that it was possible for him to be a bigger ass, the guy managed to block 3/4 of the door that we were all trying to get out of and I almost tripped after having to rub against him to exit. I've felt dirty in a bad way ever since. Ugh.

Booze, Books and Babes

Friday night I ended up going to the Nationals Game with Paul, Katie and Peter. Paul and I met up at a restaurant bar before heading over to the game where we had a few drinks, some nibblies and met these two women who were very......entertaining. Time got a bit away from us and we got to the stadium late. We grabbed a couple beers for Katie and Paul as a "we're sorry we're tardy" gesture but as luck would have it, they were late as well and got to the seats minutes after we did. We had a great time at the game, Paul made friends with the guys behind us who are also Sox fans and the Nats won (sorry Jim). We ended up hanging out a bit afterwards at a bar near my house with K & P which was great fun because I hardly ever see Peter anymore and he was on his best, most charming behavior. I hit the wall and Paul was close behind me so we left K & P at Stetson's and all I can say is thank God for the walk home in the chilly air.

Saturday was spent recovering and reading trying to finish my book since I was out the night before. We got picked up around 3:45 and I managed to read to about page 367 before getting to book club. Not bad, I must say. On the way to book club we stopped at a friend's house to visit a new baby (6 weeks). So sweet and the best smelling baby if Katie can be believed. After a beer, a piece of Katie's marvelous chocolate cake and a couple fingers of Suntory Whiskey we were off to Herndon (F-A-R) for book club. We arrived and I continued to read as much as I could before the ladies spoiled the ending for me since all they could talk about was page 377. I managed to get into the 390s before the discussion started. I wasn't too disappointed, I had been able to figure out most of the plot by that point so there weren't too many spoilers. Over the course of about 4 1/2 hours we enjoyed five flights of tapas and far too many pitchers of sangria for 8 women. After about an hour of discussing the book (which is really good for us) the gathering slowly turned into Dance Party USA with me playing DJ off my iPod. In order to protect the innocent I shall refrain from detailing the dancing.

Sunday I finished the book (yay), cleaned, grocery shopped, did laundry and baked up a storm. Paul left work to come over for dinner, then left to go back to work where he stayed until after midnight. And I thought I worked too much. It was a great treat to see him last night. It's nice to have someone to look forward to seeing and to miss when they aren't around. Even if he does keep asking questions like "Can you be in charge of the cooking and I take care of the lawn?" (neither of us have a lawn) or "When Charlotte dies, can we get a dog? I mean, can you get a dog?". Charlotte is my cat btw. Granted, he is allergic to her, but I've told him a couple times she's not 'going to Hawaii' for at least 8 years. He should just suck it up and get shots....

Why I Love My Friend Jim

Let me give some background. Jim is a die-hard Democrat. Jim is the kind of guy who does not hold anything back and will say whatever he is thinking. Generally this is very embarrassing to the person unfortunate to be with him at the time. The last time Jim and I went out (Hotel Rwanda) we passed through Dupont Circle and ran into some anti-abortion protestors who he had a few choice words for. They were very sweet and just said "God bless" to which his Jewish self replied "Not my God". I mouthed sorry to the girls and shooed him away. In essence, he can be a trouble maker and an ass just to be one.

So, Saturday night was the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Jim was out on a date with a girl who is a Republican and happened to take her to a very late dinner near an afterparty for the WHCD. As they were hailing a cab who should appear but Paul Wolfowitz. The poor, misguided, obviously ignorant or brainwashed girl began to tell Wolfie all about how she admires him and all the good he's done for the country.....all while holding her hand over Jim's mouth as he was shouting "You are evil. You are evil." The cab pulled up during this, Jim put the girl in first and then as Wolfie was trying to enter the cab to share with them, Jim shut the door on him and said out the window "I'm not riding with the devil."

Bravo Jim. Bravo.