My roommate just asked me if he could have a glass of my white wine. I said yes. It is now 15 minutes later and the bottle is empty. Empty.

Well, I don’t really mind that, since wine isn’t my thing and someone gave that bottle to me. But then I went to my goodie cupboard and pulled out my brand new bottle of drambuie… empty too. Or at least, so near empty I can see the bottom of the bottle through the booze…

Arrrrr! I am tolerant to a point, but don’t touch the drambuie!!!!!

Yesterday was a day of mad shopping. Went with Zaubi to buy him a suit for Taiwan. Ended up getting more than he anticipated… since he has to wear the suit every day of the conference which is about 7 days! So we got him a suit and a sport coat and some nice slacks and shirts and ties and socks and a belt and very GenX-y happenin’ brown shoes…

I told him he had to wear a little sign on his shirt that says “I’m taken already!”

And then we went to Victoria’s Secret and I got myself a ridiculous amount of underwear. I have gotten really sick of wearing cotton jockey underwear with huge rips in the seams… and I only had two bras that fit!

But now I have an insane collection of underwear. Cool racerback bras too! I always liked the racerback thing.

And today we’re going to get Zaubi a bed since his old one had an accident (and was horrendously uncomfortable to boot. I think the springs in it broke or something).

How much more uninteresting can this entry get…? It’s a beautiful day even though the hint of chill and fall is in the air. Adventures await!

Off I go.

I just realized…

I am getting PAID this week!

And this weekend is LABOR DAY!

And Zaubi and I are leaving for Taiwan in a mere TWO WEEKS!

I’m so excited!

It appears that I can run about 4 miles at a 7.5 minute mile pace before I need to stop.

No marathons for me, I guess.

I also discovered that zucchini is a lot tastier than that yellow summer squash.

And artichokes are disgusting.

How does one cook an eggplant? I tried it the other day and the squishy part was ok but the skin really grossed me out. It looked like dead slugs. How do people usually eat eggplant? I never saw one in person.

I was tricked into eating slugs once in college and I have never gotten over it.

Climbing hours today! I am going to show the wall to T. I am so excited!

I am somewhat nervous about this pseudo job interview (way too early) tomorrow morning. I am sure it will be informal and I shouldn’t be nervous, but I have no idea what to expect.

So if any of you aging girls out there are interested in eliminating those evil beginnings-of-cellulite, I have found the solution!

That is, get a mini-trampoline and jump enthusiastically on it for 5 minutes every day. Do 100 jumping jacks on it, among other things.

Anyway.

It’s another lovely day. Each day seems to be lovelier than the one before it and I’m not spending nearly enough time outdoors. I know fall will come again all too soon (then again, fall is my favorite season!) and then we’ll slip right into rotten winter and be there forever.

Actually, last winter wasn’t so bad.

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So, My little sister is now at Cornell starting her career as a college woman! It was a rather agonizing weekend and I nearly threw my mother into the gorge. The drive up wasn’t so bad as the three of us took turns (I got from Beverly, MA to Albany in 2 hours, mwahahaha). But once we arrived in Cornell there was just too much too do in too large an area. We walked for MILES all over Cornell in the steaming sun, my mother alternating between bouts of ridiculous energy (we MUST explore all the plantations! And walk around the lake! And…) and martyred exhaustion. Anne and I stomped around after her.

My mother kept taking my arm and making pointed comments about how newly skinny my sister is (she really cut down on food intake this summer). It was extremely annoying. I KNOW my mother thinks I am fat but I wish she would just go ahead and say it to my face instead of these loathsome hints. And in any case, I’m not fat.

The place my mother and I were staying overnight was exactly like a mausoleum. It was the house of a person who wanted to make extra money and he TOTALLY ripped my mother off. She had no choice, since she didn’t start looking for hotels too late and everything in a radius of 50 miles was completely booked. Anyway, I found myself sleeping IN THE SAME BED WITH MY MOTHER in a very freezing room filled with lace doilies and ancient photographs of unpleasant-looking women. Our proprietor was a gay man of the type that has exceedingly muscular calves and wears wooly socks pulled all the way up with loafers. He wasn’t home when we arrived (he never answered his phone) and there was no light on so we nearly killed ourselves trying to get to the door. Eventually he arrived and led us in only to find that his dog (of the large, bouncy, wooly variety) had shit all over the floor in the room we were staying in. The bathroom was a shared bathroom with this guy and he left his dirty socks lying about and the bathtub was so scary that neither I nor my mother would set a foot in it. (She ended up showing later in my sister’s dorm, while I went dirty all weekend!)

Too add insult to injury, my mother made me go to bed at TEN O CLOCK. There was only one room in this tiny house, and she firmly shut off the light at 10 o clock, leaving me no choice but to go to bed too since we were way out in the middle of nowhere. I sulked into bed and woke up, wide awake, freezing, and bored stiff at 3:30 AM. Bah!

On the long drive back (I got from Ithaca to Albany in 3 hours, desperate to get home) I was subjected to much religious discussion/information (my mother is a God-freak). We then hit bumper-to-bumper traffic from the border of MA to Worchester. I was ready to break down and cry, or walk. Finally traffic picked up, I dropped off my mother in Beverly, and raced back into the city in the foulest mood I’d been in for some time…

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Anyway, I feel rather bereft, my little sister is a zillion miles away in Cornell (I swear I’ll never make that road trip again!) and Esperenza is now even farther away in chilly Michigan…

Although I found Ithaca to be a grubby and depressing little town, I liked Cornell. I liked Cornell a LOT. I really liked it. I think if I ever go to grad school (ha ha!) I will apply there.