I was super irritated for no real reason (other then the lack of ice cream in the freezer) last night. I gave up fighting it and went to bed at 10 PM.  Now I am drinking tea, wishing it were coffee, wishing it were Irish coffee. I do not like this time of year.

Yet another thing that is fantastic about my old friends. Joe & I went to the diner on Saturday afternoon. First of all, it was monsoon-ing, but out of respect for my umbrella hate he did not carry an umbrella. Which is sensible, I think, considering we were just going from the car to the diner, which was maybe 50 feet. And ok, he confessed that the REAL reason he didn’t carry the umbrella is because he knew I would refuse to use it, and then he would look like the jerk, walking with the umbrella, and letting the girl get soaked.

Anyway, I confessed to him that besides the Bon Jovi kick that I have been on as of late, I cannot stop listening to my Taylor Swift CD. He of course, rolled his eyes at me, and mockingly asked “What’s your favorite song?”

“I’m not telling you!”

He thought about it for about 15 seconds, and then said “It’s ‘You Belong With Me’ isn’t it? That it so like you”

He’s almost right. Not my favorite on the CD, but there have been times when I’m singing along with it in my car and wishing I was 14 because then the song would have been oh-so-relevant to my life.

(My favorite Taylor Swift song, for the record is “Change.” Because this things will change.)

I love that he knows me well enough to state my Taylor Swift song preferences so emphatiaclly.

Now, in case that left any doubt over whether I am in fact, a “total girl” I will confess that the only thing restraining me from buying shoes (at omg, 25% off) right now is because shipping takes too long and I am into instant gratification. However, what may moderate my utter girliness is the fact that I HATE shoe shopping. HATE it. Hate that you have to find a salesperson and ask them to get your size. And so really, buying shoes online IS the most logical choice. Also I am wearing black pants, black shoes and white socks right now. That is terribly unfashionable and thus not very girly.

And now this entry comes full circle, because I’m irritated again. I don’t mind answering questions at work; I don’t even mind questions that are not my job to answer. I’m Little-Miss-Knows-Everything when it comes to operational, budget  and administrative issues here.  But I HATE when a co-workers asks for the same piece of (very simple) information over and over again. WRITE IT DOWN.

And no, I am not PMS-ing. I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to be irritated about. (Insert smile-y face here)

I went to a local meeting of Campaign for Liberty on Sunday, and it was quite good. Lots of well-thought out, long term ideas. The problem, of course, is keeping myself motivated to stay involved. I am generally not a joiner. Well, that’s not entirely true. I love being a part of things, being part of a team/community, etc (Jean-Jacques Rousseau eat your heart out) but I am rarely capable of actually becomming a part of things. This is what happens when you move seven times in as many years.

I overslept this morning. My cell phone (alarm clock) shut itself off in the middle of the night. I am overdue for a new phone, but I’ve been reluctant to give this one up. It is the only phone I’ve ever had that doesn’t suck. Since every piece of electronic equipment I touch tends to break, I don’t really want to buy a fancy phone. I don’t even have  QWERTY keypad.

Anyway, now I’m here, wearing a t-shirt (it was too hot for the sweater I put on) with a really, really scratchy sweater-jacket thing that I keep putting on and taking off. I’m browsing online for clothes I REALLY do not need. But I am a total sucker when stores put up sample outfits and then do “get this look” because I am basically incapable of putting together good outfits myself. So GAP has one now, and really Gap? $54.95 for this shirt? That’s ridiculous. But I still want the outfit. If I still had a could find my long-lost GAP credit card, I would buy it in a second. Oh and now I’m looking at Banana Republic clothes, even though I have never bought anything from that store in my life, but now I AM TEMPTED by overpriced cardigans.

These would just be more clothes I don’t need/clothes I am buying for a job/life I don’t have yet. With my luck, they will all be lost in a flood or housefire or something.

I found another good job to apply for, with SUPER AWESOME pay, that I am just barely qualified for, but the organizations website has been down and so I can’t investigate for useful information (which I am really good at. I am a good researcher. Hire me as a research associate, please). And then there’s this other job that pays pennies, but could be okay, and I really should be writing cover letters instead of, you know, daydreaming about buying outfits from Banana Republic.

I hate the Tuesday-Wednesdy part of the week. It can’t be Thursday soon enough.

I’m wearing a black polo shirt with a red cardigan and the guy at the register at Express told me I was wearing the “Black Friday uniform.” (he was wearing Black and Red, and was dressed like a hipster)

I went and got yet another suiting option for the interview next week. Because I am obsessive, even though I have THREE perfectly lovely options, I am annoyed because I cannot find black pinstripes. I have black pinstripe pants, and can’t find a blazer to go with them. I was willing to start from scratch, but I haven’t been able to find anything.

I have bought more, thought more about, and written more about clothes in the past month and a half than in possibly my entire life. It’s like wanting to play dress-up.

It’s too late to take a nap, but I’m tired. I’ll be up earlyish tomorrow for an appointment, and then I’m going into the city to meet up with Michael. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in the city in the past year and each of them has been weird.

Other Things That Are Bothering Me:

1) My interview is in a week and that is not enough time for my ragged, bitten fingernails to be improved. I know the only solution is “stop biting your nails” but I don’t even realize I’m doing it half the time. And I’ve tried the disgusting tasting nail polish, but I’m so dedicated that I still bit my nails, even when wearing it. Anyway, I know that people are judged on appearances in interviews, so I am hoping I can remember to keep my hands positioned so as to hide my fingertips as much as possible.

2) For some reason I am slightly nervous about trip logistics, even though I have been to DC via train a number of times, and I’m going down a day early, so even a delay is not the end of the world.

3) Admittedly, the city sometimes still makes me think of/miss HWSNBN. He was the one who introduced me to the city, for real, and I never would have moved there if it weren’t for him, and even though it has been years, sometimes it still hits me when I’m taking the PATH in.

4) I am going through the West Wing WAY TOO FAST. Ok, it’s really good, so I’ll probably want to re-watch the whole thing anyway, right? And I’ll want to watch all the commentaries/extras?

I just have to say, related to nothing (besides my second weekend of West Wing-ing)

Josh: If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for a beer                                                                                                          Donna: If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights

So cute! No one leave me ANY comments on plot points because I don’t want to be spoiled, (even though already know a major plot point from a stupid TWoP blurb.)

I am SUCH a girl when it comes to TV ‘shippiness. Actually, I am such a fifteen year old girl when it comes to TV ‘shippiness.  Clearly, I need help.

I have nothing else to say. This window has been open for hours.

The ATM is building lobby is not working. This annoys me verily. 

I am also very sneezy and in need of Claritan D, which I don’t have because you have to show your Driver’s License and sign for because its a controlled substance, or whatever the Drug Czars have classified it. These are the little regulations that people brush off as “not a big deal,” as in “I’m not doing anything wrong, so I’m not worried about the store/state/government having these records. Sure its a little inconvenient, but what’s the big deal?” but are, to me, prime examples of a way in which our personal liberty is slowly chipped away. Blah, blah, blah Libertarian Conspiracy Theory.

In my ideal world, there is no FDA (or it exists, but is very, very tiny, and you have a choice to buy things that are not FDA approved at your own risk) and every controlled or illegal substance is now legal.

This segues nicely into the “because I hold these opinions, I really, really need to get this Libertarian fellowship.”

I find out this week if I get a phone interview. I don’t know if they’ll tell me if I didn’t get it. I would hope so, but that generally does not happen. I’m going to obsessively reload my email all week.

Also, the theme of October is “spend way too much money.” Clothes. Shoes. Hair straigtener-that-actually-magically-straightens-my-hair (a feat that every hair dresser I have been to has failed to accomplish once my hair gets past chin length). Oh and the Tomato Nation/Donors Choose Challenge of course. The way to get me to open my wallet to charity is to introduce a competition aspect. Ayn Rand might even be proud!

I think I might be getting a cold, but it could be allergies or just lack of sleep.

After being so good about my spending in August and September I just went on a bit of an online shopping spree.  Money I don’t have on clothes I don’t need. And shoes. I bought 3 pairs of shoes. In my defense it was under $100 total for all 3 pairs.

Anyway. So this thing I’m applying for. It’s a year long program. No, I would not be collecting yet another degree, but it does have an educational component to it. The best description I can give is that it’s like an Internship for grown-ups. I believe you actually get a living wage. I actually applied to the Summer Internship version of this in college. I was a finalist, but didn’t make the final cut.

I’m struggling with the application and struggling more with the idea of potential rejection. First cut is finding out if I get a phone interview, and then the next step would be an in person interview, and if your interests match up with one of their partner organizations, then that organization interviews you. The website warns that its an extensive interview process, and I realized this weekend, that I could go through the entire interview process (which would require me to take vacation time from my current job and make an expensive trip to DC) and still not get a position. That is depressing.

Allegeldy, I’ll know whether I got a phone interview or not by October 31st. But first, of course, I have to finish the application. I no longer have any idea how to talk about my research interests, potential career path, and “what I hope to gain” out of a program, or how to make it relate to liberty/free market oriented solutions. Oh, and did I mention the answers are supposed to be 100 words or less?

The only one I have down is the ideal role of the federal government, and I just deleted my answer on the very, very tiny, tiny off chance that someone else who is applying for the same program stumbles across my blog, because I don’t want anyone stealing my oh-so-brilliant answer.  

It is cold in my office. If I say that, than it really MUST be cold, because I am always hot. My toes are cold, but this is because I insist on wearing flipflops. This summer, I have worn the uniform of jeans + tshirt + flipflops to work nearly every day, because I have Old Navy flip flops in 6 different colors (a joke birthday present from my mother) and I have t-shirts and polos in those 6 different colors to match.

Matching flip flops to your t-shirt is, I suspect, not very high fashion. In fact, I think it may fall under slightly more insulting titles than merely “bad fashion sense.”

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I have a bunch of other things to say about the DNC, especially since my hero, Bill C, spoke last night. (No. I am not giving in my Libertarian decoder ring.) But it was requested by Ellie that I post this.

[insert some nonsense about Hugh Laurie and his hotness]

Me: The DNC is making me want to have Barack Obama’s babies. And i HATE babies.
Ellie: But you like baby kittens, right?
Me: Obama holding a kitten would be adorable. A stray kitten. That he rescued from the South side.
Ellie: And it would have soft paws and little pointy ears! And would teach him about the joys of limited government. Yes.
Me: And the kitten will grow to be an adorable and intelligent cat, that will photogenically prance around the White House, and lounge on that big table they use for important meetings where they decide issues of national security and stuff. And it will be vocal and meow and demand attention. And he will indulge the cat’s demand.
Ellie: And Obama will shred the Patriot Act and put it in the litter box. And the cat will be friendly-pushy, and when heads of state come to visit, it will get up in their laps and purr and knead and require petting and stroking. And the heads of state will be so overwhelmed with its cuteness that they will agree to friendship and huge trade agreements with the US.

We are NOT obama girls. We are not.

Between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
-Under the Tuscan Sun

“Look if you want, but you will have to leap”
-Auden, by way of Rome

So today I found at that, because I’m senior staff, I’m officially invited to the NYC Gala on Sunday. I get to put on a pretty dress and schmooze. I was going to bring Drew as my date, but he can’t go, which is probably for the better due to his habit of cursing loudly at the most inopportune moments. So Joe is taking me. It didn’t even take begging, I was just like “Hey Joe, I need a date for Sunday night. Do you have a suit?” And he said “Of course.” Joe is actually a better person to go with me than Drew, because despite our lack of keeping in touch over the years his tolerance of the nerves I’m sure to have is far closer to “unconditional” than Drew.

I’m excited! It will be a good chance to get to know the other girls at work better and the presentations are actually going to be really interesting.

It’s still humid and icky. I have to go do laundry but then I’m going to get some sushi and watch House & SVU with my roommate. Tomorrow after work I’m going dress shopping. I haven’t bought a dress in this manner since prom.

I also have a writing idea for either NaNo or in general. Year Eight may get written afterall.

Much as I feel I have earned the right to wear ugly regalia I am very much not looking forward to the ceremony this afternoon. It diesn’t start until 2:30, but we have to line up an hour early. And my parents being here tends to stress me out.

And I forgot to pay my rent this month, so now its late, and I have to pay a fee.Oops. 

I also spent a great deal of money I don’t really have on clothes I desperately need (I owned two tanks tops. I needed summer clothes) and I still haven’t gotten job interview-y clothes. I was wondering why my black Express pants were so ratty and than realized it was probably because they’re nearly three years old. 

In two weeks I will be back on the East Coast

I am puttering about, waiting for my laundry to be done. Obviously I should have spent these hours reading/taking notes for my final but motivation level continues to rest at zeo. As Em aptly stated last night “Yeah, I should go home and read. But I’m sure there’s a Law & Order episode on somewhere.”

Yesterday, I indulged in some hardcore retail therapy. I got some much needed summer clothes and not-very-needed cute skirts. And then I bought a dress. A very pretty dress, but regardless, I am a soon-to-be-unemployed-poor-graduate-student who should not be spending that much money on a single article of clothing. But its pretty. Oh. And then there were cute shoes. Oops.

Tonight, there will be free food, both at our End of the Year gathering, and at the Social Sciences BBQ. After that shopping spree, I must take advantage. 

The sad thing is, tomorrow I have to get downtown to FINALLY FINALLY get my computer fixed, and I will likely buy a pair of flip-flops and maybe find some job interview clothes. What? My Express black pants are nearly 3 years old! I can’t go on a job interview in ratty looking pants. 

My laundry should be done in a few minutes, baring another laundry-disaster, and then I really need to get my ass to campus to get some real studying done before this evening.

(During a commercial break)

Jill-IAN: …
Me: I KNOW!
Jill-IAN: That was like…
Me: I know! Why?!??!

Elliot Stabler is still incredibly hot. (Hello shameless camera shot.)  But the latest development in the storyline is completely unacceptable! It totally intrudes on all shipper-ness. I am 14 years old, clearly.

I didn’t go to work yesterday. After sleeping from 8pm-midnight, I was awake until the 6 AM; it was around 4:30 that I decided to call in. Smart decision.

My weekend was relatively uneventful, save my nearly two hour commute home on Friday evening. The train got to 59^th & Lexington when they announced there was no service into Queens, and the N/W wasn’t going to be running downtown. My first thought was to backtrack to Grand Central via the 6 train and then take the 7, but there were swarms and swarms of people. I said screw it and walked over the Queensboro Bridge. It was very muggy and disgusting. I got to Queensboro Plaza with the intention of taking the N/W home. The station was a mess; there was no service in either direction, no one seemed to know what was going on, and it was horribly humid. After 15 minutes of waiting, I gave up and starting walking. It started to pour by the time I hit Broadway.

By the time I got home I was soaked. Total distance walked, just under 5 miles.

So now it’s already Tuesday, and I’m not working on Friday, AND I’m taking a half day on Thursday, so yay for a super short week. While I was walking to work I had a whole list of things that I wanted to write about but I don’t remember them now. Except that whenever I pass an Ann Taylor store I drool over the clothes in the window and have to remind myself that a) most of their clothes are designed for woman with no hips and thus they don’t look quite right on me b) I really can’t afford their clothes and c) I’m going to be a student in 3 months, which means I can wear the same pair of jeans for a week, so I really don’t need any more clothes that make me look all refined and pulled together.

Speaking of becoming a student, I got my U Chicago Student ID yesterday. I also got the syllabus for the one core course everyone in my program has to take and the reading list is scary. However, I am thankful that I took that random Sociology class my sophomore year, because we read a lot of the stuff on the list, including The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, so that makes me feel a tiny bit less intimidated.

My mother remarked to me last week that I had “quite the head of hair.” After years of wearing it of varying degrees of short, I had let my hair grow, pretty much non-stop, for about three years. Recently, it had also developed natural ashy-blonde highlights. It actually looked pretty decent. But there was a lot of it.

And last night, I was irritable, and the fact that the layers upon layers of my hair would NOT detangle was annoying me. Strands upon strands were falling out. So I took a razor to the bottom layers. The results were still good, and I should have stopped there. Instead I picked up the scissors and hacked off a few inches.

Cutting my own hair is nothing new. I haven’t had a professional haircut in three years, and before that, they were pretty rare. I’ve been cutting my own hair for nearly eight years, and usually I’m pleased with the results, except once, which I did right before I started Skidmore. Thus my Skidmore ID (the pictures that ALL your professors get of you with their class lists) is proof of the worst.haircut.ever)) I always mean to go out and get a fabulous haircut, but I’m afraid nothing will ever live up to the amazing haircut I got in Italy. I tried to have it recreated when it started to grow out, the result was disasterous, and that was the last time I trusted anyone else with the scissors.

I was reasonably pleased with the results when I went to bed. Then I woke up this morning and decided I wasn’t, but eh, it’s not THAT bad, and it’ll grow back. Now, after egomaniacly glancing at my reflection in every storefront window on the way to work. I have decided I hate it, I look horrible, and that this proves once and for all that I look much better with long, straight-ish hair than chin length curly-ish hair.

And yeah, whatever, it will grow back, but for now I am being a total girl and complaining about my hair. Though while I’m screwing with it, I may as well go for dying it a darker shade.

Typically girly reunion only with out the shrieking. (And we are frothy as opposed to bubbly, but we certainly do not shriek!)

Me: Aw, Sebastian, I miss having you around to open doors for me.
Sebastian: Find yourself a boyfriend with some manners!

(Well that boy we were going to cat fight over now IS all mine!)

In 95 degree weather, Sebastian removes his suit jacket. Notices me, sprawled out on the couch my jeans rolled up, my tank top out of place, and APOLOGIZES because a gentlemen never removes his coat in front of a lady. I sit up and remark on my indecency by aristocratic standards. He quotes something about beauty to God makes it still decent. How euphenistic.

“All right now just pretend that whole last exchange never happened. How do you like this?”

“As a fond memory or a disturbing memory?”

Me: Maybe I have “O” type blood too, because I never get bitten by mosquitoes.
Laura: Or maybe it’s just the blood alcohol level

“I was really paranoid about running over his foot”

The “ha-ha”

Politically correct baby blankets, Rousseau-ian child rearing, “well, i guess he won’t be hearing from us anytime soon”

N: So I have to go to confession for the right time in like, 90 years and I’m going to be like “I don’t remember all my sins, but they were pretty much all the same…””
F: (interrupting) “I hate people. I make fun of people. I am generally hateful towards most people….”
Laura: Wow. Maybe you need to join our misanthropy club.

Lecture series: Coming soon to a campus near you.

Sebastian and I are going to have a television show called “The Monarchist and the Libertarian.”

Sebastian: Your Libertarian principles are rubbing off on me! I think I should have the right to choose to be stupid!

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching “Love, Actually” with Evan. Evan and I don’t see each other that often, so he still kind of buys my tough as nails image. And then there’s scene, where Andrew Lincoln shows up on Keira Knightly (his best friend’s wife) doorstep and tells her “To me, you are perfect, and my wasted heart will always love you.”

And, I get all teary eyed. Because he walks away, whispering to himself “Enough. Enough now.”

And then Emma Thompson calls her husband out on cheating on her and yells “you have made my life ridiculous,” and I lose it, because Emma Thompson is awesome and her voice is all raw, and then she has to pull it together to meet her kids. So, I cry. Again.

“You are such a sap,” Evan tells me. “Is this why you won’t watch movies with other people?”

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