my lucky day

teeheehee, hee

I just couldn't stop laughing when I saw this: brace yourself!

Teehee!

I mean, he looks great and I'm sure it took a lot of work and self-discipline, but it's just so wrong and naughty. Talk about trying to overcome type-casting. haha!

23 days! (and counting)

packing has begun!

the move 1

Packing is always a trip, pardon the pun. I'm unpacking the bins that my stuff has been confined in for the past year, and repacking them in some organized (and padded) manner. In the process, I've been running across my past.

Yesterday, I came across a small photo album with pictures from high school. Most of these were from the last few months of senior year. It was good to see faces of friends and teachers I haven't seen since. I also noticed that I wore my hair pretty much the same way. I look so young in those pictures! It's amazing how much difference 8 years makes. I'm not "old" but the Anna in those pictures is "young."

I also found my notes from the creative writing class from college. For the first time since that class, I read my poems and short stories. I couldn't remember writing most of them, but I really enjoyed reading them. A few were quite good (in my subjective opinion). I briefly considered posting a few of them here on the blog, but I decided against it, for now.

Today, I found my yearbooks from high school and college. The college yearbook was mostly a waste of money. Of the roughly 4,000 seniors, I knew only a handful. The book is filled mostly with Cornell propaganda and advertisements, and pictures of every Greek house on campus. It's not signed by anyone, and really has nothing of personal value in it. My high school yearbook, by contrast, is filled with memories. I reread some of the notes written for me. Many were from friends I haven't spoken to (or thought about) for a long time, a few were from friends I've recently rediscovered. A few notes were heartwarming. I wish I'd kept a copy of all the reciprocal notes I left for others. What did I write, and who did I write it to? Many were probably "have a great summer and good luck in college," but a few were more personal. I guess that's part of the process. You leave a part of yourself with others accepting the risk that they will disappear and take that part with them.

pretty snow

Yay! Pretty snow. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it's snowing heavily with the perfect kind of flakes: large and fluffy. With so many flakes coming down, it almost looks like the flakes can float forever and don't actually come down.

I wish I had a real camera. I'll get one soon I think. Although, can you really capture the beauty of a snowy day?

one route

I've previously ranted about the horrible state of Pittsburgh's roads and road signs. At this point, it doesn't really matter to me. I only drive to a finite number of places (work, grocery store, mall), and I only know one way to get to each of these places.

This morning, as I approached the bridge I usually take to the north site, I noticed that it was closed off. A tractor-trailer made a narrow turn and got stuck across the bridge. I actually had a moment of panic: How the hell do I get to work??? I could only make a left turn, so I took it. After the initial panic subsided, I regained my sense of where I was, and where the next closest bridge was. It wasn't that bad of a detour, but since I never drive in that part of town, I was afraid of turning the wrong way down a one-way street, or ending up on an on-ramp for a highway heading to the airport.

I need a GPS device.

I WANT IT!!!!!!!!!!

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What is "it?" If I get "it," you'll find out.

no sleep till monday

For several months now, Sunday nights have been a total waste of sleep. I just can't fall asleep Sunday night. I think it's because I get 6 hours on weekdays, and then try to catch up Friday and Saturday nights (~10 hrs each), leaving my sleep cycle totally screwed up by Sunday night.

I've tried taking sleep aids, but that just makes things worse. My eyelids get heavy, but my brain is totally clear and alert, giving me an experience of being trapped in my own body.

Around 4pm today, I'll start to feel nauseous and delirious from exhaustion. Hopefully I can get myself to bed early tonight, but that's unlikely. I don't know why, but I just can't get to bed before 1 am. Ever.

NYC: the Russians and stupid people

Overall this weekend was both good and wasteful. I flew in Thursday night to 1) get in more family time, 2) get in more friends time and 3) make sure I was there for my uncle's 50th birthday party on Friday evening.

Of course none of my friends could meet Thursday night since everyone was back at work, and most people lived too far for a quick get-together. Ditto on Friday during the day, with the family event Friday night. Saturday during the day was another waste... no one was available to hang out. Saturday night was great. I met up with "Aris" for dinner and (many) drinks in the city. Sunday morning I saw a friend for brunch in Brooklyn. I hadn't seen her in 3 years so it was good to catch up. Then Sunday afternoon/evening no one was around to hang out either so I changed my flight from leaving Monday morning to Sunday night. So the hanging out that I did do was great, but there was too much down time... which is not a good thing when the result is me sitting around my grandma's apartment listening to her and my mother argue nonsense all the time.

The Russians

My uncle's party was at a Russian restaurant which I assume is his favorite because he always goes there (my grandfather's wake, his 25th wedding anniversary, etc). For those who haven't been to Russian restaurants for large parties, here's how it goes:

1) it's BYOB, and my uncle B'd 2 large boxes of vodka, cognac, and wine for 30 people;

2) there are no menus. The table is set before everyone arrives with platters of cheese, salami, fish, etc... and as the platters empty, more stuff comes out. Two signature dishes are fried potatoes, and crepes with red caviar. There are benefits and drawbacks to this style of service. The bad is, if you don't like salami or fish, or potatoes, there's not much to eat, and the menu is always the same from one party to the next (one year to the next). The good is, if you do like that kind of food, it's heaven, and even if you only like some of the food, you can easily fill up on anything you like.

3) no Russian restaurant is complete without live entertainment involving scantily dressed young girls doing covers of American/Latin songs in a thick Russian accent. They throw in some Russian songs as well. At the beginning, they had a large screen playing some Christina Aguilera concert. As dinner got going, the "MC" came out dressed in a bright red suit complete with bowler hat, and passed the mic around for the toasts. Then he joined the "band" either behind the piano, or on the accordion (yeah, that's right).

It was just our party at the restaurant so we sort of "ran" the place. We had them turn the music up or down, depending on our mood. Half the guests also decided they couldn't wait an hour, or god-forbid, step outside for their cigarette, so there was lots of chain smoking at the table. My uncle, the guest of honor, was only at the table about 25% of the night. Every time someone wanted to toast him, he was nowhere to be found. I think he was the only person considerate enough to step out for his cigarettes, and since he can only go about 2 minutes between them, he was running back and forth quite a lot.

I think an experience at a Russian restaurant can be summarized by this sign, posted by the entrance:


Stupid People

I'm generally a very patient person, but one thing that really gets me, is the stupidity of people, especially in airports. Aiport stupidity is particularly irritating since it directly affects me by increasing my waiting time in lines. The biggest problem at the JetBlue terminal in JFK used to be people coming up to the bag-drop counter without their boarding pass, even though there are 50 open machines by the entrance with big signs telling everyone to print their boarding pass before getting in line to check their bags. It would really piss me off when 3-4 people in a row would go up to the counter without their boarding pass. If the terminal was really busy, the agent would just go through the check in process and print the boarding pass for them which would take 5-10 minutes when it should take 1. Thankfully, this problem has mostly been solved by roping off the bag-check counters and having an agent check for a boarding pass before allowing someone to get in line.

Yesterday, I saw several new forms of stupidity. This one couple packed their 2 suitcases so that one was much heavier than the other. This resulted in the guy opening both suitcases on the floor in front of the counter and repacking! I kept wanting to scream "get out of the line asshole and repack where you're not holding up a line of people." Immediately after him, was a girl with a personal item, her purse, a carry-on suitcase, and a lamp shade. She had a 5 minute discussion with the agent about the fact that the lamp shade was indeed considered a carry-on and she would need to ether check it or her suitcase. "Well, which one should I check?" Let's see... the lampshade, which will get thrown around and crushed, or your suitcase, which is made for checking? Idiot.

I'm sure these were all smart people in the book sense, but they weren't very smart in the practical sense. Too many people these days lack any ability to make practical decisions. I'm not even talking about "street smarts," just your normal human consideration for others around you. Have your frakking ID out when you walk up to the counter and security too. Rummaging through your purse or wallet for 2 minutes is annoying for everyone behind you. And who these days isn't aware that you have to take your laptop out for the x-ray?

/rant

Ok, I feel better now. Happy week 2 of 2007!

Happy 2007

Here's a quick recap of December: Alex organized a surprise early birthday party for me before I left cali. All our friends were there, which made my 24.96th birthday very special :) There were balloons, pizza, cake, and Taboo.

Then there were a few weeks of Pittsburgh, ack. Fortunately, they were broken up by a weekend trip to my favorite city, NY. I don't even remember what I did that weekend, but it was great. Oh, and if you ever go in to Tiffany's to look at rings, bring a guy. He can be a stranger off the street, or your favorite homo, it doesn't matter as long as he looks like a guy. No one pays attention to a group of girls.

Then came 1.5 weeks in Loveland for the holidays. Fortunately, I didn't have too much trouble getting there. My flight happened to be a few days after the big blizzard out there, and except for a 3 hour delay, everything went fine.

New Years sucked as usual. Just sitting around in the tv room, going upstairs for a glass of champagne at midnight, and more tv. Am I 25 or 45? I really can't tell anymore. Next year I want to do something. Hopefully I can convince a few people to go away for new years... somewhere with a party and lots of people. Vegas? Mexico? Cruise? Any suggestions?

I should really write in here more often. Sometimes, a minor funny/weird thing will happen and I'll want to write about it but then I figure since I haven't written any real updates, I shouldn't start writing about stupid inconsequential things, and so I never end up posting anything.

Happy 2007 everyone. Everyone should write more in their blogs, and if you don't have one yet, what the hell is wrong with you? It's 2007!