18 August 2002
- best -
12 hours of sleep. Time to make up for the rest of the summer... wake me
when classes start.
Assorted errands: Goodwill (getting rid of stuff, for a change), CVS
(black licorice! and more), to the dreaded mall (for an embarrassingly
girly shopping expedition. Ick.).
To the X Games with Daniel, Christy and Jason. They were
extreme. eXtreme? We saw action sports! Well, we saw
skateboarding. And got free box passes that we had to trade around. And
stuff. (By "extreme," of course, I mean "with a major tendency to fall
down. Over and over again." And the announcer blamed the failure of the
skateboarders on a lack of crowd enthusiasm. "Philly, make some
noise! You're out there! This is all you!" Well,
actually... no.)
- worst -
Did I need another credit card? No. Did I need another credit card
exclusively to buy stuff from Victoria's Secret? Definitely not. Do I
have one anyway? *hangs head in shame*
17 August 2002
- best -
Into the city with Laura. We shopped! And wandered, and talked, and had
smoothies. And shopped! *happy happy*
And while we were wandering, I realized "Oh! I should've brought Dan's
new address with me, we could have gone to visit him! Too bad." But when
I came home, there he was on my couch. Yay!
Then Dan and I went to see ML and while we were investigating the basement
we heard footsteps, so we ran out the back door in a pseudo-panic. We
went around to the front and discovered that it was just Susan moving her
things in early. Hee. So we looked at the basement some more (it
confuses me) and left messages on people's doors.
- worst -
Have I mentioned that it's unforgivably hot? It is. Especially for
wandering around the city. (We had to keep going in
stores! Otherwise we would have overheated. No, really...)
16 August 2002
- best -
Last Day of Work! Last Day of Work! *does a little dance*
Nice lunch from the Co-op: an avocado (ripe this time), iced tea,
bread.
Five more episodes of Buffy with Daniel (and later, Laura and Bing.)
And pierogies.
- worst -
Seven and a half hours of sleep was maybe too much. Figures.
My lunch got less nice when I accidentally launched the avocado pit onto
my khaki pants.
Attempted martinis to accompany the Buffy and the pierogies, but the red
vermouth was apparently a bad idea.
15 August 2002
- best -
The Boar's Head posters in the Co-op with the slogans "Cheaper than
disappointment" and "If it isn't Boar's Head, it isn't Boar's
Head." Brilliant. We clearly need them more than the Co-op
does... hm....
Visit from Bing, returned from New York.
- worst -
Dignan was very friendly this morning, and I picked him up to carry him
into my room, and he put his arms around me neck and licked my face and
then he bit my face. And didn't let go. Bad cat. Strange cat.
14 August 2002
- best -
Finishing the Discworld game. < /big dork phase > (Well, that's
obviously
not true. But, you know, that specific big dork phase, over.)
Daniel makes guacamole and daiquiris. (The avocados are not really ripe,
but he beats them into submission. The blender leaks everywhere. Still
good. We watch American Idol. Bye, RJ! Bye! Hahaha! That's one more
week for Nikki. And then Justin, and then it gets interesting, I
assume.)
Watching The Royal Tenenbaums with Laura, who had never seen
it. That's been remedied.
And, you know, more Buffy. We have a schedule to keep here, folks!
- worst -
Someone was sitting in my lunch seat. (By which I mean that one side of
the belltower under the tree where you can sit even when it's raining and
still stay dry. And where I've eaten lunch, like, three times. Which
makes it mine. Nyah!)
* You know, I'm very inconsistent tense-wise in best & worst. Sometimes
past, sometimes present, usually a gerund in there somewhere. Too much
trouble to settle on something now, though, so you'll just have to
manage. I'm a failure as a Grammar Bitch. So it goes.
13 August 2002
- best -
Freelance Peace Collection work! Ha. I invent things to do. They're not
completely useless, but they're certainly not necessary.
Work closing a little early. I'll take what I can get.
Napping for an hour and a half. (Hm! I always try and nap, I rarely
actually manage to.)
To Laura's (well, some professor's apartment) for food and hanging out in
the air conditioning. We made potato pancakes and rice pudding! (That's
the specific third-person singular "we." By which I mean
"Laura." Oops. I watched, and learned, and will try again to make potato
pancakes when it's not a billion degrees out. Or in, or anywhere.)
Home for American Idol. Of course.
Again with the Daily Show, and Buffy, and more Buffy.
- worst -
Hot. See also: sticky, disgusting, humid, oven-like, hazy, ew.
Having to invent work. I run out of ideas.
12 August 2002
- best -
Lunch with Laura.
No coffee, and more than 6 hours of sleep last night. (That was my goal
for
the week. I can tell you now that I've already failed, though.)
Starting over with season 1 Buffy with Daniel.
- worst -
Cleaning the kitchen. (So many sinks that don't drain in this house.)
Daniel cleverly stabbing himself in the hand with his Leatherman, or
something. I missed it. Now he's all differently-abled. At least in
terms of typing.
11 August 2002
- best -
Doing fun lame Sunday stuff - sewing, regressing to early high school and
playing Discworld. Such A Big Dork!
Desserts with Amelia and ihrer (?) Mutti. (German has fled.) Mmmmm slabs
of chocolate...
Molly-call. (I looked for jobs in the Inquirer for her. Big Job Issue
comes out September 8. Also there was one that started off "LIMP BIZKIT
ATTITUDE!" Oh dear.)
- worst -
Least interesting trip to CVS & Goodwill ever. No shiny, no clothes.
Dizzy from nail polish, dizzy from everything. But I sleep now! No fair!
10 August 2002
- best -
Sleeping... and sleeping... and staying in bed until 2 or so even when I
was done sleeping.
Into the city with Tiffany and Bing. *happy happy*
God... the band! (I know, I know. You know already.)
- worst -
Tiffany off to North Carolina. (Well, ok, it's actually fine. She'll be
back in a week. She has no internet. HahaHA!)
9 August 2002
- best -
Napping at lunch. (First in the amphitheatre, and then on a bench like a
bum. Heh.)
Going home half an hour early. Every little bit counts? Or
something.
- worst -
Sleepier than ever at work. Spent the morning falling asleep every time I
sat down and not really being able to focus my eyes properly. I'm an
idiot.
Necessary conversations. (Turns out necessary doesn't equate to easier,
or more pleasant, or anything like that.)
8 August 2002
- best -
Waking up with the cat stretched out along my side. (That makes waking up
more tolerable. Nice kitty.)
Lilo & Stitch. *grin* (Only on my computer, but that's all
right. And making Simon see it. Everyone must see
it! You! See! Now!)
- worst -
Waking up with the cat after about three hours of sleep. (See previous
stupid stubborn staying-up-late. Rarar.)
7 August 2002
- best -
Buffy. (Done with season 2! Now what? Hmmm.)
Nail-painting. (I meant to take a picture of them, but I just took the
polish off. They were sparkly red with sparkly black tips, at any
rate.)
We have the Fellowship of the Ring DVD! With special trailers and
previews and music videos and other nonsense! (When I say "we have," I
mean more like "we looked hopeful and Rafa bought for us." Whoo,
Rafa!)
- worst -
What I have written down is "cont'd confusion of... stuff..." What the
hell does that mean? God. I think it had to do with drinking lots of
coffee instead of eating or sleeping enough, and generally being dazed and
inarticulate. Not that I'm done with that, necessarily... but I'm only
working for another week, so that should help.
6 August 2002
- best -
Suddenly the weather is perfect. Where did that come from? And how long
can it stay? (It reminds me very much of Quito, without the noxious bus
fumes.)
American Idol. Kelly! Ee! Hee.
Buffy.
To bed actually kind of early. I couldn't help it.
- worst -
Practically falling asleep into the keyboard at work. (Which explains why
I'm up now, updating, when I have to be at work in just over 6
hours. Hush. Maybe I'm tired. Can't tell. Gonna go play the sitting still game now. And drink my
tea.)
5 August 2002
- best -
Fishy! For small things!
New shoes! New shoes! (No, not those new shoes.)
To dessert - Boathouse Row - dinner with Simon.
Tiffany-besuchen. (Well, duh, that happens daily. But that's no reason
not to mention it now and again.)
- worst -
Sarah and Matt leaving, Molly leaving, all the leaving. *frown*
New shoes munching on feet.
Sugar and caffeine for lunch, sugar and caffeine for dinner, twitchy dizzy
lightheaded Katie. Not smart.
4 August 2002
- best -
Out to lunch/dinner. (at a "grill," which translates to "Nothing For
You! Ahahaha! Haha!" but that's ok, I tricked it into giving me soup and
salad.)
And then (well, a little later, since the first show was sold out) to see
Signs, which was funnier than I thought it would be, and not
bad. Audience screamed a lot. I didn't! But... there was hand-clutching
and face-hiding. *embarrassed*
Also found shiny plastic things on the ground. Oooh.
Continuing with
the sleepover theme, Tiffany, Sarah and I went to get a
movie (*snicker* Bring It On *snicker*) and a lot of junk food from
Wawa, and then we (and Matt and Bing and Molly) watched, and
ate. Whee!
- worst -
Blahblahblah SAD all the people leaving the next day. Means we get our
rooms back, but what's the fun in that anyway? I don't like the rooms all
empty.
3 August 2002
- best -
Dyeing (me) - I had intended to go darker blonde and slowly approach my
actual color, but it ended up more golden blonde. Or without the
blonde, and more like just plain gold. Newly minted. (I like
it... I mean, if I'm going to be unnatural, I should do it
boldly. Sometimes being outrageously false is better.)
Shiny red sparkly nails. (Ruby slippers? Diner seats?)
Into the city for fun things. (Sarah and Matt went into the city for
other fun things earlier, which is good too.)
Ice cream! And then nail-painting. Life's just one big fucking
sleepover, lemme tell you.
- worst -
Having to trim Tiffany's hair? *twitch!*
Poor Molly sleeping under a towel because we went to sleep without getting
her a blanket.
2 August 2002
- best -
Taking the afternoon off because Sarah and Matt were coming. And
then Sarah and
Matt did come!
And so did Molly!
Out to dinner and CVS.
Coloring. Lots of people coloring in my room. (It was kind of
ridiculously adorable.)
Watching Hedwig. (all together now... *grin and sigh*)
-worst -
Disgustingly hot, which necessitates careful people-arrangement so
everyone can have air conditioning. It worked out, though.
And, you know, stuff.
26 July - 1 August 2002
Haven't written anything down for awhile. There would be lots to
write down if I had. In the meantime, here:
this is pretty cute.
I'll be back soon? Vague promises.
25 July 2002
- best -
Participating in DavidJ's ling experiment gave me candy and money. I like
candy. I like money.
Look! I had blue hair-bauble-things in my (jaunty) pigtails /
wore my (jaipur) striped shirt / tried to send myself via airmail.
Watching Lilo & Stitch on my computer! Mineminemine. (Thanks,
Bing! : ) )
Amelia arrives, Simon comes over. (Don't remember what we did now... made
coffee, watched television, watched parts of The Royal
Tenenbaums? Yeah.)
IMing with Tiffany.
- worst -
I got my normal and usually adequate 6 hours of sleep but it didn't work
today. Felt all collapsible at work. Ick.
24 July 2002
- best -
Phone call from Dad and Susie.
A burned copy of Lilo & Stitch from Bing!
TV. Mmmmm.
Making puffins with Daniel.
- worst -
Still itchy feet. I think those mosquitoes were on some kind of drug.
Phone calls from Dad contain news: my (great)aunt Alice died last Friday,
and Lucy's in the hospital again. Susie's surgery went well, though.
23 July 2002
- best -
American Idol, although it wasn't that good tonight, really.
Phone calls from Tiffany.
Visits from Laura and Bing.
The cat is steadily improving.
- worst -
Making dinner that no one ate. It wasn't the greatest dinner
anyway... hmph.
22 July 2002
- best -
Getting Hard Candy in the mail (and having it in my
possession... briefly).
Visitors at work.
Postponing abandonment, aka hotel party. Only not really. And the
wonderfully awful television show Meet the Folks. Heh.
- worst -
Tiffany leaving.
21 July 2002
- best -
Phone call from Mutti.
Watching Hedwig (the movie) and discovering a whole long
the-making-of-Hedwig thing on the DVD. It was very
exciting. Really! Well. I liked it.
Finally making the quiche from Susie's recipe. I approve.
- worst -
Not making the quiche until midnight. Also, not eating anything all day
until the quiche.
20 July 2002
- best -
Sleeping for a reasonably long time.
Getting shiny for Hedwig.
Hedwig Hedwig Hedwig! Eeeeee! (Not to be confused with Justin
Eeeee!) (Also, God the Band Eeeee! Ha.) We (Simon, Nick, Tiffany,
me) saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Painted Bride. It made me dumb
and happy, which is not customary. Maybe they will extend it and I can
see it again. Please?
The party kind of sort of... the music made me happy. But I did my usual
wandering upstairs and sitting in my room and wandering back down and
looking forlorn deal. (Although the game where I said "independent,
distant, but still really appealing" was fun. Ha.)
The cat acting better. He seems to have remembered his appetite. (It's a
pretty enormous thing to forget.)
- worst -
Aforementioned forlorn/sad-drunk... I think maybe I mean
sad-not-quite-drunk-enough. Also not being able to sleep and washing the
dishes at 4 in the morning and then sitting out on the front porch
and staring and things while
bugs bit my feet.
19 July 2002
- best -
Remarkably alert at work despite the four hours of sleep.
Out to eat at Swarthmore Pizza with lots of people.
- worst -
Pretty much everything else: worrying about people, cats, other
things. (The cat saga, briefly: when I came home from work the cat was
outside crying to be let in. When he walked inside he didn't look like he
had any sense of balance, so Dave made him a vet's appointment for the
next day. Then he disappeared for the entire afternoon. We finally found
the cat again under the couch at about 10:30 that night, and he still
couldn't walk right, and then he started shaking and throwing up and
falling over. So we called the emergency vet and Rafa, Daniel, Tiffany
and I took him there. That vet told us that it was probably idiopathic
peripheral vestibular disease (it came out of nowhere, and will resolve
itself on its own) but it might be ethylene glycol poisoning (stupid
animal drank antifreeze), in which case we'd need to start treatment
(costing $3000) immediately for the cat to live. But he didn't have the
test for ethylene glycol there. We'd have to go to UPENN animal
hospital. So we went home, switched Rafa for Nick, drove to
UPENN. Tiffany and I took the cat in. Daniel and Nick appeared shortly
to announce that the key to the car had broken off in the car door. Of
course it had. Called AAA, called home. Jess and Dave showed up to drive us home. I sat in the waiting room for a
long time while Nick slept and other people went outside.
We waited. AAA called to say the tow truck
wouldn't get there until 3:30. The cat hadn't reappeared anyway. We
waited. Finally Daniel went in to talk to the doctor, who said they
hadn't even done the ethylene glycol test, but they had run blood tests
that made it seem very unlikely the cat had ethylene glycol
poisoning. Fine. The tow truck shows up eventually and the guy just
shoves the two halves of the key back into the ignition and starts the
car. Oops. We all go home, and go to bed around 5. The cat is still
confused and wonky and off-balance. The end.
18 July 2002
- best -
Dinner by Andy and Dave. (Everyone's been very conscientious about making
dinner on their nights this week. I'm impressed.)
Heartless Bear. (I like him much better now.)
Reading all the old Ecuador entries at sarahhepola.com. *sigh*
Staying up much later than I should have, but... 's ok. Definitely.
- worst -
Little sleep, less food. (I suppose they're not really the same
currency. Or whatever.)
17 July 2002
- best -
Paycheck, thank goodness. Things paid. Now not to spend any more than
necessary.
Taking home a metal box from work. What? Whaaat? They were going to
throw it out!
- worst -
Stubborn and sleepy and sullen. I am sorry for being generally
unpleasant.
16 July 2002
- best -
American Idol!
Coloring Lilo & Stitch posters with Tiffany. (The one on my wall
is of Lilo and the spoons in the pickle jar. My friends need to be
punished.)
- worst -
Oversleeping.
Spending too much money ($15 left in both accounts
combined. Fantastic.) and eating too much food.
I'm sorry I'm never online anymore. I really am. I always get online and
see people I know and think Oh! I could talk to them... but then I
go... no, no. Never mind. I... no. Better go now. *sigh* Someday I'll
talk to people again. It may not be until I see everyone in person,
though.
15 July 2002
- best -
Improvising some sort of dinner.
Watching parts of Moulin Rouge with
sound! Everywhere! From! All! Angles! Yeah. Just in time for
Roxanne, which was what really counted.
- worst -
Too sleepy to be anything useful.
14 July 2002
- best -
Pancakes by Daniel.
Watching last season's finale of Buffy.
All the ridiculous new sound stuff that Rafa and Daniel installed
yesterday. Speakers and subwoofer and I don't even know, but next we get
the enormous-screen TV and then no one ever leaves the couch.
Going to see Road to Perdition with everyone.
Baking (the goddamn?) cookies. Many, many cookies.
- worst -
Eating far too many of the cookies during the process.
The desire to delete everything.
13 July 2002
- best -
Kind of sort of storming the Bastille, only it was actually the Eastern
State Penitentiary and it was a day early. (Shakin, Nina, Simon and I
went. They threw Tastikakes at us, but I didn't catch any, even sitting
on Simon's shoulders. Possibly because I was too busy yelling about how I
was going to fall off and die.)
Then we went to a restaurant in west Philly for nearly three hours and ate
and drank and frustrated (and amused) our waiter.
And then we came back and Simon and Tiffany and I went out for ice
cream. There was some beer and Super Monkey Ball and such upon our
return, but that was more or less it. The end.
- worst -
Evil left in the morning. ("morning." We got up at noon, and so did not
even take him to the train station. Sad, sad.)
Not being 21. So close, and yet... grrr.
12 July 2002
- best -
They think I'm sorting through files and boxes at work, but actually I'm
just building a really big fort.
Going to see Reign of Fire, I guess... it started off so
well. And then
it spiraled consistently downward.
Watching Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Tiffany, Simon, Evil Josh
and
Bing
made up for the dragon debacle. Yes. Also drinking mate.
- worst -
Lack of sleep makes me over-contemplative and analytical and sad. Also
makes me fall asleep during my lunch hour.
11 July 2002
- best -
Riding in Daniel's superfantastic car (first to get beer, then to the
train station). It cost a dollar, and sounds like it's trying to lift
off. Dollarmobile!
Arrival of Evil Josh! (That explains the train station.) I like
visitors.
Lilo & Stitch. *love*
- worst -
Spending money, buying food, being sullen.
10 July 2002
- best -
Three episodes of Buffy with Tiffany after work.
The outdoors, the cat, the driveway. There's a black walnut tree. I like
that the cat seems to forgive me for tormenting him on a
several-times-daily basis.
American Idol! I can't not watch! And I have given up being
embarrassed!
- worst -
Now that Hard Candy is available for public consumption, it is not
available to me. This is nowhere near acceptable. (My copy should arrive
in about a week? Yes? Please?)
previously, on Best and Worst...
There was about another month in there somewhere. I don't remember
exactly, but it went sort of like this: work, house, visitors, heat, work,
files,
papers, collage, art store, small boxes, acrylic paint-y mess, cat
drinking glue, television,
beer (ew), cooking, cleaning, hair dyeing,
boxes, work, files, work, visitors, paycheck, beer (eh... whatever),
Elvis
Costello,
party, art store, work, heat, heat, heat, cat, television, Hard Candy,
American
Idol, cooking, cleaning, Twin Peaks,
work, Twin Peaks, work, Twin Peaks, work, files, papers, collage, small
boxes, beer (all right), visitors, paycheck, visitors, barbecue,
beer (mmmmmbeer!), clothed slip 'n' slide, fireworks, parents, air
conditioner, city, city, Buffy, Buffy, American Idol. And so on, and so
forth. I think I mostly like it.