i've just returned from the eyedoctor. my lenses are totally exactly what i want, but they're too flat. according to mr. doctor man. could i be less satisfied? maybe if i sat in the waiting room for half an hour without acknowledgement, was smiled and nodded at for 1/2 hour and then sent on the path to curvier lenses with no true acknowledgement about anything i was having trouble with i'd be less satisfied, but wait...
i sent matt some rather colorful texts while waiting. he offered to come bitch with me, but since i can't see how that would further my cause i decided just to keep sending him texts until he gets fired. clearly the wise choice.
i'm wearing the offending flat lenses now, and i have to admit that i can read the tiniest words from accross the room. but since that doesn't help with my depth perception in situations like, uhm, crossing traffic i'm not sure how great it really is.
because the bookstore lost half it's staff, i spent the evening by myself telling the odd customers that "no, we're not a used bookstore" and the even ones "no, there isn't another bookstore in Bar Harbor". and also, you know you're a dork when you spend most of your evening describing the difference between Eragon and Aragorn. and whoa, are there alot of scary websites with you type in aragorn. like this one, this one, and this one. maybe not scary as in like, BOO, but who has that much free time? Eragon the book is very popular and Eldest, has incited as many requests from children as harry potter. not as many adults, but definitely as many kids. atleast in town. a very sweet boy who was on vacation told me his copy is waiting for him at home. he left after the release date but he wasn't going to spring the 15 dollars to have it the day it was released. "no one needs a book that bad". some kids rock.

i found frames that i liked, for glasses and sunglasses. they weren't exactly cheap, but i'm satisfied with the price. i waited for an hour an a half (i figured for two pairs, i could hardly hold them to the hour for crafting my lenses) and then they were all ready for me to try on. AND THE FUCKING PRESCRIPTION IS WRONG. do we remember what happened last time i got new glasses. i do. the precription was wrong. and i had to go to the ellsworth office and have them fix it. apparently ellsworth and bar harbor don't comunicate because the asshats here in bar harbor started with the bad prescription. so, if you're eye is falling out of your head, drive to ellsworth. it's worth it. trust me.
i'm actually a little less aggravated today. i was a wee bit irate after spending most of my saturday before work waiting for the wrong glasses to be made. not that it's the fault of the nice people at lenscrafters. they were lovely. they all helped me pick between two frames and they were adorable about it in their matching black coats. very perky. according to matt the frames are very amy. they're sort of brown and yellow, but really they're nice although in print that sounds pretty awful. they're cute, really.
i spent yesterday on my hands and knees and not in a fun way. the floor is the cleanest it's been since i've lived there. i totally flattened the scrub brush, that's how determined my scrubbing was. i asked matt if it looked cleaner, and he said "did you wash it?" and i said "i scrubbed it for hours..." and he said "that's a start..." and then i stabbed him with a meat thermometer just like in that movie with gwyneth paltrow and now I have to scrub it again because you wouldn't believe the staining. what he doesn't realize is that i only scrubbed it so that next time he offers to scrub it, it won't be as embarrassing and i'll say yes, please do scrub my floor. and then cook me a chicken pot pie.
but maybe that's the sleep deprivation speaking.

i think my favorite thing about amy coming is that i can say "that's what i thought!" and she'll get it. and maybe "sarr weclosd". i love how the same guy can really annunciate in so many different ways. it's like a smorgasbord of grammar.

i tried on every pair of glasses in the city of bangor last night. some of them i liked. one of them i really liked, but the frames are almost as much as my rent, so i had to vote no. it's possible that some of them were perfectly fine, but i just couldn't decide. this happens more than not when i'm shopping. sarah can testify to that, having done alot more actual buying on our shopping trips than i have. i'm thinking i'll try again on saturday, by myself. not to say that matt was unhelpful. he did spend alot of time playing with a tractor at pearl.* he smiled and frowned accordingly. but since every pair i tried on was the same** i don't know how much i trust his judgement. my favorites were armani. my second favorites were very green. if they had been less green, i'd have taken them home. my third favorites were both green and black, affordable, but just a little too funky. there were cut out swirls which really worked better than it sounds, but just not quite me.
i should have made sunglasses a priority, as i have a road trip scheduled in a month. a road trip with AMYMAS. who is flying into bangor on the 24th. she actually bought tickets. I AM PSYCHED. i keep hitting matt and saying "AMY'S COMING". mary has encouraged me to take friday off "sick" because i'm out of vacation days. bless her. we're going to canada. i'm going to cross the border again. matt offered to clean the car again so it'll be neat incase they search it. he's so thoughtful.

and also, just because it's interesting, did y'all know that russia has more than one currency. me neither. furthermore, a foreign bank has to have a correspondent bank to recieve a wire transfer in US Funds. this russian bank does not have a correspondent bank. but they only deal in us funds. which is, by the first rule, impossible. funny.

* who knew john deere made eyeglasses? "hey jim, i like those specs." "thanks bill, there deere's". tee hee hee.

** a comment for which i made him buy me ice cream. because they were not all the same, and also i wanted ice cream.

since everyone is writing about books, and i work in a damn bookstore, i think i'll make it a booky post today.
i just finished mr. darcy takes a wife. i put it down for a long time because it really wasn't what i was expecting. it was a little racy for jane austen. the author speculated that since jane never married she never knew anything about sex and therefor never wrote anything about sex. then again she was a vicar's daughter* and it wasn't the most respectable thing for a woman to be a writer quite yet, so i can't see her publishing an edwardian playboy even if she did happen to get it on in her lifetime. the book was not a terrible book and it did explore some interesting ideas and now it's done and it can sit all pretty on my bookshelf until i sell it for an 1/8 of the price, unless ofcourse someone wants to read it?
i just finished another damn memoir. since i finished it the day afer i bought it, it never made it to the i'm currently reading section. i had to special order it from the bookstore, even though we're supposed to have one. fuck if i could find it. this happens often, as i had exactly the same problem with devil in the white city. non-fiction often gets mixed up with fiction because the difference, to most folks, is pretty intangible. it's similar to the distinction between trade and mass market paperbacks. a very fine line. for both books i searched high and low. fiction and non-fiction. i even checked comic books and humor because the cover of i'm not the new me is vaguely comic book esque and some of the folks i work with are morons. and then i special ordered it, and now i'm all done. for all the damn searching i wish i had stretched out the reading a little more.



*almost entirely certain that's a fact.

we've had beautiful weather since we came back from "maryland", it was supremely crappy for our vacation. matt says "next time we should really go to maryland, it has to be warmer" which is probably true.* the best weather here, or my partiality, is when it's clear and sunny and "crisp". i was rhapsodizing about this weather just before matt and i stopped for ice cream, even though it was penquin style cold, because it's august and we should take advantage of summer ice cream possibilities. my favorite part of fall is the sweaters. i love sweaters. it's all very j. crew catalogue. fall and sweaters, and maybe some pumpkins in the background. i sometimes wonder if one day matt will think i've lost it, like for real. until then he lets me scrape the rest of my icecream on to his cone without his permission so i won't get frostbite on my tongue.**

in general, things are going well. jobs are proceeding as expected and matt wonders aloud what hello kitty toaster will look like in his apartment with no actual need to think about moving in for awhile. he thinks his friends will enjoy kitty toast and i think they respect his happiness enough not to pick on him.*** other things within my family are not going well. everyone misses mom. dad and emily especially. i worried most about matt and his drinking, but he seems to be dealing relatively well. dad has trouble getting back to his old routines. his favorite things, birding and yoga, seem to be hard for him to get back into. he spends alot of time in the house, alone. my aunts visit him during the week, the same routine they had when my mom was alive. emily visits with the kids. and now emily's family is falling apart. there's no need to catalogue it all here, but she's facing the new school year for reid as a first grader, grace with day care for only two days of the week and the last four months of her pregnancy alone. in alot of ways it can't be any worse than having jeff and his daughter to take care of, that doesn't really help make her situation any better. i am powerless to know what to do or how to help her, but i can't bear that she's suffering.

(somehow the light hearted footnotes feel innapropriate with the way this post ends, so i thought i'd put in a buffer. a parentheseed buffer. a buffer in which you can ponder the appropriateness of my pluralization of the word parenthesis.)

*apparently i have the coldest feet on earth and matt fears for january. everynight he stays over he lists the various woolen undergarments he'll have to purchase to survive the horror of my cold and bloodless feet. i think secretly he likes it.

**"i know i should remind you to get the kid size but i always think it might piss you off, like i think you only need the small one or something and really it doesn't matter because i'd totally buy you the large one if that's like what you wanted..." it goes on from there but i'll spare him that. he has a point, i never can finish my damn ice cream.

***also his family. many members notorious for "giving alot of shit" to people, treat me with more respect. either i look like i don't take any shit which is probable, or they know he's never had a "serious" (dear god how i hate to type that) girlfriend before and no one wants to risk rocking his boat which i think is more likely.

just returned from the eye doctor. all damage repaired and the new prescription is a very small change. which is good because it means my sight's not that bad, but somehow it pisses me off that i'm not getting my money's worth from the visit and the expense of new lenses. if i was going blind i'd consider it money well spent. i puzzled matt with this logic...just another service i provide.
i don't think i've ever been compared to a sitcom before, thanks sarah! we didn't have any wacky adventures or family heart to hearts at the end, no one really seemed to care. works for me.
we went to campobello island on friday, which was very pretty. i can tell you the customs officials there take their work very seriously. for a ten mile island. on saturday i made popovers from scratch (not that this is hard) and we went to a truck pull. very literally we watched street style pick-up trucks try to pull weights down a track. FOR FOUR HOURS. i'm building up girlfriend points. maybe i'll earn enough for a new car.
yesterday i cleaned my house top to bottom, and matt did my laundry and my bidding in general. we made chicken marsala that he liked and i couldn't eat. it was very sweet, i did something wrong. but probably we don't need to cook a recipe that uses 4 tablespoons of butter and oil. unless it's macaroni and cheese. mmmmm.

because we're pretending to go on vacation instead of actually going, i've been walking around saying i can't wait to go to "maryland" complete with finger quotes. i'm very excited to sleep in. and wash dishes. and go to the grocery store. and get my hair cut.
since we're going to "maryland" in about an hour, i have a lot to do. it's alot of work pretending you were earning your pay for a whole week while your boss was gone. i should get a raise. atleast i'm getting a haircut. my sister was very generous when she said it looked like i meant it to be that way. but i know she's lying. but actually, her hair hasn't grown that much since her last cut in february. we thought it was stress. and then went and got pregnant which is supposed to make your hair grow. and yet, nothing. craziness. hair craziness.

why just decorate the comments section with my culinary prowess. why not spread the love of chocolate far and wide...

"the mousse was very good. i changed the ratios*, 11 ozs melted dark chocolate to 16 oz whipping cream. you have to fold it A LOT for it to be smooth and i think i'll use less chocolate next time. it makes a LOT of mousse**, but it's very good and simple. easier than the egg varieties.
as a topping to cake, it's too much chocolate for me. which surprised matt as i was nearly confused for a chocolate importer at the border crossing***. but he really liked it. i think a more dense cake than the chocolate butter cake would be better. or alone with some plain whipped cream. also, decorative chocolate flakes help you pretend you folded enough and cover the chunks well."

i have also been teaching matt the wonders of garlic. his mother never used garlic, so he must be taught. he's starting to like what i cook most of the time. YAY!

*did i even mention the recipe before?
**can one have too much mousse?
***not really.

the trip to maryland is off because i am ridiculously poor. on the upside the geo might be sold. i just have to call my daddy. if things work out it might all be over by this weekend. instead of going to maryland matt and i are going to sleep in and eat alot and probably scrub my floor. we're also going to watch the truck pulls at the skowhegan fair. the trade for which is going to be shopping and probably more than one dough boy. it's amazing how quickly an empty weekend fills up with things.
matt's company picnic is this weekend, and since we were supposed to be out of state we don't have to go. what we have to do is lay low and tell no one that we aren't really going. apparently they all really want to meet me, hmm. as much as i'd like to, i really am not capable of being charming on an as needed basis. plus, i have no idea how to charm people of matt's social circle. none at all. so i'm relieved that he'd prefer the truck pulls to my grilling at the hands of his co-workers.
at the bookstore last night i mentioned my secret hatred of people who purchase odd numbers of postcards and the other workers totally agree. YES!!! i also learned that UMO takes a damn long time reviewing their resumes from other folk's experiences so i'll pretend that maybe i'll still get an interview. and by then maybe i'll be able to turn on the charm switch, as well as the perfect skills switch, and kick some interview ass. er...

reid has a hermit crab. his name is snippy. for the claws. i love my sister's family.

i'm going to attempt to make chocolate mousse tonight. the whipping cream and melted chocolate version. i'm very excited about it. i've missed baking, and eating. although i'm going to sara's big italian wedding shower in Rhode Island this weekend so probably i'll get the eating on track.
matt relayed a "compliment" from kevin that he thought i'd lost weight. mr. matt was a little surprised that i didn't care for the "compliment" and that i asked in future to be left ignorant of kevin assessing my fatness. "but don't girls like it when people think they're losing weight" NO THEY DON'T. sara and i discussed in depth how indeed it is not a compliment to be told you're losing weight because inherently all you can think of his how fat you were before and the number of chairs you must have broken with your gargantuan ass.

"don't they know they're supposed to keep their mouths shut about that stuff?" sara says while unwrapping a ghirardeli chocolate square. "really" amy uttered with her mouth full of cheez-its. "no wonder kevin's getting a divorce" sara says as she looks forlornly into her plastic rite-aid bag now empty of chocolate. "yeah, why does matt listen to him anyway?" said amy as she handed sara a peanut butter cup from her second cash drawer.

matt and i talked about alot of stuff last night, not centered around kevin or my fat. i learned that he brings up living together as a farther into the future idea than as a result of the job possibility. which is good. he said he's just thinking positively and is in no hurry to change something that is working so well. phew. and while he plans to use the generator for electricity until lines run out to his property, he has no intention of living there without water (THANK GOD) so it seems a fair enough prospect. in a few years.
he has no intention of repeating the mistakes of his brother, who has moved in with almost every girl he's dated after a few weeks. and then they break up. this brother is now in the process of selling all his worldly goods to purchase an engagement ring for the girl who kicked him out of their apartment. it's safe to say that if she doesn't want to live with you, she doesn't want to marry you. but, then, who am i to know? maybe straight girls do stuff like that.

I sent out the job application. the horror. it's the waiting that will drain my soul out of my ears. especially since i don't really need a job. oh my how i frustrate myself.
chairman meow was naughty in the bathroom. i don't get it. her potty is clean, she likes her food, she has clean water because she always drinks mine. she picked the day the realtor is coming to view the apartment. i really hope she avoids further retribution till after the purchasing people come through. does she know kitties are coming? is she smart enough? if she's naughty on her own, how will she behave with companionship? fur drama.
in other news, i have my very first tan. you can only tell if i take my watch off or strip, which i'm inclined to do because i've never had a tan before and i want thw world to know. no one's really impressed, except matt, but he was instructed to be impressed. he's so good.
as pinky says, he is way into me. i'm less freaked out about it now than i was. he wouldn't go crazy and become a stalker if we broke up. that's something. it's certainly less lonely here knowing that i have him. he would never be unkind, to me or anyone. he's honest and motivated to please me. if i could tap him into my sense of humor he'd be perfect, but then who is?

this morning i realised that i've been doubly signing in to statcounter for over a month simply because i refuse to read three inches of the computer screen. i have it set to remember me because i'm lazy, but lately i've had to sign in every morning which is adversely effecting my usual standard of laziness. what i didn't notice was that every morning it says "Welcome Elvis!" all perky right above the boxes for signing in. this is sort of lik how i always pay way too much for parking tickets because i dont read them. i'm so busy freaking out that i got a parking ticket and paying it before the man tracks me down and lays the smake down on my parking that i don't even notice until after i pay it that i paid the "after 2 weeks this much is owed" amount instead of the cheap before two weeks this much is paid amount. it's expensive to be neurotic. and it's more effort to be lazy. the tao of amy.
but anyway. today my goals are: finish dumb banking class, submit resume to UMO, freak out about matt's plans to build me a house. catch that last one. a house. hmm. with walls and stuff. bizarre.
before i rant about the house thing, i've been pondering applying at UMO. it's just a regular job, but it would be cool to have free grad school and it's a little more money than the bank and there would be more young people in orono. i could have like, friends. i have to ask mary if she'd be willing to recommend me.
matt seems happy enough for me to make more money and have grad school free, it seems he would also like for me to live with him in amherst. which is where he is building. it's tempting because i'm poor, and he's nice. it's probably a bad idea because i've only known him for 6 months, he has no electricity* or running water as of yet, and because the apartment is very small, and mostly because i would have nothing of my own and i'd feel out of place in what was supposed to be my home and i couldn't live like that. mr. matt is a practical soul, and will understand most of those reasons, the last one will be hard for him.
it seems, especially per the house conversation of last evening, that he has decided about me where i haven't really decided about him. he was showing me what he planned to build and asking my opinion. i know he's stepping up his plans because i'm in his life, because that's how he puts it himself. he told me once that he couldn't see the sense in building a house with more than two bedrooms, and i saw my life flash before my eyes: a life just like his parent's. which since they're happy folks shouldn't disapoint me, but who wants to life someone else's life? meanwhile, the house he wants to build is something like this. check out the gallery. so i guess the life he wants isn't someone else's, it's very much his own. it's his own vision and that i can get behind. not that i'm ready to move in with him. with or without a beautiful house. but they take a long time to build, plenty of time to think about it.

*technically he has a generator. so there is electricity. sometimes.

at lunchtime i went to show mr. matt the kitty pictures. pretty much he's resigned that i won't be able to turn down homeless kitties. but dear god three! he said he'll be completely outnumbered. which is true now anyway, not that cats really count in the battle of the sexes. those silly oversensitive men, counting furry estrogen. hardly fair.
i did say "it could be worse, it could be babies." and he cheered right up. hmm.

kirsten is good at propaganda. she should work for the government. she's that good.
she sent me kitten pictures including one hand drawn in marker featuring me playing with two blue eyed grey furred kittens and and chairman meow with a sad face. two kittens you say? why yes, because the home fell through for kitten b. i'm so soft. how can i have three cats? how can i separate two happy sisters? I CAN'T HAVE THREE CATS. matt, oh matt who will suffer in silence and say "i can't believe you have three cats."
they are the cutest little grey fuzzies you ever saw, with blue eyes the size of frenchman's bay*.

****this just in "do we need 3 kitties?" says matt. the we is another story but he's quite right. but how do i say no to a homeless kitten who loves it's sister? DEAR GOD HOW?**** when he sees the pictures he won't be able to turn them down either, but really, what will i do with three kitties?

*unnecessary obscure local reference.

so, no permanent damage. he couldn't conclusively say it was sundamage, but said instead that they are damaged and probably it was the sun. I have a bit of a sunburn and he asked if i was wearing sunscreen and i said yes and he said think about your eyes with no sunscreen. but he said they will heal and he gave me some drops and i'm supposed to try to avoid bright light and anything that strains my eyes. he also said that this is nigh impossible and just to do the best i could and take breaks if i needed them. he was a very nice man. i have another appt. to get a new prescription, insurance restrictions be damned, and i will get sunglasses. oh yes. what good is money in your pocket if you go blind and get wrinkly (thanks mare! i can add vanity to my list of worries right under permanent sight loss).
so there's the update on that, maybe something interesting and unmedical will happen to me later, that would be cool.

so, quebec was wonderful. and full of people and pretty hills and sun. and sun. and sun. because i am cheap, i have no proper sunglasses and the sun...lets say it was blinding with the brightness. and now, i have an emergency appt with the eye doctor to stem the tide of macular degeneration or corneal sunburn or WHATEVER the fuck is wrong with my eyes. mary thinks i'll end up with those huge sunglasses that go over your regular glasses, the ones my meme has. which, though patently unnatractive, beats permanent blindness. so, update on that tomorrow.
probably i shouldn't be typing, or reading, or working because i can't SEE. but whatever.
so, just to say, vacation was wonderful. and i'm going blind. peace out.

as i mentioned, i'm going to be canadian this weekend, so no blogging till next week. i'm very excited, i have my two dollar coins all ready. and my holographic bills. it's all so thrilling. i have to give myself a manicure and buy flip-flops. i have to do my dishes and matt is going to scour the car. of his volition. he likes cleaning cars.
i'm more brain dead lately than i have ever been. and apparently, everyone is enjoying it. when the trainees said "gee, you wear a lot of black" and i said "i know, i dress like satan's receptionist" i didn't think it would cause such an uproar. really, it was a harsh realization that i need to think color a bit more when i'm shopping.
out of computer time. have a good weekend everyone. 8 of you should expect postcards.

we're going to canada this weekend and it's going to be hot. if i wanted a hot vacation, i wouldn't have chosen canada folks. it better be temperate, it wouldn't be right to sweat in canada. it's not the done thing. while we're there, sweating, i'm going to go to a bookstore and buy 7 postcards that are 4 for a dollar. or maybe 9. this happens all the time at my store and i just don't understand it. do there people have an odd number of acquaintances just to annoy me? is that probably an unreasonable thought. i would buy 8, if they were four for a dollar. unless i only had two dollars, and then i'd buy 7, to account for the tax. under no circumstances would i buy nine. if there are 9 people i had to send a postcard to, well, someone would get cut. "oh you didn't get the card! matt don't you remember mailing it? i must have misaddressed it. well, it really was beautiful" i had to get that out because when people come up to buy 7 or 9 i really want to ask them why? WHY NOT 8? but i think since it's so obviously my anal compulsive disorder i shouldn't assault the public.
i should also mention that i'm tired. and i've been tired. and i'm making matt tired with my senseless ranting and hyper caffeinatedness. what does he mean i wear him out?

everyday i think about my mom, but i don't talk about her all that much. the prevailing thought is that she now knows how dirty my house is, and all about my tattoos and that i never study my gre books anymore. really though, i think if she had the choice she wouldn't hang around to witness daily human life. except maybe to see reid and grace grow up. i think it would bore her. although the gossip in her would want to know what's going on, and the mother in her would be telling me to apply to grad school and buy higher quality chocolate. for the health benefits.*
she would love grace's earnest little face, and to hear her using so many words at 16 months.** she would say she looks like jeff, when really she looks just like me.***
i find myself thinking and saying more things exactly the way she would every day. and it's freaking me out. case in point: last night at the store we were discussing a traffic accident where a tractor trailer lost its' brakes and ran off into the shoulder up into some trees. i couldn't help thinking "aww, the driver was trying to protect all those other cars". anyone who knew my mother will understand that i was directly channeling her at this moment. my mother who always left the closest parking spaces open for "young mothers because they'll need it". i park far away to exercise my fat ass, but parking lots always make me think of her.


*bonafide actual occurrence.
**the woman started her college fund at three months completely convinced that she was saying "hi" at that age and surely she would be a prodigy.
***just shorter and with a better vocabulary.

i'm training today, and i was training yesterday, so my computer access is very limited. pretty much i just stand behind her and watch and make sure she doesn't give anyone too much money. i've been working the school of letting her make mistakes and then having to figure them out later, but then maybe i'm just mean like that.
today is mr. matt's birthday. we actually celebrated on saturday, with dinner and a trip to the bangor fair. where he won me a $30 stuffed donkey. a more appropriate fair prize there never was.