clearly a meme and not an original. a slew of my favorite kids books are on here. i now wonder if my mom picked them on purpose. the italics are ones i've read.


Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

i got my first phonecall about the GEO. and i'm a moron already. i kept reminding myself that i was going to get random phone calls, but i forgot. this gent wanted to know the miles, and since i couldn't remember that either, i had to call him back. and i had to leave him a message. if you've ever received a phone message from me, you know how embarrassing it must have been. i'm assuming that either it'll be a no sale on that call, or he'll wheedle me into the ground based on my stupidity. i guess we'll see. i'm going to practice being articulate for the next one, if there is a next one. i wonder what insurance would give us if we just torched it and called it a freak accident. not that i would do that. on purpose.
while i was talking to my dad, he was telling me all about his adventures in babysitting. apparently grace was feeding him last night. she was repaying the favor. she'll be allset to take care of the next baby.
i spent my evening washing the mold from my bathroom ceiling with a bleach solution. old houses i guess. i imagine it'll be better when it's cold, what self-respecting kind of mold would live in maine in the winter. all the hip molds go to palm beach.
i was in ellsworth also yesterday, shamedly shopping at walmart. where else is one supposed to buy laundry detergent? there's no local laundry store to patronize. there just isn't. so i went to walmart and i'm going to give the arm & hammer a try. it was cheap and it's full of baking soda goodness. i was considering the woolite dark wash, because of satan's dress code, but what happens if you wash something light in the dark wash? i'm too lazy to separate and i never have enough quarters* anyway so i just wash everything in cold. so arm & hammer it is. they make great kitty litter, why not laundry detergent? the possibilities of baking soda are seemingly endless.


*i could go to the gas station next door and get quarters, but the teeth to employee ratio is way off the norm and they make me nervous.

no one recognizes laura thornton's name because she got married, laura hamilton ring any bells? i very often forgot that folks get married and change their names and then you have no idea who they really are. more later

i've been feeling very girly lately. above and beyond the every day domestics. while amy was here she was forced to help me buy perfume, shoes and shop for handbags. the horror. the perfume was from the duty free shop on the border. it's elizabeth arden's green tea. two amies agreed that it was lovely, and it was cheap. we also bought cheap alcohol, hopefully amy's grey goose made it home in one piece.
i was trying to find something appropriate and seasonal to wear to sara the bank teller's wedding this sunday, and so amy had to survive the mall with me. i didn't actually have any luck. i'm still praying that old navy opens saturday...but as a compromise i picked up some femme heels to dress up some work clothes. sara won't care, but it's a mark of respect to look nice. they make me taller than matt. which he suggested should help me reach things. it's not that i can't reach them myself, i just like it when he does it for me. it's the principle of the thing.
i looked at bags in marshalls and tjmaxx, the only stores i could ever afford to purchase one in, but had no luck. the only one i really liked was $60. since no one else in the bangor municipal area can afford that price either (atleast no one who shops at tjmaxx) i have great hopes that if i'm diligent enough it'll be marked down more and i'll catch the deal. shopping is a sport after all, it's all about strategy.

my problem with martha, while i love reading the magazine, is that i'm both too cheap and too lazy to do alot of her things. but gosh, how i love to look at them. i've been thinking of indulging myself with a magazine subscription. maybe martha, maybe some fashion rag. i haven't decided. i think cooking light would be too practical, i wouldn't want to get something i'd actually use. where's the entertainment there? that's utility. and who wants that?
i'd been idly looking for a cookie cutter in the shape of a maple leaf, to fulfill one of martha's ideals. but i didn't want to actually spend the money on one. it seems that matt, being a machinist, can make me cookie cutters in any shape i want. jackpot. it would be fun to make caricatures of the reid and grace and decorate them to give the children different moods. happy grace, grumpy grace. and then you could eat the grumpy one. chomp. but then maybe my sister won't relish canniballizing her children.
the queen mary 2 is in portland today, but it's so foggy they used the footage of her rolling into bar harbor instead. crafty bastards.

we did a bit of a tour of the st laurent. we stayed in trois rivieres and took day trips to montreal and quebec city. mostly we drove around and ate alot which is a nice change of pace from working alot and eating alot. amy let me cook for her, as though she'd really stop me, and i tried to teach her how to make mac and cheese. if she's tuning in i'd also like to say that the fish chowder was a lot better the next day and i really rather impressed myself. not that it's hard exactly.
matt and i are going to use the rest of the apples tonight. his father offered me jars if i canned my applesauce, which i guess is a compliment.
i have an inexplicable urge to subscribe to the martha stewart magazine. i was browsing in it a bit at the bookstore last night and it's really very fun. i'll probably never go out and buy old fashioned candy jars and print labels for them that say "dastardly treats, dissatisfaction guaranteed" but if i had the jars around already, i might be persuaded. i'll probably never dry fresh cocscumb(i really have no idea if i've spelled that right) and put it under glass to pretend it's some one's brain, but i might upend the glass, and leave a trail of oooze where the brain should be. that would be cheaper, and more ooogy.
i'll probably never spray paint my pumpkins black, or buy white ones, but i think they both looked pretty cool. maybe if i had children to frighten a glowing black pumpkin would be more worthwile. i wonder how much self respect it would cost to get a subscription?

news from hood is that laura thornton passed away. it seems she graduated with us, i feel terribly that i can't remember her. it's sad that so many hoodlums are passing.

it was a very relaxing week off, so much so it seems there's nothing to say about this past week. mr. cosby was very funny and the common ground fair was very earthy (and the pro-life protestors were very innapropriate, should anyone else have seen them). despite leaving for canada a day late, i still forgot my shoes. we had to stop at dick's in bangor* where amy pronounced the footwear associate a dyke within seconds of spotting her**. it was very strange to be having that kid of conversation again. i suppose i could incite such discussions with matt, but he just wouldn't care.
customs gave us absolutely no shit, the hotel was better for 65 dollars a night than we could have hoped for (amy tried all three of the proffered breakfast meats), and she pushed the limits of her love for fromage. we visited a condemned prison, the tour was conducted by an ex inmate and it was fabulous. the best part of our trip second only to amy meeting matt's brother upon our return. highlights include "you know what they say about girls that wear bandanas" amy telling him that her cock was bigger than his, and this gem of an exchange: nate "i'll bend you over the sink right now" amy "the men's room or the ladies room, i'd blend into the mens but what'll it do to your reputation?". oh dear. bangor is just not ready.



*this sentence deserves two footnotes...one because there's an old navy and a famous footwear opening in bangor, and while the all consuming developement sucks, i'm very excited not to have to drive 3 hours to capitalize on my greedy consumerism.
** and secondly, anyone who knows any mas will not be surprised that the shoe lady is gay.

i'm going canadian next week, see you all in october!

you know, hot applesauce burns like a mofo when it bubbles out of the pan. but it's really yummy on vanilla ice cream. i succeeded in making matt jealous when he called with that last bit. the applesauce is really for him, i'm not that big of a fan of cold applesauce. i guess i could nuke it, but that's just so wrong.
i've been trying to find something worth doing between st. john canada and quebec city, and frankly...there's nothing. moose, and pine trees and towns that end their names in depot (mary spotted that, something about new brunswick). i guess we'll be deciding where to go on sunday, whilst i force feed amy zucchini. it seems there's more going on around the st. laurent, i was just hoping to spend some time speaking english. because i am a bourgeois spoiled american, and also lazy.
i suppose there is something relaxing about not speaking the language, you're kind of devoid of responsibility. although i sort of fear driving down that blockaded, vertical, cobblestoned hill road that matt had to back the car up and around a sightless curve because there's just no way that i can do what he did, because i can't drive. i'd have to make amy go and move the blockade and then drive down ahead of the parade narrowly escaping the french police. just like the bourne identity, but with a honda. why don't they do car chases with hondas anyway? i feel i could identify with that, but then i suppose eco-friendly, thrifty, single women don't really identify with car chase driving.

i put about three cups of zucchini into the spaghetti sauce last night, and i'm finally conquering the beast. there's still plenty left. but i'm starting to feel like i'm winning. the rest of it is getting used tonight. everything in the fridge gets roasted, no survivors. amy is coming saturday and i won't be around much next week, so all the fresh food must be eaten. there will be salad, and roasted vegetables and a whole lot of bread that had to leave the freezer to make room for the pies. i have reached my cooking saturation point. i still enjoy it, it's just really hard to eat all that food by yourself. despite my landlord's idea that i have a permanent roommate, most nights i'm only feeding myself and by the looks of my kitchen i'm cooking for an army. an army that really likes squash, and baklava, and fine cooking chocolate.
i am excited to have a guest, even if i do have to clean. i'm hoping the sun will rise over the ocean just right so my house will be all pink inside. that's the best part of living on the ocean, a pink house. i'm also hoping that i can make it look like someone neat lives there. someone who takes the recycling in sometimes. you know, last time i went i made 8 dollars. and .05 cents a can. now you know what my shed looks like. no really, it's that bad.

there has always been a computer policy at work, warning us all that we should be using our time better than "surfing" the web. as far as i know, neither i or anyone i know are in trouble regarding this policy, but we were reminded of it yesterday. we were sufficiently freaked out and understaffed to keep me from blogging about how i set my cat on fire this weekend. which is a shame because that was a great story. especially since chairman meow is fine and was only really upset by my screaming and chasing her with a towel. (cough) but anyway, i have no expectation of being dooced, though i'm sure i've earned it. the internet is only one of one thousand ways i can waste my valuable workday time. it's just the one thing that is logged. they have no idea how many library books i've read during my tenure. or how many bowls of cream i've whipped while on the clock. or indeed how many letters i've written, or bills i've paid, et cetera. and still, we meet our goals and exceed our expectations. so i'm really just not going to worry about it at present.
we picked and bought 34 pounds of apples on sunday. we made 11 pies and baked one. i'm planning to make applesauce, and applecake and...well...i don't know what else but you get the picture. i'm surrounded by glorious tart crisp mcintosh apples. it's fall-tastic. i wanted to get a big blue hubbard squash too, but it wasn't that kind of orchard and frankly i might not be woman enough to deal with a squash of that calibur. i'm still in zucchini overload. plenty of time for fall squashes when all that damn zucchini is ate up.
i've been trying to convince sara that an apple pie is a very good wedding present. we've been bartering. in addition, she will receive one large or two small pumpkin pies whenever i get around to making them and she would also like an oil change. the mechanic in question is amenable to the deal, if sara can get her car to amherst. once there, sara will try to convince him to look at her brakes, and since he's matt i'm certain that won't be a problem. he's adorably malleable.

difficult tasks make me cranky. even though it was completed with limited effort on my part, i'm still cranky about it. i cleaned my apartment as little as necessary for the realty crew coming through today. i'm not all that much less lazy for having more free time. this weekend is apple picking and pie weekend. traditionally my mom would make a ham or a turkey for apple sunday. also, by tradition, there would be four or five families there. since it will be just matt and myself, maybe a cornish game hen or two. although that might cause domestic overload.
we had a discussion about thanksgiving recently, whether or not i'm going home. i really should go home, but i have to work the friday after. meaning, i'd have to drive down the night before and up the night of. lo be the unpleasantness. it would not be unpleasant to give thanks with his family, just weird. last year's thanksgiving was spent by myself and it wasn't all that bad. i think i made a pizza but i can't really remember. i'm kind of excited to do my own cooking this year, which is why i want to have thanksgiving sunday. sort of a test run. maybe i'll get all this fall cooking mania out of my system.

as bank employees, we are encouraged to take classes in banking. law and banking, principles of banking, today's teller. very exciting. if you take enough classes, eventually you get a raise. we study the same things in every class, but they're free and not really all that difficult.
mare, you might like them. pick one up at the library, they're in number order. i think they're hilarious. they're not like, great american literatire or anything, definitely a guilty pleasure.

mare, here is the evanovich fan site. i can't remember why i took it down, i must have been feeling like redecorating.
i could sit and write them in word, and spell check them maybe. perhaps i'll get more businesslike in the winter. when every extra step brings you a minute closer to home and hot cocoa.
right now i'm supposed to be cramming for a stupid bank mid-term. law and banking applications. i'm trembling with excitement. and fear.

every time i blog the computer eats it. it's getting rather frustrating and i'm starting to worry that the main office is getting my transmissions when they come to fix the computers.
i've been doing a lot of shopping online. but all in the interest of saving money. i picked up some sale jeans at the gap, and some wholesale spices i can't wait to get, and some things at the honeysuckle shop for sarah's wedding since there's a bit of a sale on. since i have to buy sarah a coffeemaker or some such for the actual wedding, some on sale fun stuff is the perfect addition to her wedding present. and i can give it to her without her whole family watching, so that's good too. it's all very exciting.
as tonight might be our last night grilling, it's getting really cold not to mention dark, we're having a very traditional barbecued chicken with Kraft(r) original sauce. this is in homage to holly's mom who makes the best chicken ever, with kraft sauce. there's just something about it. like cooking voodoo. matt was given a choice between grilled chicken and chicken tacos* and he chose grilled. i think i'm going to add mashed potatoes and skewered squash and i have to do something with some tomatoes. if we were having tacos i could've made fresh salsa. i don't know what i'll do with them now, they might well end up skewered.
this week i have read almost all of the #1 ladies detective agency books, i'm working on the last one now. they are adorable and charming, no matter what thay lady customer last night said. who subsequently chose the incident of the dog in the night for her laid back beach read. if you tell me all of my suggestions are awful WHY DO YOU STILL WANT MY SUGGESTION? i just don't get it.
another customer asked if i went to harvard. and then if i worked at harvard. and then if i lived in cambridge. apparently i look just like a young woman in the harvard square area. another very sweet woman asked me what a puffin was. she'd never heard of them before. i had wanted to ask her where she was from but i thought it might have been rude. now i wish i had. many students from COA came in looking for the great gatsby, which we have been trying to get for them. they are all severely bummed that we don't have it. but i say, didn't these kids go to highschool? doesn't everyone have to read the great gatsby? like ethan frome?


*in retrospect i don't think matt knows what chicken tacos are. i imagine he was choosing between ground chicken with taco sauce and filets on the grill. the better idea would have been not to ask him and just make the tacos. he doesn't need all that free will, it just confuses him.

i just bought popcorn from the boyscouts. because the boy is very nice. i couldn't help myself. damn boy scouts.

COA is taking in a bunch of Loyola students. dear god i hope they find them housing. and give them coats.

i just finished devil in the white city and it is fabulously disgusting. i knew how ooogie it would be and i wasn't disapointed. i suggest it to all avid readers. except marianne. i don't think you'd like it sweetie, it's very graphic.

trite things first. the baklava came out well, it's very easy and the glaze smells like the best honey tea when it's simmering. it seems that no amount of cream cheese frosting can really help those banana bread things. it's just not meant to be. in the cooking realm today i have to find a way to use pattipan squash, the extra phyllo, and a few cups of cream cheese frosting. squash tartlets...uhm...with frosting? hmmm. i also have an unreasonable amount of sliced provolone cheese to dispose of. the problem with breaking the no buying food rule is that you totally forget you have food and so it never gets eaten. probably i should keep an inventory on the front of the fridge, with dates. like a syllabus of meals.

cooking drama out of the way, history lesson onward.

we start today early in the war. the union army is getting trampled in virginia and is very, very slowly moving out from their capital into hostile territory. we know that as a rule, early in the war, the Confederate Army had more "talent" in their ranks that did the U.S. Army. the Navy was a completely different story.
the U.S. Navy did not lose a whole lot of sailors to the confederate cause. one, they were on US Naval vessels and didn't have much hope of staging individual insurgencies, and two the navy was more of a northern tradition anyway. Shipping and boatbuilding were simply more prominent in the north. where the army was short of successes early on in the war, the navy had a much better record.
the us navy instituted a blockade on southern ports that was almost immediately effective. the effect being to prevent the inflow of imported goods and the export of cotton* and putting a stranglehold on the confederate economy. there were ofcourse blockade runners to cuba and other nearby ports, but prices for runner's goods were generally so inflated that only the very wealthy could afford them. what the fuck does this have to do with new orleans, well very little really. we're getting there.
NO was a port city, obviously, but since the blockade did not immediately effect the mississippi river trade still floursihed up and down the river. being a patriotic city, most of the city's available fighting age men were away at war. however, the city was by no means defenseless. canon shown down on the mississippi protecting the city and the only open trade route from the threat of the US Navy. as both sides are equally guilty of underestimating eachother, it won't break any hearts if i say that the defenders of NO weren't all that vigilant since those northerners aren't all that bright. it came as quite a surprise to them to find that one morning a union warship had disquised itself as a cotton barge and came up river under cover of darkness. the battle of NO was very short and turned the tide of the war in the favor of the north earlier than they are ever given credit for.
the best part of this whole story is not that NO was taken easily, but what happens after. as we've discussed, the inhabitants of the city are about %90 female maybe %80 if there were alot of old men and slaves still there.
the union officers who patrolled NO were under the impression that it was still one country and we're all "americans" and put in a great deal of effort to treat the city not like it was captured but that it was uhm...being watched just until the war was all over. the women of NO had differing opinions. they crossed to the other side of the street if a union officer was walking their way. if there was a chance encounter they spat at the officers. respectable ladies did not spit in the 1860's. in short, the women of NO made it abundantly clear that the US was not welcome, fighting the war the only way they knew how.
'course the occupying forces instituted a law that any woman who behaved as such to a union officer would be arrested as a prostitute. but that's not really the point. NO is a proud city and i totally understand why some folks refuse to abandon it.


*no selling cotton, no money. also no cotton for england and all their haughty shirtwaists so they started planting in india. when american cotton was again available, they'd already found cheaper prices and so begins one of many southern recessions.

with the cut in my hours, my life is starting to feel like mine again. since i've had no time to cook i've been drooling at my desk at all the recipes i'd like to try. but i don't have to work tonight, do i'm going to make a vegetable stir fry with a whole bunch of the zuchini that matt's mom gave me. i'm going to frost my banana bars* with neufchatel frosting and i'm going to make baklava. it's going to be a big night in my oven. i've never made baklava before but it looks pretty easy. butter, philo, butter. i'll let you know what it's like tomorrow. the recipe says it's freezable. i can defrost it and send it home with matt this weekend.
in other cooking news: i made a very good macaroni and cheese this weekend, and some very hard core lemon pepper chicken. very hard core. adding truth to the fact that dried spices are more effective than fresh ones. by a lot.
i've been all about my kitchen lately, cooking and refining recipes. i'm supposed to send my cousin a recipe for her bridal shower and i've been trying to pick one that will hold up the family honor. i'm also thinking that i'm going to be cooking the thanksgiving dinner this year. my sister will be very pregnant by that time. i'm thinking lemon pepper turkey?

i was debating the merits of the cooking post, because that's what i've been doing most this weekend, versus a post about new orleans in the civil war. clearly i started with the food stuff. maybe i'll work on my history lesson for tomorrow.



*these were supposed to be two breads, in two 8 inch pans of one 9 inch pan. the pans were right, the recipe was very wrong. i should have realized it from the beginning, how can the contents of one 9 inch pan make two 8 inch breads? so, banana bars. with cream cheese frosting. and chopped walnuts. because secretly martha stuart makes me hot.

martha's out on the carriage roads today. and apparently she was nice. prison can't be so bad.

i've been trying to write something all day and everything i get down eventually gets trashed. what is there to write about so much devastation? personal things all seem so trivial. you should see the pile of saved as drafts, really it's amazing how much drivel you can write when your thoughts are compromised by news reports from the south and your dad is weeping on the phone because that poor man's wife was swept away. i've earmarked the money i would've spent on coffee to go to the red cross because my mom will kick my ass on the other side if i can't see fit to show the generous compassion she would. i'd rather go without the caffeine.

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.

so we got busy. in a banking sort of way. however, i did go pick up my puffin tin and i'm very excited. mostly i've been stroking it and printing out six hundred recipes for puffins. i asked matt if he liked puffins. and boy, was he confused. he must really like me to not have run screaming into the night. bless him.

so many exciting things to blog about.
firstly, the smake will be layeth on rick when he gets back from vacation.
secondly, i met dr. gottfried on the street in bar harbor. they love maine, they love bar harbor. she says hi to sarah. and we chatted about my dubious future. and you know the weird thing, i wasn't all that surprised to see her. i was kind of expecting it. strange.
but even better than that, you know why i was standing on the street while i should have been at work? because the power was out from 6 until about midnight. do you reckon the store closed? no, it did not. we worked from the light of my maglight and some kids camping lights from the toy section and my cell phone as the only working phone line. we sold a lot of candles, and batteries, and kid's camping flashlights. i very nearly murdered a child who flatly refused to select a book while his mother cajoled him for ten minutes and my flashlight arm grew weary.
while our generator didn't come on, and rite aid's generator didn't come on, Geddy's did. and as the only restaurant open in town, they served dinner until 2 am to alot of tourists with very literally nowhere else to go.

last night was by far the best evening i've spent at the bookstore, and working with my new colleague laura is just the best. she's kind and competent and we get along very well. tonight, if i remember, i'm going to pick up a popover pan* using my handy dandy discount. i can't say i'm not excited. even more exciting is all the ridiculous drama that's happening at the book store, not the least of which is hearing someone on the sidewalk bitching about how this bank took down their sign. the really exciting part is the human resources problem that brought one of my younger co-workers nearly to tears, and his name is rick.
i didn't meet rick until sunday, as i'm taking over some of his hours we don't often work at the same time. since everyone else has gotten to know him so well these past weeks, i was warned that he's a "toucher". the very first interaction i had with him goes thus: picture me with cash in hand to put into the register and then make change, such as is done say EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS in a retail store. he is standing directly in front of the cash register, and directly next to me (which actually happens alot, it's a small cash wrap) so i say "do you want to do this?" and he says "no" and doesn't move. so i say "well, we both can't stand here". so maybe, that wasn't the fluffiest way to say you're in my way. and when the next time he spoke to me he said "you have no sense of humor do you?" and i said "nope" and he walked away, i figured we knew where we stood and we could co-exist selling books with no need for him to stand in my space or touch me. which he didn't. what he did was go to another co-worker, ask her what my problem was and say that i was the "coldest fish he ever met". which is fine with me. i like fish. all swimmy and tasty with a little squirt of lemon. what he didn't need to do was go to same co-worker and pat her belly while she ate a cookie and tell her she didn't need said cookie and her boyfriend would dump her when he saw how much heavier she had gotten. that is the tiniest bit of the boundaries of appropriate work behavior, esp. for a mid-fifties man and a 20 year-old girl. he should know better, and she should've kicked his ass.
as she related the story to me, i said "he had to pick on a skinny girl because if he said that to a fat girl like me i'd have kicked his derrogatory bony ass" to which she said "who says you don't have a sense of humor". really. so, the girls are getting together and having a meeting with our boss today. it's of no consequence to me what he thinks or says about me, but 20 year old girls don't need anyone telling them they're fat. especially dirty old men. despite myself i can't wait to know what happened. and also to get my puffin tin. and to tell matt i'm a cold fish and hear his indignance on my behalf.


*which i keep referring to as my "puffin pan". just thirty minutes on low and your puffins are ready to go!

one of the guys who works upstairs saw me taking my netflix back to the post office, and promptly offered me his card so we can be "friends". since i have no like, i said sure, and now i have a friend. on netflix. i picked his favorite movie, lord of the fireflies, having never met him before. am i good or what?
i have about four books half read right now. i'm still reading the darcy book, i picked up the finer points of sausage dogs, a galley from the bookstore and i'm finishing my second reading of harry potter*. i have some books to send to folks. amongst other things, like ramen noodles for sarah. i've been playing with the idea of taking up coffee drinking. since my ass is dragging on more than just taking out the trash, and the clanking in my coffers isn't sufficient to motivate me, it might be a necessary step. and since i'm spending no money on food, i can sort of afford those extra sugary chocolate infused frozen drinks that aren't really coffee at all.
sara and i have been debating the dietary uselessness of such drinks. she argued it should count as dairy. and since cheese is dairy, it's practically atkins. and so cheez-its, while certainly crackers, are also atkins friendly because really they're cheese. not that either of us are on atkins, nor to say they we both probably couldn't stand to pay a bit more attention to our...uhm...diets, such as they are. mostly we're just bored out of our minds. more than actual diets, we discuss budgets. like budgets for food. sara and her fiance spent 600 dollars a month on groceries last year. for two people who weren't working, that is a shit load of money for food. i should probably budget, but i don't. laziness, fear of reality, i'm not sure why i don't budget. i'm sure i spent too much on cookies last winter, but i was under duress. i NEEDED the cookies. and i only bought the sale ones, so it hardly even counts. sad...


*the first time i read the lastest release, i read it as fast as possible because i need to know what happens. I NEED TO KNOW. and then i read it again to pick up the volumes of stuff i've missed in my info gathering reading. matt could not believe that i finished it in a day. he has a lot to learn.

this group against genetically engineered food is upset with us because they were rude. rather like mr. vegan from february. you know what, it's a courtesy to ask before you post a sign in a private business. it might very well be illegal, althugh honestly i won't bother to check up on the laws. conjecture is safer. the last poster we took down was for the "all christian festival" or "salvation day" or whatever. they didn't ask for permission either. but atleast they didn't come in to bitch at us about our political reasons for taking down their sign.

anyone who tells us our poster policies are politically motivated is not allowed to post on our window. 'nuff said.

the high points of daily existence recently have been: being told off by a walking policeman shouting "slow down!" when i was going 26 in a 25, scratching my glasses on a christmas tree, and working 65 hours a week. so i've been busy. and tired. and probably grumpy, although no one's commented on it. the upside is that it looks like working all these hours is finally going to make a difference financially. august, is going to be a good month. dammit.
i have been true to my plan to stay the hell out of the grocery store. i have a list in my wallet. milk, bread, eggs, butter, fresh veggies. those are the only things i am allowed to purchase. i have more grains and canned goods than any single person should ever have in their one bedroom apartment. if the apocolypse comes, i'm all set. if i could transition kitty to an all rice diet, she'd still be set for about three years. this evening i'm planning on making fried rice. i even have peapods. i'll use the long grain wild rice with dehydrated vegetables. that and the peapods practically equals gourmet. peapods really raise the calibur of any dish, they'll show those dehydrated veggies who's boss.
so when i'm not imagining little peapod men showing off their muscles, i've been reading the new harry potter. and sitting on my couch drooling. as SC suggested, one does have to hire in help for the laundry and the cleaning when one works all the damn time. on friday, matt arrived at my house half an hour before i did, and washed all my dishes. and whoa, were there a lot of them. and actually they were pretty gross. and then he bought me dinner. this could work out.

i was home sick yesterday, sans computer access. i had a rather debillitating fever sunday afternoon and monday. but i sat on my couch and moaned and now i'm feeling better.
the birthday party went well. it was supposed to be a surprise, but he showed up early and surprised us instead. dad and matt talked about cars almost non-stop and we all ate alot of food. recipe for success.
i am currently hiding from my friend mr. "WAKE UP". i hate him. possibly even i loathe him. last week he told one of our other customers he met outside the bank that he woke us up for her. WHY WHY WHY would anyone say that? argh.
i bought sara a wedding shower gift this weekend in beautiful tax free new hampshire. my dad saved me a bed bath and beyond coupon, which is where she's registered, so i bought her the cheapest wedding blender ever. she's excited that someone bought it so she can make smoothies. that's worth 15 bucks. matt was fascinated by nashua and it's ridiculous amount of stores. he counted over ten dunkin donuts on the way to the mall. and when i took him down the cart escalator in target he said "take a picture, no one in maine will believe this". we went in to macy's because he'd never been and he bought some tools in sears for a 5% discount. we walked through frederick;s of hollywood as he's never been and he is amazed that larger bra sizes come padded. he doesn't get it and really neither do i. does any one know?

i've been thinking about canceling the netflix. it's almost 20 dollars a month that could go somewhere else, like uhm gas, and i've been really too busy to watch them. i had myself very nearly convinced until last night when i watched Saved!* which i highly recommend. i'm planning to make matt watch it with me, i just don't know when. he's been watching monarch of the glen with me. he likes it so much he was sort of bummed that i was finishing the disc without him.
i thought financial things would improve with two jobs. and i was mistaken. i was hopeful that things would improve and then i needed to fix my brakes. but really i should be glad i have the money from the second job to pay for the brakes. and then the bookstore overpaid me by ten hours. which is fine except the corrected this week. so when you work 15 hours a week, and they subtract 10, you get a seriously tiny ass paycheck and you weep in the trade paperbacks aisle. but it is only fair and just and now we're all even. it just makes my situation more vivid.


* but i'm a cheerleader for christians.

i have started preparations for mr. matt's birthday. which sounds really fancy. actually all i did was order him a subscription to this magazine. an easy gift because every time he buys one he says "i should really get a subscription" and then he forgets. it's foolproof. actually i'm supposed to work on his birthday, which he hasn't mentioned. but we're going to canada that weekend, and probably he won't really care as it falls mid week and he and his whole family have to work too. see, i'm not such a bitch.
there have been a few temporary schedule changes at the bookstore, and i'm THRILLED. it means i don't have to work with mrs. senility* tonight, and that can only be good. probably i'm lazy and impatient, but she makes my job twice as hard. scenario: customer wants to know if the new harry potter audio book will be released friday at midnight. i say "i'm sorry, the audio book isn't coming out the same night." mrs. s says "don't we have it already?" i say "no, it hasn't come out yet." she says "oh, where did i see that, it must be over here." customer looks confused, looks to me "is it coming out saturday or not?" i say "no", mrs. s says "oh yes, it'll be here friday at midnight" and i say to her "the audio version of the new harry potter will be here friday at midnight? because the computer says it won't be." she says "oh, isn't it in back in the kids section."** and then i went screaming in to traffic.
this perfectly innocuous woman really pushes my buttons. she's not mean or grumpy, but she'scompletely insane. for one, she only recommends walter the farting dog to boys and not girls, when every child loves this book regardless of the limits of their gender. and two when she asked me if i was working harry potter night i said "no, i have to go home" and she said "visiting your mom?" and i said "that would be rather difficult as she's dead"*** because i've told her TWICE already that my mom passed away in may. so, tonight, kyle. and i am so relieved. i like kyle. kyle moved here to finalize a break up with a girl, to breath the bracing sea air. how can you not like a boy who used the word "bracing"?


*i feel BAD about that. i should have more patience because i am sometimes an adult but patience after 15 hours working...i...just...can't...do it.
**verbatim, except half as long.
***maybe that was uncalled for, but honestly i don't think she was listening.

if mr. matt were any cuter i'd have to stuff him and sit him on my bed with my civil war teddies. this weekend he helped me buy a tire*, i met his car racing cousin, and went out "drinking" with his brother and his ex. his brother is very nice, when he's alone. he's not un-nice, or say mean, when he's with the ex but his personality takes a 360 and he's much less pleasant. one of their favorite things to do together is to make sexual comments every minute in every conversation in any social setting. this gets old. fast. after knowing eachother for three months there's no need to ask us when we're getting married, there's no need to ask if i'm moving out to his apartment, and there's no need to say "no road head, lots of cops out tomight" EVER EVER EVER. ever. and when we were driving home matt said one of the reasons he likes me so much is because i have class. and in comparison, I TOTALLY GET IT. i may set my kitchen on fire, but i wouldn't mention pubic grooming at a dinner party so i guess classy isn't too far off the mark.

because i've been missing so much drama in my life, mrs. dyke from the bookstore and i worked together last night. usually we just over lap for 1/2 an hour, not a full shift. it was weird. she's much more entertaining than my other co-workers. not the least of which because her girlfriend is highly suspicious of me. which sucks because it would have been cool to have more friends. apparently co-worker googled me from hood and found a quote for the history page. GOOD LORD. no wonder the girlfriend is upset. googling is synonymous with, well, i was going to say flirting but really stalking would be more appropriate. it does make life more interesting. until the girlfriend comes after me with a steak knife.


*which actually i can do myself, but he seemed to enjoy doing for me.

when your world is as small as mine in bar harbor and you have no tv, breaking news tends to pass you by. the only news i heard yesterday was about some teenage boys charged with abusing and murdering a dog in Presque Isle. and then my sister mentioned that reid saw reports of the bombings on tv. he was too young to remember new york, but he'll remember london. he thought it was an accident, because at six tragedies occur by accident and not by design.

as mare has hinted, it has been a parade of freaks in here lately. it's a phenomenon named summer. the worst part is when mary's gone and i'm in charge. it's my least favorite when i have to tell the bastard from minnesota that our canadian exchange rate is our rate and we don't compromise. and then he told us we'd cash a "corporate" check for him. he really seemed to think "corporate" was the magic word. because, as we all know, corporations are always legit and have crystal clean finances and the people who sign those corporate checks are the gems of our species and would never defraud anyone. so really it was our stupid policy that was holding this man back. and whoa, did he and his wife have a a nice laugh about our backwater ways on his way to a "real" bank. gee, i hope they enjoyed their vacation.
in the craziness that is summer and vacations and well, lots of people quitting for various reasons...we've been covering somesville for lunches. well, sara has. i've been here with the crazies*. and since sara spends a goog deal of her day not here, i've been the only witness to mary threatening to pull the plug on the money counter if it didn't start to co-operate. and also the thing where she talked like kermit from the muppets for half and hour just because i like it. she's the best.
in good news i have my car back and it has brakes ON ALL FOUR WHEELS! ironically my dad is contemplating giving me my mom's car, probably because he doesn't want me to be squashed like a bug in the honda. matt seemed very disapointed that i might sell the honda, as he has become rather attached to it. apparently it's a jewel to work on, it's all metric. he was practically beaming as he told me about the metric thing, and then he sort of mumbled to himself about whether nissan is all metric? i don't get it, but he changed my oil for free and we're going tire shopping this weekend. he suggested i keep the honda for summers and the nissan for the winters. otherwise he's found a set of snow tires for me. it's nice that he's so worried about my safety, in a control freak kind of way.

* oh my, the crazies. one of our favorite and best customers was in line to make a deposit. and while technically she passed through the door first and was clearly next in line by the right of way we all learned in kindergarten, the lady who came in behind her came and stood RIGHT THE FUCK next to her while she commenced her deposit. our favorite customer, the liquor store, took a step back and said "why don't you go ahead of me" and the woman did and i sent her to another bank because per article on of this post you can't cash any check at any bank at random, but i digress...anyway, so crazy 1 left and just as i was saying "gee, banking is really very private, we should have a velvet rope or something" crazy 2 came walking up and stood directly next to our favorite customer. and then started asking her questions. questions like: "how often do you make deposits?" "do you always deposit that much cash?" "what time do you usually come to the bank?" "and where do you work?". i happen to know that the lady who was asking the questions isn't likely to be a robber, but for real. where is the common sense folks? if it's so common, how come no one can find it (pinched from some asshole making fun of his wife at the bookstore last night, jerk).

it is never legal to sign someone else's as you would your own. even if you are POA. POA means you can sign your name and act for them. not sign their name. and truly, it is not worth me losing my job over your stupidity. it's just not. all i asked you to do was not sign another person's name right in front of me. we have counters for the purpose of your forgery. and don't tell me you know the law better than i do, because you don't. you're the asshole who said you account was "compromised" because your "pretty" checks didn't arrive soon enough. and also, i HATE you, so don't fight with me about your right to commit acts of forgery under my nose when your only complaint on this earth is that the angels on your checks aren't as brightly colored as you thought. argh.

and i made the reservations and we'll be staying here. yay for canada. yay for canadian money. it's all very exciting. i can't wait to spend canadian money. matt is less excited, as it's his money we'll be spending. but i chose a way cheaper hotel than he did. and it has a jacuzzi, and a balcony. who says i'm not thrifty?

actually it must be a genetic thing. we all know my mom was a shopper, a true and sincere shopper, my father is about to trump all her purchases. he's pondering the purchase of one of these. holy shit. happy birthday daddy. remember that cookbook i got you, well, yeah, it SUCKS in comparison...but you'll give me pity excitement anyway.

matt is very excited about my dad's dream car. they'll have plenty to talk about when he comes home with me next weekend. i can't even fathom how weird it's going to be. i can't postulate the weirdness. it's just too weird. too weird. i can't even continue to post, i'm struck dumb by this possibility. weird.

this weekend: a tribute.

the vampsquito, if you saw the huge ass bite on my neck you'd understand.

the child with the impossibly large axe. really, it was bigger that his head.*

scene 1: my car, in pieces in matt's garage. scene 2: meet my chauffeur, and man servant, i call him matt.

and then we got busy an i couldn't type anymore.


*also the child with the hose we had to scheme our way past, and also the child who mixed a box of golfballs with a set of stairs (all we heard was "thunk thunk thunk" times a thousand, we didn't need to see it to put it together).

ring ring "hello blank blank, amy speaking, how can i help you?"
"hello, atm company here, your atm is down."
"no it's not"
"our computer says it is"
"it's not, i just checked it"
"are you sure?"
"yes"
"ok"
"bye"

that was yesterday.

today:

"hello, this is amy, our atm is down."
"our computer says it's fine"
"well, it's not working"
"i don't know what's wrong with it, are you sure it's not working"
"yes. it's a holiday weekend. make it work or face my wrath."
"ok, i 'll call you back."

i am an amy to be feared today. such is my wrath. ROAR!

the dvd player is dead. dead as a doornail. dead as roadkill. dead as the bank on this fine wednesday morning. tomorrow i am going to walmart to replace it with another 40 dollar dvd player that will last a year. and since that's still less than i spent on text messages last month* it's probably worth the money.
matt asked me to lunch today for our "monthaversary" and he said "i almost forgot, i'd be in so much trouble" to which i say "huh?" but then i told him i'd let him buy me flowers to make up for it and he very solemnly said "ok". i expect a hothouse of blooms any minute.
the squeals of harry potter fans are increasing everyday i work at the bookstore. including one child screaming "17 days! IT'S NOT FAIR". if it hadn't been so late at night i'd say that child has a long hard road ahead of him, but probably he was just tired. some of the more stalwart employees are making arrangements for harry potter night aswell. involving sleepovers. i very nearly offered my hard ass floor to one of the sweet girls who works in the center store. except the floor is hard. and i'd have to clean. and the cat would sleep on her head.*** but yet all this might be more in sweet girl's interest than the chattering chat chat chatty pants that she's probably staying with. that's one thing about this job. the chatting. it's very nearly all women. of varying ages. and the chatting. oooooh, the chatting. i can't stand much more chatting. chatting in front of customers. chatting while customers are actually being waited on. and the volume of the chattering. it's indecent. and it makes me completely INSANE. mary and i were discussing the swiftness with which we would fire these individuals, if we had the power. i don't care about your boyfriend's work schedule in boston at the hotel and how you told him you loved him while he was at work and then told all of the patrons aroudn you that he's your boyfriend and they were all so pleased for you and you all talked and drank and sang and went merrily off in to the sunset. I DON'T CARE, and the man trying to buy his copy of the latest dan brown doesn't care EITHER. ARGH. how do these people have jobs? HOW?


*BECAUSE I AM STUPID**.
**(hehe) and i got my bill, and i was like holy shit! and i almost sent matt a text message about the text messaging bill but i was hit over the head with the irony and left bleeding in an alley.
***a privilege to save for those with whom i share lasting relationships.

we are crazy with the busy. which has led sara to sing "crazy in the bank, crazy in the bank" in a continuous loop, just like the black eyed peas song. yo.

mr. matt stayed in town with me last night because he had a board of directors meeting* and also**. it was good because it was very cold out and he is warm. and he washed my dishes, and even tried to scrub the cute red pasta pot that i burned to a crisp on sunday. and also because i was all grumpy this morning until i got to slather his face with dove moisturizing lotion with sunscreen while he was brushing his teeth and he couldn't complain till after when he said "what have you done to me?".***



*doesn't that sound fancy?
**which he attended in his machinist clothes after every co-worker of his said "are you wearing THAT?" and also because he has no other clothes at my house (koff).
***hehehe

i've finished one whole chapter of my bank class, so i guess i'm done for today. spent a very relaxing weekend cooking and being domestic and setting my pasta pot aflame. but then matt burned all the hair of his right hand with the grill and the lighter fluid, so we're even.
sara and i were both considering calling out today, and we're lucky we didn't as mary is out due to her son's car accident. he's reportedly going to be fine. because i was all domestic we have brownies, so we're all set really. i was definitely channelling my mother this weekend with the cooking. although i never heard her say she set pots on fire BOILING WATER*. but whatever. i made her macaroni salad and i made her terriyaki kebabs, the brownies weren't strictly hers, but i cut up a whole water melon and forced matt to take it with his lunch and that is very like my mom. eat the watermelon! it's hot, you'll dehydrate, EAT IT!
i was debating the virtues of an airconditioner until the sea breeze picked up yesterday evening. virtue: it would be cooler non-virtue: having to move said air-conditioner, paying the electric bill, having to move the air conditioner. those are heavy muthas.
air conditioners are relativiely cheap, and probably i'd get enough relief from it to make it worthwile, but the dvd player is also broken. and that is an epic type tragedy. dude. i've blown air in it. i've blown air all of the the discs. and then i decided maybe it was too hot, so i turned one of my two fans to cool it down.** no dice. it was cheap, but i've only had it like a year or something. i'm heartbroken. no vicar of dibley, no muppets in new york, and now i'll never know how that morse mystery from netflix ended. ARGH!


*let alone more than once. jesus.
**such was my dedication to the cause.

happy birthday mom. i'm going to get a really nice cake.

this weekend i celebrated reid's birthday, met an old highschool friend, and moved a couch with my del sol. i ate out way too often and grace got pigtails.* and the best news of all, Mary is BACK. and she brought cake. we LOVE her.
the couch is very comfy, and very large. i'm not sure where to put it. did i mentin it reclines? i might build a shrine to it, but that won't help the space problem. i think next time i see matt i'll insist he help me re-arrange the living room over and over. he'll like that.
grace is walking and talking up a storm. she said hi to every patron of uno's on sunday. and clapped when her daddy won the raffle. if i had children they would be painfully stupid and scream all day. emily's talk at 14 months and take naps with a smile on their face. best not to tempt fate.
holly and i had dinner with our friend from highschool, christine. who was expecting to get married and make babies any time now but who's plans have been diverted. it was a long night. we all fell asleep watching a helen mirren/robert redford movie that i can't remember the name of.

* reid's 5 year old friend the first day of grace's pigtails: "did you get a new baby?" reid: "no, she just got new hair"

and i said "how's your toast?" and he said "toasty!". and it was the best.

despite my frequent absences and lulls and well...laziness i am here and pretty much i'm fine. things have been busy with the two jobs and the err uhm boyfriend thing.* i like the bookstore very much, as i've mentioned, but really...i like it so much. and matt, he is sweet beyond reckoning. it makes my casualness feel very callous, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him...atleast yet. i have made it clear how much i can give and i do that giving until nothing remains for me anymore. one might call this waking up and learning from one's mistakes. it's a positive boundary. but so far i haven't had to worry about investing more than him, because i don't actually think that's possible.
when we had our obligatory conversation about exes, he was vague. i got a number, and a few details. because i didn't really care and i had other stuff on my mind...i didn't press for more details and neither did he. so, here we are. detail-less and i find myself to be his first girlfriend type person. (AHHHHHHHHHHH) that is not a place i want to be. i knew it was all more "important" and "serious" for him than it was for me but i didn't realize the extent and now i'm freaked the hell out. anyone who admits they didn't see this coming from two months ago gets a prize.

*i haven't actually decided this. i'm taking the term for a test drive, if you will. really i think he's my girlfriend. he sends me miss you and love you text messages. his friends think we make a cute couple. but he kills bugs for me, and it's hard to find girlfriend to do that for you.

monday night i met bill kotzwinkle, author of walter:the farting dog, and his very nice wife. i opened the six gazillion books he had to sign. while we sat in the basement of the bookstore. sweating. did i mention the hot. no? probably it was too hot to blog. you know what's too hot in maine? 95 degrees in june is too hot in maine. TOO HOT. it was 95 degrees all weekend and on monday. have you ever seen a cat sweat? she was pissed. but then tuesday, oh tuesday, it dropped to the high forties. and it was cold, nay freezing. and the cat, she was pissed again. geez.
i am excited abut the couch. i am excited about reid's birthday barbecue, where i've been promised jeff will hula wearing a coconut bra. i'm very excited to see holly who'll be on spring break and tentatively excited to see christine, our highschool friend whom i haven't spoken to in years...but who very nicely sent a card two weeks ago.
sara had a family emergency and had to leave monday and tuesday, but praise the lord is back today. i am full of relief and hershey's kisses (because when you tell sara you need 12 pounds of chocolate...she delivers) to have her back again.
did i write about having dinner at matt's parents house? did i mention that my hair is too short and it's making my life hard? is it too much to say that i dreamed about my mom and woke up crying with the cat licking my face?

this is the loveseat sofa that is on it's way to me from phildelphia RIGHT NOW. after holly is canonized, i'm going to buy her dinner. and maybe ice cream. the question now is how to get the sofa from nashvegas to here. mr. matt offered to drive his truck down. i was going to suggest borrowing my mom's car for the week. we'll see. strapping it to the removable roof seems not the brightest idea. but surely if the box can fit in holly's elantra, it can fit in my trunk.
horror of horrors i'm spending the next two days with tia. remember tia? how christlike and serene she is. mary is with the trainees and sara had a family emergency (which is sad but not sad enough for me to not punish her for making me work with jam master t two days in a row). it's a good thing i have a couch to look forward to. an upholstered cushiony light at the end of the tunnel.
last week i got my hair cut. mr. matt came with me to wait, and did the whole babysitting my bag thing...which i rather think he liked. he seems to take great pleasure in being whipped (obligatory cracking of whip sound). he seems to enjoy the "emasculating*" things that boyfriends are required to do to please girlfriends so they'll get blowjobs later.** i, however, do not enjoy many of them. i'm not a hold hands down the street sort of person (unless it's sarah) or IN THE MALL, for god's sake. but i didn't mind letting him sit next to my bag. holly says the ultimate test is if he goes into victoria's secret with you. it would be worth it strictly as an experiment. for analysis. and blog fodder. it'll be like on survivor except it'll be the victoria's secret challenge instead of the swallowing live bugs thing.
sara brought us cannoli. and since tia won't eat anything she can't pronouce...IT'S ALL MINE! it's a beautiful thing.

*i don't really mean this, but...you know what i mean.
**ibid.

holly is at ikea right now sitting on a couch for me. her ass is at my service. i LOVE her.

did y'all know you can order custom condoms. fascinating.

i finished my work week for the bookstore job last night. and i bought a book. but really it's a sequal to pride and prejudice. did anyone think i wouldn't buy it? no? good, we're all in sync. i really love that job, recommending books to wilderness quides sleeping in their cars, talking to the french lady who wanted the book featured on good morning america, the cute englishman with the road maps who said quite un-ironically "it looks like you can't get there from here?".* my new boss seems very impressed with me, and my cashiering skills. "it looks like you've run a cash register before." "yeah, once or twice." i guess there are worse skills to have, like turning tricks or something.
there are atleast 10 things i should be doing, so i'm blogging. i think i'm on sortof a nyquil high. i couldn't sleep for coughing last night, so i took some nyquil. and watched clue. and then i guess i fell asleep. and now i'm drooling all over my new desk. shame.
i have some correspondence to write. i owe alot of letters, i have a list. i might have to go buy stamps soon, which always cheers me up. maybe i'll be crazy and buy stamps BEFORE I RUN OUT. wild thing that i am...

*possibly what he said was more british, but that's exactly how i remember it.

i am enjoying the selling of the books. most of my co-workers are really nice* and there's chocolate under the cash register and we get a %25 discount on stuff. mmm, books! there are already a couple of titles i'm eyeing. a sequel to pride and prejudice called "mr. darcy takes a wife" which sounds like a good time and the new charles todd. i'm very excited about it really. it's perfect. i'm hoping to get to work the midnight friday harry potter party, because i'm a dork. you know really, i have a very serious attachment to books. anyone who went to school with me or ever borrowed a book from me knows this already. i'm anal about a lot of things, but i think the book thing trumps all. but enough about me being anal.
i met sugarcrook himself. very entertaining, scared of the whale with good reason, and hopefully enjoying cookies from morning glory if they weren't stolen off his doorstep**. while we were out i received many tortured texts from matt who was in the paving traffic with the heat on watching his thermostat reach new and exciting levels***.
yesterday i received a very fab box from pinky containing all manner of fun. the new tellers must think we're nuts, but sara and i had a good time throwing the flashing ball at eachother and postulating about the sour gummy hot dogs. i see driftwood figurines in your future pinky!


*it's not really that she's not nice. it's that i got a false impression at my interview. as the boss asked me what i knew about books and authors, i assumed that some book knowledge was a requirement for work in the bookstore...but no. so this lady i worked with last night knows nothing about books or authors and always looks at me like i'm a fool for asking her questions. silly me.
**i didn't realize until after i left him the cookies that maybe it was creepy for an internet acquaintance to leave you baked goods. they could be poisoned. well, ofcourse not but you never know.
***infamous repaving of route 3. just far enough to mean that taking the bayside road doesn't help, just late enough that tourist and employee traffic is on the rise and just hot enough to make sitting in traffic the opposite of comfortable****.
****which reminds me of driving home up 495 in accident traffic and passing a jeep cherokee with some hot and creative members of our armed forces sitting atop it with a cooler. they had cokes. it would have been a truly awesome comercial, except for the burnt out camry a mile up the road.

I'm back at work and i got a promotion! not really. there are new tellers training at my station so i'm doing my nothing at a desk rather than at a teller station. and i had tastykakes for breakfast. not that this has any bearing because i wasn't even sitting at my desk when i ate my tastykakes. i'm here at my desk, as temporary customer service representative, all week or until the trainee tellers move on. i have some correspondence and some bills to pay. although if i do it out here it will be more obvious that i'm not actually working. i don't want our two customers to think i'm not dedicated to serving them.
while i was away my car registration became suspended, my netflix watched and returned itself, and the kitty got really fat. the first one i've taken care of, the second i really don't understand, and i guess it doesn't really matter that kitty got fat, now we can both shop at lane bryant.