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?