I am typing this entry on my laptop in the living room. Wireless Internet is AMAZING! My mom is the best for giving me her old laptop! Yay for me.
So yesterday I ended up going with my roommate to see Livewire, which is kind of like Prairie Home Companion--it's a live radio show on public radio that they tape in front of an audience. So there is the whole deal with people who make sound effects and stuff and you watch it. How weird. I didn't really understand what it was when I agreed to go, but it ended up being pretty cool overall. I probably wouldn't go again, but it was interesting. Anyway, the reason my roommate wanted to go was to see the Oregon Poet Laureate, Lawson Inada. The author of The Year of Yes was also on there. I haven't read the book, but apparently she decided that she was being too picky in her approach to dating so she decided that she would go out with anyone who asked her. She went on 150 dates in a year! Um...wow. She said that in New York City people are constantly approaching you, so she went out with people like construction workers and taxi cab drivers. If I went out with everyone who has approached me this year that would be a grand total of like...three people. Pretty impressive. But ultimately she met her husband during this year of saying yes, so I guess it was all worth it.
Anyway, watching a live radio show was an interesting experience. Then I came home and called back Nathan about going out with the new hire and him to lunch. It is sort of surreal talking to him on the phone. The only reference he has made in the almost two years since everything happened was yesterday--he asked me if I would want to meet up to drive together downtown and then said that it might be uncomfortable for me. I just kind of dodged the question and then just met both of them downtown, although it would have been easier/more earth friendly to carpool with him. Anyway, today ended up being good. We hung out with the new girl, who was super sweet, and we got to know her better. I thought she was younger, but she is actually my age. Everything went really well, I thought, and I think she is really excited to be working with us. I hope so, anyway. I gave her my phone number so that we can do some planning together if we want to since she is the writing teacher and I am the reading teacher. Nathan also insisted on paying for lunch for us both, probably because he is the team leader, and he is a gentleman in that way. Anyway, hanging out with him was a little bit weird, but it will be nice if I can just get past the past and have a great year this year. I think for the most part he will be a good team leader.
We are having a heat wave here and we are not used to this kind of weather. It makes me tired and listless. I am going to skip the gym tonight, but I am definitely going tomorrow and Sunday, no matter how hot the weather.
Tonight I ended up hanging out with my mom. She is going on a trip to Mexico (her first time out of the country in her life!) and so I took her to the airport. We ate at one of my new favorite restaurants, which is an Italian restaurant. I got Penne alla Zucca which has penne pasta (duh), butternut squash, fresh spinach, and tomatoes. OH SO GOOD! We also got chocolate cake for dessert. I only ate about half of it. I am really hoping my mom will have a wonderful experience in Mexico. She is going with a group that is staying with rural farmers and learning about their experiences. I actually was the one who told her about the trip and I was thinking about going myself, but I ultimately decided I wasn't that interested (although I am definitely interested in issues of race, class, and poverty, the trip itself didn't interest me as much as it should have). Anyway, I am excited for her.
In other news, I started the Shangri-La Diet yesterday. Who knows how it works, but I only really want to lose about five pounds, and I heard that it works. It doesn't seem like there is much harm in giving it a shot. Anyway, maybe it was psychological, but I did feel less hungry yesterday. I ended up eating very unhealthily (but it said you didn't have to change your diet, just that your appetite would be less), though. I also had some Burger King bad karma, which is actually a good thing.
For some reason, both Mandy and Chad love Burger King and talk about their major BK cravings. As you know, I am more of a Taco Bell craver, and I rarely ever eat Burger King. Anyway, both of them try to resist and generally avoid it, but all of their talk recently made me crave it, too. So Wednesday night after the gym I decided to give it a try (good one, going to Burger King after the gym--oh well). So I got a whopper and fries and a drink and I ate it like one of those secret overweight eaters that you see on Oprah--in my car in the parking lot in the dead of night. THE WHOPPER WAS SO SO SO GOOD! I've had Burger King, but I haven't had a whopper in years. It was seriously way better than I thought it would be. Suddenly I understood the magic that Mandy and Chad feel for Burger King.
This can't be good, I thought. I am secretly eating Burger King in the parking lot by myself and it is the best thing that I have ever tasted! Oh no. You know where this is going. Yesterday night I was driving home from the gym again and Burger King was just beckoning me. I told myself to resist or all of my hard gym work would be for naught, but the 24 hour drive thru pulled me in. This time I ordered a whopper, onion rings, and a drink. I still got fry sauce because fry sauce is key.
Well, if things had gone well, I probably would have continued this nasty secret habit because of the love of the whopper. This time I decided that I would face up to what I was doing and actually bring it all the way home to eat it like a normal person would instead of hiding in the parking lot like a freak. Luckily, when I got home something happened that made my whopper eating days come to an abrubt halt. A.) They put onions on my whopper. B.) I found a hair in my whopper, which could possibly have been mine, inserted when I opened the whopper to remove the onions. I threw away more than half of my food (Shangri La Diet? Onion/hair disgustingness? Who knows.) I am relieved (but a little bit sad) that I had such a bad Burger King experience on the second time around.
In other news, I have been downloading It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes and wishing that I had cable to watch more. It makes me laugh. What is a Wa Wa? I think Shaun mentioned it on his website before? Wa Wa? It sounds like some sort of convenience store, but am I right? Tell me. Please.
I also have been watching one of my favorite shows of all time Party of Five that I'm getting from Netflix. This is where I started my guilty-pleasure love/hate relationship with Jennifer Love Hewitt. I always referred to her as Love, because that's what her friends call her you know. She is just SO CUTE yet SO ANNOYING. It's one of those paradoxes that I can't understand--I just can't decide if I love her or hate her. I have to say that watching her on Party of Five as Sarah, with those awful '90s style jeans that go up to her belly button (I'm not trying to hate, I have videotaped evidence that I wore the same kind of jeans), really made her more endearing. I also have a huge crush on Bailey, even though he is probably about 5'2" or something. And Charlie, of course, and knowing that he and Kirsten will ultimately end up together makes it possible for me to endure the pain of their non-wedding wedding one more time.
I also watched the ultimate chick flick, I Capture the Castle the other day, which I just loved. I read the book, and I thought the movie did a pretty good job--it also had Elliott from E.T. in it.
Other than that, not too much is going on with me. I have been keeping myself busy. I can't believe that I am only down to about a month left until school starts. You hate me, don't you? I'm sorry.
