quasi-weekend.

i'm at the sun right now, freezing my ass off. as i drink bad coffee & surf the internet, it occurs to me that, since leaving my full time job, i now work six days a week.

incredible.

only i could leave my job and end up working more.

so i managed to fit in a mini-weekend, sort of.

after arriving home from nerve on friday evening (p.s. they have green olive bread down the street at dean & deluca's and it's fabulous, though still somehow inferior to the bread charlotte got me in astoria), i bullied michael into not-napping, and dragged him out for a round of mini golf & a light bite to eat at the fine grind. this was mainly to fulfill our weekly date night quota. i am determined to do something cute and out-of-the-condo at least once every week, so as not to go completely stir crazy with how boring i have become outside of work.

on saturday, i woke up all rarin' to be productive, and started out taking photos of my grandfather's house, which my parents are fixing up to put on the market. then, after running some additional errands, i lost steam. my greatest mistake was sitting down in front of the tv whilst stopping for a snack. this was when i came upon, for the very first time ever in my life, so you think you can dance. i started out skeptical but soon realized that this show was like every dance movie i had ever become obsessed with all in one convenient program. i watched it for hours. hours. at one point, michael called my mother and asked her to tell me to stop. but there was no stopping me. ohgod i love how all these reality show seasons are played in ther entirety over the course of a day or two. at the same time, jesus christ, that's just evil. how the fuck am i supposed to get anything done. ever.

i had to tear myself away, finally, to head over to nicole's house for a couple-night of sangria&bhorror. michael (her michael) actually hand rolled sushi, and nicole made sangria and brownies (plus i totally pigged out on the entire basket of cool ranch doritos). we watched army of darkness and troll 2 and i tripped out on my jealousy over the awesomeness of their place, and nicole's amazing decorating skills. it occurs to me now that i should have gone through the house, room by room, and taken pictures of all my favorite things (which is everything) to give myself some ideas for the condo. (obviously, i will now have to make a trip over there as soon as possible to complete this very task.) it's not just the prettinesses. it's the way it's all pulled together so nicely. it's amazing. really. and we suck.

things are very quiet here at the sun. i have a quasi-interview tomorrow morning with michael's boss and i'm scared. plus i wish it was wednesday again so i could go back to nerve. i wish every day was nerve day.

i need to start posting again...

i'm waiting for the last story of the evening to come in as i roast in my little corner over here. it's labor day, and it appears the building's air conditioning is still out for the long weekend. i have one of my pearl river fans with me, but i'm still ruing my penchant for jeans on hot days lately. aside from that, i've gone through my usual slew of sports pieces. i'm hoping that, one of these days, i'll absorb enough yankees-talk to surprise my family with a legitimate baseball-based conversation. but it all reads like another language to me.

so it seems the weekend is finally at its end. a damn shame.

this past thursday, michael and i went out for our first date night (which was a suggestion of nicole's after i complained to her that i never saw my husband anymore). we went to cafe eclectic for delicious pie (apple-caramel & oreo mousse), saw 2 days in paris, and had a light dinner at raymond's on church street, which has outdoor seating and, goddammit, i wanted to sit outdoors on such a beautiful evening.

i was all sorts of thrilled to see 2 days in paris, because it was a julie delpy film and i had long ago fallen in love with before sunrise and before sunset and it looked like it could be pretty funny. turns out that the couple delpy & goldberg portrayed was a carbon copy of me & michael, with me as the cat-loving, commitment-phobic, sexually open (intellectually, anyway) neurotic, and michael as the competitive, whiny paranoid. i enjoyed it.

on friday, after frittering my freelance time away at the mall, all for the sake of two headbands and a glittery, purple business card case, michael and i headed into the city to meet up with phil & dawn for an extended happy hour. it was an early start for a happy hour, so we were able to fit in a good amount of drinkage:

whilst drunk off our asses, we got ourselves the fabulous idea to throw a bbq the next day, which mike & i ended up throwing together in about an hour's time, after meeting up with some people for lunch at mr.sushi. a good amount of people actually showed (and one cute leetle doggie) and i got presents! including a sleeping bag! to replace the one keebler destroyed! and there was swimming even! (b/c we had the bbq at michael's parents' house while they were out of town, simply because they have a pool):

i am cranky now that the festivities are over

lame-o.

i am officially lame.

friday, after work, i went to happy hour at ginger man with a good number of co-workers and drank myself silly until about 8 p.m. by the time i got home, neither michael nor i could bring ourselves to drive out to hoboken (a mere 15-20 minutes away) for the tris mccall show at maxwell's, which i had totally been looking forward to all week! instead, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of a csi marathon before finally passing out in bed.

on saturday, we saw running with scissors, which was pretty good once it got into the swing of things, and then i got all excited going through my whole foods cookbook and then going food shopping. i was supposed to head into the city in the evening for the [sic] launch party (lit mag put together by a co-worker & friends), but i just couldn't stand the thought of commuting into the city on such a cold night, all by my lonesome. instead, i opted for hours of cooking (during which my beautiful new cuisinart food processor failed to work) and csi dvds (this is starting to sound like an unhealthy obsession).

sunday morning was church, and then i had to catch a 1:15 bus into the city for my 3 p.m. meeting at $pread (i'm now officially doing volunteer publicity work for them). i was unable to get on the 6 p.m. bus back home because of the damn marathon crowd, and so had to stand around an extra hour waiting for the next bus. and then michael and i watched this awful movie from the 80s--mazes and monsters--that one of his co-workers had told us about. it's a spoof on dungeons & dragons, which my nerd-tastic fiance used to play back in high school.

i need to start forcing myself to follow through on things like launch parties and rock shows. i've become boring.

tonight, i'm going to two sue shapiro classes in a row (6-8 and 8-10) because she's having guest speakers in (frank flaherty from the ny times city section and mackenzie dawson from the ny post career section). i'm going to be so pooped.

friday.

friday took so long to get here. and now it's 7:38 and i'm the only one here in the office, and i love that. i'll get stuff done (aside from this, obviously) before the e-mails and phone calls start rolling in, and then i'll be able to skip on out of here at 3:30. i'll want to head to bluestockings at some point, to pick up a copy of $pread. i'm going to interview for a publicist/event planner intern-type thing there next week, and i want to be prepared. no word from blackbook and i'm not surprised. i gave bad interview. i'll do better next time. i've been reading what color is your parachute?

spent an evening with my mother and her friends just this past tuesday. met up with them at the stardust diner, which is where flailing broadway wannabes go to die. it was a struggle not to be a snob about it. about spending a night on the town in times square and doing something so obviously tourist-centric. back in high school, i would've loved this place. i would've wanted to work there myself.

we saw phantom of the opera after dinner, and it was okay, but not the best i've seen. just one of those classics you feel obligated to see. i'm actually rarin' to check out the putnam county spelling bee and dead alive: the musical and maybe even mary poppins. i mostly want, very badly, to see chorus line.

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having absolutely nothing to do with anything, have any of you been seeing the shitstorm on alyssa shelasky's glamour dating blog? amazing how catty commenters can get. i've been reading the blog since gawker first "publicized" it, wondering how in hell one stumbles upon such a cool gig. it's amazing how things have spiraled out of control among the blog's readers.

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so what color is your parachute? has advised that i join networking sites such as linkedin and tribe. i was already a member of both, but had let my profiles languish. anyone else here a member and want to get connected?

erk.

eating lasagna as i recover from a telephone beat-down by one of my authors. wishing for a new job. no more academic books. no more marketing. i'm overwhelmed and disinterested. i want magazine work. or housewifery. or both. meltdown is ensuing. i took a sick day yesterday, and spent a relaxing morning reading ellis's lunar park and doing mag research, and then spent the afternoon food shopping and cooking. ambrosia salad & panini sandwiches & baked eggplant. i may not enjoy cohabitation, but i'm getting into this whole domesticity thing.

i've been keeping busy outside of work as well. last thursday, michael and i muddled our way to a church in jersey city to hear tris mccall do a solo gig on a grand piano in the sanctuary. i loved watching his arms and shoulders vibrate with the pressures of the restraint he was showing...keeping himself from headbanging the ivories and losing his glasses. friday i headed down to the union square farmer's market and picked me up some maple candy and then walked down to bluestockings with roslyn, for the bitchfest reading. quite the turnout. then, headed home to sneak the cats into the condo and lost sleep because of gizmo's incessant crying throughout the night. which meant that we were too tired the next evening to go to that outer space-themed costume party in the city. even though i already bought silvery clothing and green makeup and stuff. and i had a whole vision.

last night, my mother told me my tummy was looking pudgy, and then we drove to callanetics in leonia and class was canceled. i had a melona bar instead. i was going to go to the gym after work today, but now i'm just feeling depressed.

dena and i are taking line dancing lessons on saturday.

and michael shrunk two of my shirts and lost the button off another one. how cliche is that?

and all my bloodwork came back normal.

and a. wants to buy us a new refrigerator.

and...hmmm...i can't remember.

back in the fray.

the highlights:

- work makes me feel as if i'm drowning. fielding marcus-stuff and overwhelmed by publicity-stuff (and several crazy authors) in addition to my usual marketing-stuff. and drawing up the 2007 budget last week nearly killed me.

- my condo looks like a home now. what with the sofa + chair finally arriving. coziness abounds, yet i am floored by the sudden realization that, when you live in a one-bedroom condo with another person, you're never alone.

- i am hanging all my hopes on my sue shapiro class.

- i have become boring. too pooped to go to the in the flesh reading series at happy endings last night, and no time to go to belly dancing class fot at least the past month. i am determined, however, to go to the bitchfest reading at bluestockings on friday and, tonight, i'm seeing tris mccall play at grace church van vorst in jersey city.

but, as you can see, nothing earth-shatteringly exciting.

after long silence.

things are all sorts of busy again. things are picking up at work, what with textletters & catalogs & conferences to put together, and marcus resigned! which leaves me as the sole marketing contact for my department for the moment.

and i met up with a mag editor to talk ideas over lunch, and we came up with two ideas i'm going to flesh out a bit and run with.

and michael and i have been meeting with wedding d.j.s and finally found one we want to sign on with, mostly because i think he's hot. (okay, his wedding-ideals also match up with ours quite nicely.)

and i start classes at the new school tonight, and church choir is also starting up again.

aside from that, i spent the weekend playing house (or at least that's what i pretended i was doing so that the weirdness of moving in with my fiance wouldn't overwhelm me).

friday evening - my last evening on my own - i whipped up some organic mac n' cheese and watched lord of the flies circa 1990, then finished up my quiet evening reading in bed. michael moved in the next day, and we ran some errands and registered at macy's before finally going out to dinner at frank's with his parents, where i proceeded to get drunk and then exhausted before going out to pub46 with dena. i was in bed by 12:30 'cause i'm lame. the next day, we registered at bed, bath, and beyond, which was quite the daunting task as the place is so damn large, and then we went to this cute sushi place in bloomfield and then food shopping, after which i spent hours whipping up sweet potato casserole & chicken cutlets & chocolate stuff for dessert (thanks you spqs) whilst wearing one of my grandmother's old aprons. just for effect.

and then the oven didn't work.

bygones.

we got ready for work today, with me drying my hair as he shaved, us reaching over each other and passing things off, and it was surreal but not awful.


oh! i finished reading jancee dunn's but enough about me... about a jersey girl's life as a rolling stone writer and i loved it bunches.

when our families met.

the only picture in which i do not look completely trashed. i was exhausted that evening and was drinking wine out of pure and simple nerves.

monday monday.

saturday: bridals by roma. the people there were inattentive and sorta snooty, giving me a general bad vibe, though there were a few dresses there that were quite lovely. maryann & dena came along with my mom and i, making things interesting. the whole lot of us have completely different taste in everything, though it's more extreme in dena's case. she's all about the big pouffy princess dresses. when the lady put this big pouffy veil on my head, maryann started cracking up. priceless.

later that evening, michael and i attended the pink party. i was all cleavagey and had these cute hot pink knee-highs on and mike got a pale pink button-down for 99 cents at salvation army. the dj was pretty damn good, and they had those candy conversation hearts that i love so much all over the place, and there were plastic cups of boxed wine for $4 (how klassy). i sorta regret not paying the extra dough for the hot pink party, because there were masseuses in there, and smooshy nooks and crannies all over the room. but my energy started flagging a couple hours in anyways. which left us just enough time to make friends with the gay guy in the pink rockstar t-shirt who tried to cup michael's balls when he wasn't looking.

sanford called me on sunday evening. he never seems to call at a normal hour.

anyways, he was thrown for a loop upon discovering that i had signed up to be a book reviewer for sexherald. my old editor at eroticblvd, he had called me two years ago begging me to sign on for this new project of his. now that i'm in, he wants me to be the book editor.

so. quite the weekend. 9:46 a.m. now and i'm just getting started (though i've been up since 5). the behavioral sciences team decided on a whim to have a breakfast party. so i brought in bagels and spreads and mariana brought in fruit and dana got us all starbucks and charlotte brought in nutella and at least five different teas and hard boiled eggs and kevin brought in coffee cake and marcus brought in two boxes of pastries from au bon pain and some juice. we could've fed the whole entire office.

okay. buckle down.