Kimberly called me this evening! When I sent her my new cell number, I hinted that she should give me a call sometime, and she did! (I was somewhat mortified to not recognize her voice when I picked up.) We hadn’t talked in months, so that pretty much made my evening.

I spent the afternoon tripping around the city to do some preliminary Christmas non-shopping, which was fun. Spent a little while in the MIT Press Bookstore — I didn’t see any gift ideas there, but a few interesting-looking volumes caught my eye:

Allergy: The History of a Modern Malady. Even though my grandmother was a hospital dietician, she hadn’t heard of anyone who was really allergic to milk (as opposed to lactose intolerant) until when my parents learned that their baby girl had such an allergy. This could be a pretty cool book.

Hamlet on the Holodeck. I don’t know if this would actually be any good, but when I picked it up in the store, it looked like a very Jane sort of book — exploring communication and narrative and new technology. Looking closer, it’s been out since 1998, so that alters the definition of “new technology” in the last sentence. I wouldn’t buy it (without further investigation or recommendation), but it intrigues me.

And here’s one I don’t even really have any interest in reading, but the cover made me laugh and I think it will amuse you too: Textual Poachers.

Categories: Star Trek, books, life in the big city
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A few thoughts on life in Boston.

Thumbs up:
WBGH is my local PBS station. I am such a huge nerd, but it really does make me smile.

Drizzly days remind me of London.

Public transportation. I don’t have to pay for gas because the T takes me everywhere I want to go. (We will ignore the fact that of course I pay for my T pass…but since that happens once a month, I can ignore it on the other 29 or 30 days.)

Cambridge is really pretty. I need to take more pictures of some of the pretty buildings around here.

I can walk to a natural foods store that carries things like soy whipped cream. I was sure that such a thing did not exist, until my roommate wandered off to the dairy section and came back with a can. “Will this kill you?” she asked as I read the label. “No,” I said, “but I can’t promise it will taste good.” She and her folks, who were here at the time, later said it was pretty decent.
Dialogue edited for pith (poke, Poke).

Thumbs down:
The pigeons in Boston Common are constantly underfoot. One of these days, I’m just going to kick one. Or I’ll start taking lessons from Tom Lehrer.

Movie theaters are outrageously overpriced — even more so than other places I’ve lived.

Bums. I hate them…and I hate that I hate them. The bleeding heart in me wants to help; the pragmatist knows that my spare change would barely be a finger in the dam. The penny-pincher is pinching pennies, and the cynic wants to hiss, “Get a job!” Especially to the one guy who’s always standing outside CVS and occaisionally calls you “honey.”

Categories: life in the big city, mmm, London!
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Categories: life in the big city
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Spotted at last night’s Halloween party:
“The center of the universe” — she had taken an umbrella apart and stuck styrofoam balls (planets) on the ends of the spokes. A Christmas tree — she had wrapped a green towel around a witch’s hat and decorated that with origami stars. Lots of the usual ghosts and witches and devils and monsters and people from various decades. My roommate was adorable in a dress her mom had made in college in the ’70s. By the end of the evening, she was wearing a sticker that read “Impeach Dick!” And her boyfriend covered his clothes in nametags to be MPD guy. Marilyn Monroe was there, as were Maverick and Goose. Priest, fire chief, art teacher. One guy had on chunky glasses, sweatpants, wore lots of convention badges, and carried a D&D Players’ Handbook (awwww). Another guy was a pimp with lots of thick necklaces and chains around his neck…one of which was a chalice necklace. We passed each other in the very crowded kitchen and I said I liked the chalice. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m one of those swingin’ seventies UUs.” I laughed and he added that the world needed “a little ‘chalic’ imagery” now and then. Very punny, but I think it’s hilarious.

I was able to reuse the gray dress I bought at Salvation Army last spring (the final paragraph) to play Lady Anne. (It wound up here by virtue of being packed in the bottom of a box of sweaters that stayed in the Greenville storage unit over the summer.) I wore that and attempted freaky eye makeup and said I was a ghost. “I was pushed off the balcony,” I told people. “It wasn’t my fault.” That was fun. Pictures to come later.

As you can see, pictures are now here. “Freaky eye makeup” looked a lot freakier in the mirror than it does in the photos, sorry to get your hopes up (’cause I know you were holding your breath on that one). Oh well, at least I managed to startle Jack when he came to the door. It was really the best reaction I got all night — I should thank him.

Categories: life in the big city
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(First, this NASA photo is gorgeous and needs to be on a poster.)

Public transportation is such an amazing place for people-watching. I got on the subway last Thursday and sat down to find that across from me were a young man and an older woman conversing in an Asian language. It went something like “languagelanguagelanguageJesusChristlanguagelanguage-” (he reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a zipper case, out of which he pulls two books) “languagelanguageBookofMormon languagelanguagelanguage…” And sure enough, his nametag reads “Elder Chung, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”

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Categories: life in the big city
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No, I’m not going to talk about Vista. Which I plan never to own. My next machine is going to be a Mac.

The excitement of the week is that we’re getting new windows in the apartment. Not that there was anything wrong with the old ones, naturally. The people who own the building think that it should be made into fashoinable condos, so there has been cosmetic construction on the outside of the building since well before I moved in. Now, understand, the apartment is nice on the inside (mostly because we’ve made it that way), but the outside looks like a 1960s motel of the sort where you get to your front door via an outside balcony. I can’t imagine how fresh paint and hardwood floors will make one of these units worth half a million dollars, even in the inflated housing market up here. But there it is — we get to live around it for a while and come May, we’re out.

Anyway, powers that be decided that new windows should be put in sooner rather than later, so that started this morning.

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Categories: grad school, life in the big city
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I’m going to be employed again.

I had two job interviews last week. The first was for a job I really wanted, as a guide at a local museum (a colonial house), and though I thought it went quite well, it apparently did not go quite well enough. Got the official rejection yesterday morning.

The second was an office assistant job in the payroll office at the college and consisted mainly of the interviewer talking at me for thirty or forty minutes (nice fellow, don’t get me wrong, but definately a talker). I was at the low point of a brush with a cold that day, and I thought I hadn’t come off as well as I might have – hard to get a word in at the best of times, and it was not the best of times. But he got back to me this morning and offered me the job and could I start Friday? Since it’s Payroll, part of my job would be delivering timecards all over campus every other Friday. It’s not much, but I’m feeling insecure about turning anything down right now and I’m leaning toward the idea of working two part-time jobs – especially since this seems so minimal. So I accepted the offer.

Coursework has been pretty light thus far, but it’s starting to pick up. I have two courses: a requisite overview of magazine publishing and a course in magazine design. Design started in earnest on Tuesday, as we had to present our first rough drafts of layouts for pages of mock-magazines. The overview will, I hope, finally kick into gear next week as we start work on the big project of the course (also revolving around a made-up magazine).

In lighter news, I’ve discovered television this month, partly due to Courtney’s influence, partly due to my having too much time on my hands, and partly due to the fact that I have a tv in my room. I’m not sure which is more is more novel, owning a television or having such a thing in my bedroom. Shockingly decadant. So I’ve discovered DS9, the new Doctor Who, Heroes, Gilmore Girls, and those are just the ones I’ve decided I like. Plus I’ve been going through Courtney’s collection of Buffy and Angel DVDs – after all, it is Joss Whedon…

Categories: Doctor Who, Star Trek, grad school, life in the big city, television
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Going up and down three flights of stairs to do laundry again sucks.

Paying for laundry sucks more.

The bright side: yes, there is an elevator. And at least the washers and dryers are efficient.

I’ve been letting the tv entertain me this evening. ‘Course, only a nerd like me would go from Willy Wonka to Richard III… I have yet to see the Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it was fun to watch the old Gene Wilder one again. I forsee an age divide in coming years — I suspect many in my generation and older will always picture Willy Wonka as Gene Wilder.

However, it was a bit trying to fold clothes in front of the Chocolate Factory when there is no chocolate in my kitchen. A situation that must be remedied!

Richard is the 1995 version with Ian McKellan in the title role — the one Pug and I watched for my Shakespeare course last May. Who knew Gandalf could be so evil? I love it, but it’s so creepy! Don’t look at me like that, Richard!

Categories: Shakespeare, life in the big city, movies
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I have been here nearly a week now, and I think that it is safe to say that I am moved in.

The drive last weekend was pleasantly uneventful (not counting one brief visit to the Antietam battlefield and another brief visit with my grandfather’s cousin in New York), and my roommate and her boyfriend were great help in unloading the car. And after moving furniture to get the bed away from the outside wall, my room is set up a lot like my room in North Village was. So if you were ever there, picture that; it’s pretty close. I’ll take a few pictures to put on Flickr sometime soon. [Edit: Well, I haven't taken any inside yet, but I just put a few other Boston pictures up.]

I’ve done some rudimentary exploring of the area, gone on a few walks, and I’m starting to get a feel for the city, both here and around the school. Found important things like the bank, the drug store, some small grocery stores that are within walking distance. (My roommate has her car here, so big grocery trips will be on wheels and to a larger store, but I’m glad there are places where I can go pick up a few things if I want to.)

Wednesday evening, I went down to meet a bunch of my new classmates for drinks at a bar/restaurant near the school. I think there are about forty incoming students in the publishing program, and we had gotten each other’s contact info over the summer, so a few enterprising souls set up a chance to meet each other even before orientation. It was fun, and the waitresses were really nice about this group of 25-30 people trickling in who (A) didn’t know each other and (B) didn’t know how many people were actually coming!

Orientation was yesterday and today — lots of information sessions about various campus services and policies, mostly. Highlights included:

• lunch on Thursday, at which our table of four or five students was joined by two professors, both of whom I had heard about from my roommate (since she’s starting her second year in the program). One of them very favorably…the other very not.
• meeting the whole Writing, Literature, & Publishing faculty. Geez, now I really wanna take writing courses! (well, okay, I did before — and I plan to — but some of the writing profs seemed really interesting)
• taking a trolley tour around the city this afternoon. Wheee!

Coming back around to the title, the last few days have seen heavy use of the line, “I’m sorry, what was your name again?” So much for the city of Cheers.

Anyway, actual classes start next week, and being the nerd that I am, I’m pretty excited about that! I’m working on getting my textbooks — I have a Magazine Publishing Overview and Magazine Design and Production. Fun, I hope!

Next on the to-do list…start applying for part time jobs.

Categories: grad school, life in the big city
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