it is slightly weird to be back in AZ, but i am coping well by taking my dog for walks, even though it freaks her out. i have a lot more stuff than i remembered. even the stuff i took to berkeley with me seemed like too much, and now i return to the re-discovery that it was only the tip of the iceberg. it may be time to shed some books and other sundry items.

for a while, i felt disoriented, but that feeling has pretty much faded, although i remain very conscious that life here is very different from life in berkeley. everything here seems a lot brighter, larger, and hotter than i remembered. anyway, the bottom line is that i am glad i am back, but i was also sad to leave berkeley.

my time in berkeley = the end of eating. from here, everything is severely downhill.

for lunch, mom and dad and i went to chez panisse cafe. it is not even "true" chez panisse cuisine; it is like the younger sister of the real restaurant. i am ok with this, because it was INCREDIBLE. i had a delicious green salad with baked goat cheese, then pork with thinly sliced and exquisitely marinaded veggies. dessert was warm espresso over vanilla bean ice cream. and there are no words tender enough to describe this lunch. there is no language for how great it was. it was the truest expression of what food should be. everything was cooked perfectly, the flavors were present without being overwhelming, and the portions were ideal. it all tasted like the most best, most intense food in the world. it was the goat cheesiest goat cheese in history; the veggies were cooked in a way that magnified their own flavors fantastically.

i don't know how else to describe it.

it was expensive, but i am not at all sorry. i would do it again tomorrow.

YOU GUYS.

one of soft skull's titles was reviewed on the cover of the _new york times book review_ yesterday! and it was a really good review! and you should all read the review -- www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/books/review/Schillinger-t.html?ref=review -- and then read the book (_black flies_ by shannon burke) and then buy like four copies of it for each of your friends and tell them to do the same for their friends. start a _black flies_ circle of love, people.

here is what i look like on my last day at counterpoint.


i feel so lucky to have spent four months at this place, with an office full of unbelievably incredible people who were far nicer than i ever deserved, working on books that i loved. the fact that it turned out to be an ideal situation still kind of weirds me out.




this is tilden park, where we all had a picnic on tuesday. it was gorgeous.

aggggh guys i am seriously sunburnt. my right arm seems to be exuding heat. i am slathering myself with aloe vera, but all the same i am quite worried.

sunburning activities for the weekend include: a visit to target yesterday, breakfast at the thai buddhist temple this morning (they sell delicious thai food between 10 am and 2 pm on sundays -- it is some of the best thai food i have eaten, and i have eaten quite a lot), walking around lake merritt in oakland for like two hours, and then getting ice cream at fenton's (it was gooooood ice cream, and the portions were embarrassingly generous). i got kind of lost at lake merritt because i forgot to note where i had started walking around the lake, so after walking for what seemed like a really long time, i figured that i had to be pretty close to where i started, so i turned on to an actual street. this was very untrue. in fact, i was only about halfway around the lake. another very long time was spent finding my way back to broadway, where i knew i could catch the bus that would take me to fenton's.

but yah, the sunburn is going to be fierce tomorrow. i tried to take a picture to show you what it looks like, and this is the best i could do. it's my wrist, and the pale strip is my tan line from my watch.

boy oh boy, do i have a picture-heavy entry for you lucky dames and fellas!

yesterday, i went to telegraph hill and coit tower. telegraph hill is the highest (i think?) place in the city, and coit tower is a very tall tower on top of the hill, so the view = amazing.

I mapquested the route from the BART station to t-hill, and it was only about a mile, so i figured i could walk it, no big deal. first of all, i must have crossed into a different micro-climate at some point, because, wow, all of a sudden it was noticeably hotter. also: IT WAS ALL UPHILL. and not just kind of uphill. observe:


this is obviously looking down from the top, post-climb. those are stairs on either side, because otherwise this hill would be a death-trap. ok, so i powered my way up this one, and i was feeling pretty good. the street ahead of me looked like this:


and i thought, man, i'm gonna be ok! but then:

GAH ANOTHER HILL ALMOST AS BAD AS THE FIRST AND IT WAS HOTTER THAN EVER.

by the time i reached the top of this hill, i was panting and sweaty. everyone else who had driven up to t-hill looked at me like i was a moron. i looked at them like the pansies they are.

here is coit tower:


so i went up to the top. there is no roof at the very top, and all the sides are windows. because the tower is old, they are predictably old windows with padlocks on them and they still allow drafts in. all of the windowsills (outside the windows, on the outside of the tower) were covered with coins.


at first, i was really perplexed by this. did people throw these coins up from the ground? was that possible? was there some coin launcher somewhere? i spent a lot of time thinking about this. then i saw a guy slip a penny through one of drafty gaps in the windowframe on to the sill, and i felt dumb for having spent all that time imagining amazingly accurate coin slingshots.

well anyway, here are some pictures of views from the tower. i took a lot more, because it was beautiful and i really liked it.






there are murals all over the walls of the tower on the entrance level. they were painted by artists during the depression. a sampling:






for some reason, i really identified with this girl, and i became convinced that, if i were in the mural, i would be her. i dunno, i was dehydrated and tired.


i took a very roundabout route to get back to BART, as evidenced by the above, very small map. the green dot is where i started. the 1 is where the hills got baaaad. 2 is telegraph hill. then i walked through north beach, had a cappuccino at cafe trieste, and stopped at the shrine of st. francis of assisi, where a really cool priest told jokes and taught a girl who didn't really speak english about the phrase "fo' shizzle." then through chinatown, which had a whole array of interesting odors. 3 is where the street (stockton) became a tunnel that i did not want to hoof my way through. so i turned, and, yes, eventually found my way back to BART, ie the red dot. that map looks a lot better if you right-click on it and open it in its own window, i just discovered.

it was such a beautiful day, and i felt really at peace and alone and happy. it was one of the best adventures i have had the whole time i've been here. i was worried that it was going to be touristy and dumb up there, but it was just peaceful, even though there were definitely tourists there. i'm glad i was there on a sunday; it's probably more crowded on a saturday.

all the guys who work at the indian place i go for lunch pretty regularly have learned my name (Natalie, ok? yes, i tell them my name is Natalie. i don't know why i'm capitalizing it, but yes, i lie to perfectly nice restaurant employees every day as i pay with a debit card that clearly says my name is Greta E Baranowski). i went there today for the first time since, i dunno, last wednesday or thursday. and it was incredible -- they all waved to me and asked me how i was. i got some spicy eggplant dish, and wow! it really was spicy. it was definitely not a let-down. i worry that eating so much at this place (vik's chaat corner) is making me fat. i think about this sometimes when i'm eating, especially when i'm stuffing my face with the delicious, refreshing yogurt and cottage cheese side dish, or the lamb dumplings, or the BEST SAMOSAS EVER... but it is all so delicious that, honestly, i have a hard time caring. so when you next see me, o readers, expect me to be wearing a lot of sweatpants for a while as i try to free myself of the burden of these lunches.

dude, the new spoon ring is doing great, so far. no itching, no small red bumps. my haircut, on the other hand, is looking like more and more of a not-so-great investment. the top is still very flat and the sides are still very big. i may need to get this fixed.

in a month, i will not live here. LESS than a month. that weirds me out and makes me sad.

this morning on the bus, a man wanted to talk about the time he spent living in hawaii. this was the one day when i was not really in the mood to chat. but no amount of conversational apathy stopped him.

yesterday, i walked over three miles. seriously. i wore a sweater and was still kind of cold, at times; the same was true today. i found spoon ring guy and bought a new spoon ring:





my hand look weird. you must accept that. the pattern is called margaret rose and was made in 1938 -- the guy looked it up in a book and showed me. he also took five dollars off the price. he was a-ok.

OMG! further update on spoon ring guy: on my way to the movie theater tonight, i saw him on telegraph, with his rings made from spoons! he still exists. i will return there tomorrow.

re: the movie theater: i saw _my blueberry nights_, which was a cool-looking movie. it taught me that natalie portman is much prettier when she is funny-looking than when she's just, yo, natalie portman. the film features a cameo by chan marshall. it was a fairly good, although rather slow, movie.

the #1 bus is useless to me on weekends, as it is always 30 minutes late. on weekdays, however, it is incredibly useful to me. this contrast is frustrating.

this is the last third day of a month that i will spend in berkeley.

golden gate park today was so fun! and i rode cable cars!

update on the ring made from a spoon, mentioned several entries ago: i am allergic to it. it made me more or less break out in very small hives. i went back to telegraph last sunday to try to track down spoon ring guy and exchange my ring (which is silver-plated) for one of the more expensive sterling silver ones. THE GUY WASN'T THERE. but i intend to keep returning until i find him. i feel very strongly about having a ring made from a spoon.

update on _forgetting sarah marshall_: better than _knocked up_. ROUGHLY on-par with _the 40-year-old virgin_, for me, but i can understand that others may feel differently.

update on the box of slightly damaged books: NO ONE ELSE HAS TAKEN ANY OF THEM. i go back like every day and take a few more, thinking, well, if no one else is going to take this, jeez...

update on feeling weird about leaving here and going home: my last day in the office will be 23 may; everyone i work with is sad to hear this. or at least they purport to be. also, i have made a list of things i want to do and see before i go. sample items include dining at two indian restaurants, going to telegraph hill in the city, and going to cafe fanny, the casual arm of the alice waters empire. all of this is doable.

PICTURE TIME!

o spoon ring, how i mourn you.


this is what an allergic reaction to metal looks like, dudes. in a poorly-focused digital photo.

and this is what i look like post-haircut (minor haircut) from the lhasa salon.

at work there is a box of slightly damaged books -- too damaged to sell. so far, i have taken three of them, and i'm planning on taking whatever's still there tomorrow by the end of the day.

today i bought my last bus pass. it was a sniffly moment.

i still need a haircut. i will do that this weekend.

has anyone seen _forgetting sarah marshall_? i'm going to give it a whirl this weekend. it's gotten reeeally good reviews, but i haven't talked to anyone who has actually seen it for themselves.

for a while, i thought my air mattress was broken, but it turned out that one of the valves just wasn't fully closed.

i left work at 2 pm on friday because they ran out of stuff for me to do! they ran out! counterpoint has a two-person editorial department and they're so darn competent that they don't need an intern! jeez! and then today i left at five (i used to never, ever get out of there before 5:45, usually not before 6). having down time during the day actually makes me mad. it seems unnatural. i dunno why i had so much more to do when roxy was here; maybe it's just coincidence, but ever since she left it's been kind of slow for me. i think it's been kind of slow for everyone, though, and obviously my experience is more exaggerated than theirs since i only leech off their extra work instead of having my own independent tasks. meh.

i went to target yesterday to buy yoga clothes. getting to target is an adventure. first i take BART, then i take a bus. the bus drops me off by a freeway overpass, on the other side of the street from target. i walk under the overpass on a path that circles around to the side of the street where the target lives. the first time i did this, it freaked me out. i mean, come on, i'm walking under a deserted freeway overpass, on the wrong side of the street. yesterday was only my second trip, and, yes, it still kind of freaked me out. but i knew that i was on the right path, even if it seemed woefully counterintuitive. but no, it all worked out ok, and there was a flurry of stars and hearts and glitter waiting for me at target.

going back home is much less scary because there is really only one bus in that area at that time, and taking it one way will take me to a BART station (score!), and taking it the other will take me to UC berkeley (slightly more roundabout score!).

when i was at a bus stop on friday, a man walked past me and said, "stay here. it's cold everywhere else but here." i said, "it's kind of cold here, too." but he had already walked by. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? also it was cold that night, colder than it's been in a little while, and i was sitting on a bench, not even under a shelter, so i don't know what he was thinking, the dummy.

in my long hiatus, the following things have happened:
1. i turned 22. it was weird.
2. i saw a movie called _will success spoil rock hunter?_. it is truly a magnificent film.
3. i went to a huuuuge fabric store called britex and bought three pieces of non-matching fabric that i intend to quilt together. BY HAND.
4. i discovered a new frozen yogurt place called yogurt harmony. their yogurt is not very sweet -- a little bit tart. much more refreshing, i think, and also delicious.
5. i went to the cheeseboard, a pizza collective in north berkeley. this was the same day i went to britex. it was so hot in the city, and people kept wanting to talk to me in ways that made me kind of uncomfortable. then i came back to berkeley, where it was cooler, and all people wanted to do was smile and say hi. oh, and the pizza was good.
6. i slept for like thirteen hours last night. i was telling julie at the office today that i don't know why i'm so tired, and she said the same thing happened to her when she moved here three-ish years ago, and her doctor said it was allergies. this kind of makes sense, so i'm going to buy some claritin tomorrow and give it a go.
7. this goes along with #1: my parents sent me a box full of cool stuff: a glasses cleaning cloth, dark chocolate, a new moleskin, novelty bandaids -- the list goes on and on. oh, and there was a singing birthday card, which was by far not the least awesome part of the package.
8. i have decided that i need to get my hair trimmed. it is looking a little ragged, not to mention pouffy in all the wrong places.
9. i bought a ring! made from a spoon! i'll have to post pictures of it when i get new batteries for my camera.

last night, i slept twelve hours. then i felt sick today at work, so i came home at 2 and slept for another 2.5 hours. now it is 11:30 and i am tired again/still. i am hoping not to feel exhausted tomorrow.

i an weirded out by the fact that i only have like six weeks left here.

in other news, shayna is out of town for today/tonight, so i am taking care of the animals. both of the dogs are sacked out on my bed (koobi is right in front of the space heater, while taylor is next to me), and avi the cat is in my lap. since i am sitting cross-legged, this is also really stretching the heck out of the muscles on the outsides of my hips. it's kind of nice, but i think i'll have to move him in a few minutes.

i really like my internship/job. (i think of it more as a job because i am there more or less as much as the people who get paid to be there.) the people there are so, so, so nice. roxy's last day was monday, and she should be having her baby any time now. her replacement is this reeeeally sweet woman named laura, who i find myself constantly wanting to hug. roxy was incredibly good at her job and a very nice person, but she was never really chatty or anything. laura is chatty and slightly more low-key. more mom-ish -- she has two kids, so that makes sense.

THANK GOD AVI FINALLY MOVED. jeez. that was some intense stretching, let me tell you.

carl the accountant has started calling me "greta-may." he does not know why.

as the entire editorial department tries to figure out how to make a conference call, jack says, "jeez! this is like trying to start a prius!"

bus highlights of late:

TODAY:
a car wanted to turn into my bus's lane from a parking lot, and it did so without waiting for a polite wave of the hand from the bus driver or anything. bus driver: "did i say you could go, knucklehead?"

on the same bus there was a little girl with her mom. cute kid; missing her two front teeth, which made her all the more endearing. she was carrying a purse with the following items in it: a starfish finger puppet, which she waved at me, and a ten pound note. she was kind of awesome.

A FEW DAYS AGO:
there was a more or less crazy dude on my bus. and he was chattering constant, bizarrely inspirational things, like, "the important thing is just to keep living. even if you're a thousand years old, just keep living." then i sneezed and he said, "bless you, baby! bless you!" i thanked him. his next project was talking to this asian kid who had just gotten on the bus and who was clearly not in a talkative mood. the kid did not respond to the crazy guy's conversational overtures, so crazy guy took it up a notch. "you can't ignore me, because i ACKNOWLEDGE you. ching chong ching!" it got more awkward from there because no one wanted to talk to him.

today was a day of finally getting stuff done. i finished sending out books to freelancers for the winter season, i did as many cataloging-in-publication applications as i can right now, and i finally did a reader's report for a manuscript that roxy gave me like a months ago. tomorrow, though, i think i'm working with marketing, and i think i'm going to have to make phone calls to radio stations in la jolla to see if they'll interview one of our authors. THIS IS TERRIFYING.

i think i have a pinched nerve in my back, just below my right shoulder blade. a spot right around there is occasionally inexplicably tingly and cold.

i went to the pay-what-you-can yoga place the other night, and it was superb. it was not spiritual or gentle, which works great for me! my shoulders still hurt -- it's awesome! i only paid seven dollars for an hour of yoga, and the instructor was super nice. yes, yoga to the people, i think i will frequent your establishment.

work went so fast today! and it seemed like i accomplished so little! but i think i still had a better day than adam, who had to spend at least five hours wading through TWO poorly designed and even more poorly edited manuscripts.

the best taste combination ever: dark chocolate and chili peppers.

i cooked a very unsatisfying dinner tonight, after a trip to berkeley bowl.

i'm trying to buy fewer lattes, because they really are just a money pit. but what makes it tough is that i really like steamed milk. i make strong, good coffee; this is a fact. but there just ain't nothing like a latte, when properly done.

omg. the opera yesterday was INCREDIBLE, even though i had to take a train all the way out to daly city (the only theater i could find that still definitely had seats available) and i got a migraine midway through the third (last) act. despite all of those things, it was still one of the most worthwhile adventures i have undertaken thus far. _tristan und isolde_ was amazing, so amazing, so very amazing that i don't even know how to put it into words. and wagnerian singers are hardcore; they sing incredibly elaborate music for four hours straight.

one reason that i think wagner has gotten this reputation for being difficult is that he didn't really care about musical structure. in most operas, there are reasonably separate songs, which you can hum to yourself on your way home. wagner is not like that. everything is sung, and there's very little sense of where one song ends and another begins -- because there are no pauses, and very few distinct or repeating melody lines. it's not that wagner is really difficult, but he is very different.

anyway, i loved it, and i recommend the experience very highly.

afterwards, my head hurt a lot, but i thought i could tough it out, because i'm a tough guy. so i got on BART... and got off near union square in SF because i needed to find somewhere to buy excedrin . also, yes, ok, i did kind of want to look for pants at H&M. i bought excedrin and drank some water, and, while i was sitting on the lawn at union square, on the phone with my mom, a panhandler came up to me, stuck his hand right in my line of vision (i was kind of looking down) and asked me for a dollar. a dollar! not just anything i can spare, like in berkeley. apparently this man had such standards that he would accept nothing less than a dollar. i gave him nothing. later, i gave a dollar to a man who asked me if i could spare anything. i am not sure that this was the right thing to do, but i did it, so there.

then i bought pants. my head felt better at the time. but then i thought it was going to explode on the train home. when i got home, i took a nap. when i woke up, all i wanted to eat was two pieces of toast and four clementines. i love clementines; jessie bought them last year, and i ate them like i was recovering from scurvy or something. update: i ate two more while i was writing this entry.

i got home before 6:30 today -- it was fantastic! and that includes stopping at whole foods to buy a salad because i really wanted a salad!

this weekend i'm going to see wagner's opera _tristan und isolde_ in a movie theater: www.fathomevents.com. you should all go, too. then we can pretend we're seeing an opera together.

well, dudes, i'm off to read some quality literature that i swiped from counterpoint's storage unit.

well, guys. i've decided to make a few quarter-of-the-way-through-the-year resolutions.

1. get up earlier. getting out of bed is the most difficult thing i do every day. i am tired, and my bed is warm, and, really, who likes to put on real clothes? but i need to stop sleeping in so late.

2. eat more fruits and veggies. lately my diet has been heavy on croissants. that can't be good.

3. drink less coffee. this one especially has gotten out of hand.

4. start blogging more again. and writing letters. and maybe sewing.

i found a yoga studio that offers cheap (pay what you can) classes at super convenient times for me. and it's on my way home from work! MAJOR SCORE!

today the 51 was 45 minutes late. seriously. hence, tomorrow we try a new bus route. how do you like them apples, 51?

well, much has happened, dear readers!

my mom and joe and i drove around san francisco, and it was terrifying! those hills -- you don't realize how steep they are still you're at the top, fearing for your life, watching other people navigate like it ain't no thang, feeling like some sort of monkey who's still scared of fire.

then we went to tommaso's and ate for free, since my parents know the owners. oh hai! delicious italian food -- we ate it!

last night, joe and i ate indian food after seeing _persepolis_. we are almost-globetrotters! we took bart home. i am riding bart a lot more since joe is here -- it is cheaper and quicker to take bart for short trips. actually, it is always quicker, just not always cheaper.

today it was back to the salt mines for this girl. i'm working on filing for library of congress data for counterpoint's next season of books. now that adam is here, i am doing fewer fun editorial things. i guess that is better for the team, since adam knows what he is doing more than i do. but it is not fair to give me a taste of greater things (proofreading!) and then grab them away and replace them with finicky production schedules and this silly library of congress data. and the thing is, i was better at the higher-level editorial stuff than i am at the lower-level administrative stuff, because i am intellectually competent but very disorganized. maybe it's partly because i am only working three days this week and roxy doesn't want to assign me anything too major that i might not finish? i will choose to tell myself this.

taylor the terrier, because she is small and a terrier, came into my room to say hi and pissed all over my sheets out of sheer excitement. now i am washing them. it is 11:40. I WANT TO GO TO BED. doh

late again this morning because it took me so long to finish up my internship time log and reflection. no shower time, even. so then, walking to the bus, all of a sudden i realized i was going to throw up. i ran over to some landscaping and started retching into it, right across the street from a father and his three-year-old. they said nothing.

but because i ain't no quitter, i took the 1 over to where i catch the 51. when i found myself again retching into landscaping (and crying, because i cry when i throw up, for some reason), i decided that going to work would not be a great idea. i called roxy and told her i was staying home. she was nice, especially when i started crying like a moron.

i guess i am just stressed out and tired. there has been a lot to do lately.

i have next thursday and friday off because joe is going to be here (OMG!), so i feel bad missing today -- not as bad as i would have two weeks ago, since adam the new assistant editor is on the job and doing his thang. but still kind of bad. i might be taking this internship too seriously. it's hard to know.

jeez, i am so tired -- but i still have so much more lying to do for my internship spreadsheet! this crap sure ain't gonna make itself up; heck, i can hardly do it!

my midterm evaluation with my ASU internship supervisor is on wednesday -- hence the lying. it is weird to think that i am almost halfway through my internship. weirder still, roxy will be leaving at the end of march (because her kid should be popping out any time around then). i will miss her when she goes. she has been a great leader to my one-person girl scout troop.

ma and i had indian food for dinner. it was pretty good -- her lamb dish was better than my eggplant/potato thing. i should have known that the eggplant wouldn't be great.

every day, around 1:30, sharon and abbye and roxy start talking about how they want chocolate. since i was going for lunch around that time today, i got chocolate chocolate chip cookies for them, too. it was a happy day at counterpoint!

the guy who sold me those cookies (and the lasagna i ate for lunch) at the deli was flirting with me really obviously. i found myself wanting to encourage it so that it would make a better story to tell later. and that, kids, is when i thought i might be a bad person. anyway, now i'm not sure i can go back to that deli, which sucks, because it's either that or the diner take-out place across the street, which is always uber-busy.

ah, what i would not give for a BART station in west berkeley! the buses have been messing with me lately, being either shamefully late or suspiciously convenient. conspiracy? yes, i think so. but BART is much more reliable... ah, BART, how i love thee.

today at work, abbye (pronounced as if the 'e' was not there) said that she replied to a craigslist posting about forming a softball league. she wrote, "i played varsity in high school, and i have a mean arm." neither of those things are true, and she's not really sure why she wrote them.

lately, tedious proofreading projects have been eating my time at work. actually, tedious isn't the right word, because they're not boring or anything like that -- they're just really long and involved.

taylor the terrier loves to come in my room, partly because there are always crumbs in my bed, and partly because she loves attention.

i didn't get home til 8 today because i had to take the 18 -- the stupid, worthless 18 -- to walgreen's to pick up prescriptions. i had to wait SO LONG for the bus to get to where i was. sooooo long. so then, after walgreens, i just walked home instead of waiting for the bus, and, i have to say, it was a much shorter walk than i thought it would be. kind of nice.

last night, i saw _eraserhead_, and, boy, am i glad i did! i've been thinking to myself lately, there aren't enough creepy things in my life. i sure could use more! thanks, david lynch!

what is _eraserhead_ about? i'm not sure. did i like it? i'm not sure. i mean, i'm definitely not sorry i saw it, but i'm still trying to digest it, which is kind of like trying to digest tree bark.

the only bad part of the whole experience was the other people who were there -- they were suuuuch stereotypical liberal arts morons who thought they were very smart. behind me, one guy was talking about how dave chapelle is an anthropologist; in front of me, two guys were talking about books. one of the guys mentioned _swann's way_, probably just as a show-off thing, since i'm almost 100% sure that no real conversation can involve _swann's way_. (also, he just dropped the title instead of displaying any actual knowledge of the book.) then the other guy started talking about _absolom, absolom!_ by william faulkner. he described it simply as "a beautiful text." i don't know why, but that just sounds like such utter nonsense, to me. using the word "beautiful" along with the clinical word "text"... bleh.

ok, so then, _eraserhead_. afterwards, walking out of the auditorium, the first thing i heard was someone saying, "so what's your interpretation of that?" gah!

before all of that, i was walking on telegraph, and a homeless man asked if i had any change. i gave him a dollar (DON'T JUDGE ME). he was super nice, and he had a boombox that was playing "this is how we do it." as i was walking away from him, another guy said to me, "that was really nice of you." it confused me, and i think i weirded people out because i was singing along with "this is how we do it" (DON'T JUDGE ME).

then there was another altercation with a homeless man at the coffee shop i went to. he locked himself in the bathroom for 15 minutes, and they had to ask him to leave. he got super angry, but they finally got him out the door. he stood outside the window for a while, gesturing and yelling obscenities, until someone called the cops.

heeeeey yoooooou guuuuuuys.

i had to buy a new bus pass the other day, which means that i have officially lived here more than 31 days. counterpoint has hired a new editorial assistant named adam; he used to work at _mcsweeney's_, but i won't hold that against him. he's going to start on 3 march, so i'll have to move out of eryn's desk, back to my table in the very back of the office, quite far away from all windows. i liked having a desk, and i really think that eventually i would even have organized it instead of just putting things places and forgetting where they were

an incredible thing: right now we're proofing the cover of this leonard woolf biography (it gets passed around the whole office, and everyone looks at it and tries to find typos and other awful looking things), and I WROTE THE BLURB ON THE BACK COVER. the summary/teaser of the book. ok, so i only massaged an already existing paragraph, but it was actually more of a dismantling than a massage. anyway, that copy can sort of be attributed to me. the book is by victoria glendinning. BUY IT, but only in paperback. i had nothing to do with the hardcover.

i didn't really do anything last weekend except sleep longer than i meant to. this weekend i am going to go exploring somewhere.

man, running to catch the bus when you're carrying a laptop suuuuucks.

today i took the 1 home instead of the 1R because i didn't feel like waiting any longer, and it was uncomfortably warm on the 1, and i got kind of dizzy. bleh.

well, i just realized that my laundry probably stopped drying about 20 minutes ago and is now just getting crushed. i guess i better go fix that. i bought dryer sheets this week, and i'm hoping they'll cut down on the issues i'm having with cat hair coating me like a marinade.

oh, and my dad was right all along. it really does help with wrinkles if you shake your clothes out a bit before putting them in the dryer. i never thought i'd say that.

EDIT (11:30 PM): i take it back about the shaking and the wrinkles. it probably would help if you weren't using an awful dryer that still couldn't get everything dry after more than an hour and somehow managed to twist pant legs and shirt sleeves into ropes.

there is one flaw with my internship.

see, in order to get ASU credit for all the time i spend at counterpoint, i have to put together a semi-detailed log of what i do there every day. like: 1.5 hrs: creating database entries. 1hr: checking manuscript for errors. ETC. the thing is that, because i'm there all the time, i do a lot of little things that i forget about. like, roxy will come over to my desk/table and say, yo, xerox this manuscript for me -- or, yo, file these five things for me. ETC. so putting together this log has become a huge hassle because there is always at least an hour that i can't account for (it also doesn't help that i forgot to do it for the first three weeks, so i'm having to haphazardly make stuff up for that). i feel bad, but i'm fudging so many things for this log. no, wait, i take it back. i DON'T feel bad, i just realized. the fact that i am getting an opportunity to do everything at counterpoint instead of having pre-packaged two-hour tasks assigned to me every day does not bother me. suck it, ASU.

last night there was a rat in the kitchen. shayna told me this when i got home (at 8! because i stayed late at work and the bus was so shamefully behind schedule!), and she said that the cat was back there probably taking care of it. i had stopped by whole foods and picked up something for dinner, and she went out and did the same, and we ate dinner and watched _the wizard_ in the living room, which is coincidentally the farthest room from the kitchen. the dogs were hanging out with us. then it was like 10 PM, and we figured, ok, better go back and see what's going on with the cat-rat standoff. avi (the cat) had clearly managed to injure the rat, because there was blood on the floor. he had backed the rat into a corner under something, and this was clearly his preferred arrangement because he was content to just lie there and stare at the rat. but shayna and i did not feel the same way. so she had to flush the rat out, and she was thinking that she would then have to catch and drown it. but once the rat was running around, taylor the terrier suddenly tapped into her instincts and chased it into the hall (all doors were closed, thank god). she caught it within like thirty seconds, then shook it and broke its neck. and the rat fiasco was over.

the great part was, though, that taylor was sooooo proud of herself, and she spent the next 20 minutes retracing and smelling the path that she and the rat had taken, wagging her tail like a goof. avi was also pretty pleased with himself, although not for nearly as good a reason.

i just ate a portabella mushroom sandwich + a yam + a tomato + 1/4 onion + 1/2 rice krispy treat. all that delicious food has made me sleepy.

today was much better than monday and yesterday. as i said to several people, i felt like a person.

so anyway, nothing much, and i am really tired, but i just wanted to say hi. taylor the little terrier just scratched on my door til i opened it, then came in and ran around, like she likes me or something.

there's no way to sugarcoat this: today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day -- although, to be fair, it did not start out that way. i had time to eat breakfast, make coffee, and still catch the bus on time. then it was only a five minute wait for my second bus. everything was coming up greta.

however, this delightful trend came to an abrupt end when i started to get a headache in the early afternoon. as the headache became more intense and persistent, i began to hate today. THEN i started feeling all slow and thick-headed,too -- i couldn't concentrate, and i kept reading and rereading the instructions for what i was supposed to be doing, yet never really understanding how to implement those instructions. even xeroxing was too much for me. at about four, i told roxy that i had to go home. the bus ride did not help my headache, but a three hour nap did.

i just ate what strikes me as a very midwestern meal: mac and cheese, carrot sticks, and sliced tomato with salt and pepper. now i am going to eat a rice krispy treat.

final thought for the day: on my way home, i took the 18 bus instead of the 1R because the 18 showed up first, and i was worried that the 1R would let me down and make me wait much longer. but as the 18 was making another of its tediously numerous stops on shattuck, the 1R zoomed past. i need to learn to trust the 1R. it will not disappoint or abandon me. (perhaps i am anthropomorphizing these buses too much. also, i instinctively view it as a personal affront when the bus i am waiting for -- but going the opposite way on its route, a way that is of no use to me just then -- goes past, like this bus is rubbing my wait time in my face.)

i had an outing yesterday. first, i went to the flea market, and it was almost exactly like the mesa swapmeet, but less huge and rambling and hence better. there were a bunch of guys doing a drum circle, and this dude who had a cowbell couldn't keep a beat. he kept casually walking around, trying to find someone to stand next to and watch so he could magically find the beat. it did not work.

then, i took BART into san francisco. the trains go through a tunnel under the bay -- i need to look that up and see how it works. i was worried i wasn't going to know when we were in the tunnel, but then my ears starting popping, so there was no question.

i walked around in the mission district, where hip people live. i felt all day that i was not dressed cool enough. but anyway, it was pretty and fun, and the bookstores were excellent. i bought a book of short stories by TC boyle -- according to the inscription on the cover, a guy named ryan gave it to someone named dave because he remembered dave liked short stories, and ryan was nice enough to go through the table of contents and star the stories he particularly enjoyed. some of the stories are even double-starred. i ate dinner at a taqueria that had very good, creamy horchada. i walked over to the actual mission, which was lovely. i like big churches -- go big or go home, religious people.

here are some pictures:


see what i mean about mission dolores? it ain't here to play around. the original mission in the little white building on the left obscured by trees, btw.


i don't know what this shop was, but their window display was rocks surrounded by a layer of plastic bottle caps.


this might be hard to see, but it's a drycleaner that advertises itself as environmentally friendly, which i thought was funny.

grocery shopping has become a more high-risk endeavor than it was in AZ. i always, always, ALWAYS forget that i have to be able to carry all of what i buy at once. so today, at berkeley bowl, i bought this huge can of tomatoes, not realizing what a mistake it was until i was bagging it. but i'm always surprised at what can fit in two bags, and i think you can really fit a lot more in the average reusable bag than you can in a paper bag.

UPDATE ON THE TRANSBAY TUNNEL: omg! according to wikipedia, it's not under the bay, but rather it sits on the bottom of the bay. it was built in sections and then placed out there and weighted down. sweet! so it's not really a tunnel, i guess.

billboard i saw on the side of a bus yesterday:

Some of the nicest people we know
die of lung cancer.

We hope you're not one of them.


i thought this was so funny -- am i a bad person?

yo!

i think that proofing manuscripts for design errors is interesting, because i had never realized how much it is possible to design a book. i always thought that things pretty much worked themselves out on their own, but i have learned that, actually, people get paid to go through and jiggle lines around to make sure there are no weird line breaks, etc.

we got a manuscript on tuesday that really showed me how much it is possibly to destroy a book through design. it's a fairly complicated novel, full of letters and journal entries and term papers mixed in with the narrative. annnnd they made it cuter by using different fonts for all of those things. all of this would have worked, if it had actually come through ok. but all of the fonts were mixed up, and chapter headings were at bottoms of pages (so the chapter actually started on the next page) -- cringe-worthy things like that. the book was literally unreadable.

eryn the editorial assistant left yesterday, which is sad, and i will miss her, BUT (at least temporarily) i get to sit at her desk! i have a bulletin board, and drawers, and a lamp, and a lot more space!

omg! tomorrow will be the end of my fourth week of working at counterpoint. i feel like i am approaching a plateau where people can tell me to do X thing, and i know what that means and how to do it, without needing ten minutes of explanation. at least for the things i do on a regular basis, like the checklists we run on manuscripts.

i have not watched a single second of TV about the primaries, but i feel like i have a pretty good handle on whats going on, because people in different rooms keep yelling relevant details at me. at work, sharon would just yell, "obama won illinois!!!" (etc) whenever she had new info. here at home, shayna (the roomie) is keeping me abreast of the situation in the same manner. it is a good deal.

the 1R and i enjoy a connection unrivaled by any i have ever observed. this morning, i was late... but it was late, too! it knows me; it reads my mind.

to everyone who once wanted to comment on this blog and couldn't because you didn't have a blogger account: now you can! i changed the settings to accept anonymous comments, which i did not realize it was disallowing.

taylor (shayna's terrier) likes to come into my room, run around really fast, sniff things, and then leave. this is one of her two favorite hobbies. the other is crying loudly and plaintively when shayna's not home.

the editorial assistant at counterpoint is leaving; tomorrow is her last day. she was the one who interviewed me and showed me around the office and showed me where the bathroom and the office supplies were (the office supplies are in the bathroom, which made that easier). i will miss her. annnd it will be weird to have more seniority than someone, anyone.

I ACTUALLY POSTED THIS ON SUNDAY 3 FEB, BUT THE DATE GOT SCREWED UP. SORRY.

update on the flea market: I COULDN'T FIND IT. there may be several possible reasons for this, among them 1. it was raining 2. i was in the wrong parking lot at the ashby BART station. uncle george and aunt mary jo pointed that last one out to me. and i was going to go investigate this morning, but i slept too late. bummer. i'll have to go next weekend or something.

i needed to go back to telegraph ave and the surrounding area to look for shoes, so i took BART to the downtown berkeley station, then walked. i found some good shoes. what do they look like? why, i'm so glad you asked!


black boots! blue tweedy pointy-toed flats!



shoes on my feet! also a weird shot of the zipper of my jeans! pretty sweet!

today i saw _the seventh seal_ at the pacific film archives on the UC berkeley campus. i am not sure why, but i love that movie so much. the PFA is doing a series of medieval revival movies right now, so on friday i saw this polish film called _the knight_. the plot was something like this: a knight, whose king is weak and corrupt, seeks to find a lost magical golden harp to bring peace and happiness back to the land. sounds good, right? and most of it was really cool, visually, but it got bogged down, especially at the end, with arty nonsense -- also, there were a ton of monks and priests, and i couldn't keep them all straight, what with the fact that they were all dressed alike.

all in all, i give this weekend a thumbs-up.





ps -- heather: RELISH? really? man, babies are gross.

the 1R is the greatest bus ever! it runs every 12 minutes between 6 am and 7 pm!

i got done with work at 5 pm today, probably for the only time ever. just as i was leaving, charlie (counterpoint's publisher and CEO) said, "we grossed over half a million dollars this month! i have champagne!" so we all drank champagne, and i still got out of there by 5:20. the people at my office are super nice, and i am hoping to get to know them better. one of the women looks like a brunette, slightly rounder-faced katherine heigl.

today taught me that life is much easier to deal with if you get enough sleep, eat lunch, and get home before 6:30 or so.

so-o, i went shoe shopping again yesterday. i had to go to urban outfitters, even though i was tired and shiny-faced. but anyway, the whole trip turned out ok, because i got two pairs of shoes:


i am still trying to perfect the whole tucking-pants-into-boots thing, as this picture shows.

and believe it or not, it is actually quite difficult to take pictures of shoes when you are wearing them:


i like boots, i think. i have never before owned a pair of non-snow boots. i feel like i want to wear boots constantly -- they're comfy! they're more water resistant than flats! they look awesome!

today and yesterday were both unsatisfying work days. yesterday was spent mostly moving and alphabetizing large stacks of books. today, my usual supervisor was in new york, and the other girl in editorial found almost NOTHING for me to do. i wasted a lot of time waiting for her to come up with something for me to do. then i conned sharon, who does marketing, into giving me something to do. but jeez it was all so frustrating. also i didn't eat lunch today or yesterday.

i have been trying a new bus route: taking the 1R (R = rapid!), which goes a different way but still gets to a bus stop where i can catch the 51. the 1R is a great bus -- so fast! so on time! so few stops! and the walk to the bus stop is nicer than the walk to the bus stop for the 18.

i just found out: there is a flea market every saturday at the ashby BART station! that's what i'm doing this saturday!

oh hai! it's been a while, hasn't it? well, to start, i have some pictures from saturday to show off.

saturday, i took BART for the first time. i even had to change trains! it all went ok, even though i had to ask a couple of people to make sure i was getting on the right trains. eventually, though, i found my way to the rockridge stattion in oakland. here is a picture of my Very First BART Ticket:



i like the way it glows, like some artifact sent from heaven.

next was breakfast, even though it was almost 1. i went to the rockridge cafe:
and had their corned beef hash. my waitress was really nice. she looked like julia stiles and steered me in the direction of the most delicious coffee cake i have ever shovelled into my mouth. i was sitting at the counter, so i got to watch the cooks work, and there was always someone passing through to refill my coffee.

i spent a few hours walking around on college avenue in oakland. it is a neat area; i would have liked to spend more time there, but i had to get home (via BART again! holla!) so that i could have dinner with uncle george and aunt mary jo. it hadn't rained all day, but it started almost pouring then they were driving me home.

me on saturday, pretty pleased with myself:


sunday: thrift stores on telegraph and shattuck. i found a jacket that at first looks to be some silly, useless windbreaker -- but lo! it is fleece-lined! i wore it today, and, man, was it cozy. i'm also trying to track down some shoes, and it is proving difficult. after thrift stores, i went to berkeley bowl. ugh, it was right when they were closing, and everyone was extremely stupid. at the bus stop, a woman asked my advice about her employer's habit of giving her a $20 cash bonus every week -- was this legal? should she accept it? i did not know. it rained off and on -- these fine drops that were sometimes just a mist and sometimes a thin shower.

as promised, here is the front door of my house. i have never used this door, but i have gone through a side door in our apartment that leads into the stairway, and someday i will have to get pictures of that for you, because this house is INCREDIBLE and was built by some maniac medievalist dentist.

today at work, i finished copying those gary snyder letters. at some point, i'll have to do ginsberg's, probably. then i had to use a very silly and complicated program to update production schedules for the books we're working on. the program is so silly and convoluted that i don't even want to try to explain it.

on the way home, i stopped at a diner and bought a meatloaf sandwich to take home for dinner. it was ok; it definitely suffered because of the half hour it took me to get home.

ack! the dinner i made was also crappy, and i managed to fill the whole house with smoke!

rain = the buses are slower and later than usual. i spent so much time standing outside in the cold and the rain (yes, i had an umbrella; no, it was not entirely effective) waiting for a bus (ESPECIALLY THE #18 BUS) to show up. jeez. when i got home, my feet and the bottom three inches of my pants were all wet. i need to get new shoes that are not flats, because puddles + flats ALWAYS = squeaky-wet feet.

but anyway, work was good. i got there late, but roxy is cool and completely understood about the buses. she told me i did a really great job on something i did yesterday (going through a newly-typeset manuscript to make sure that all of the changes from the previous draft had been incorporated -- dude, i caught like five errors that no one else had seen!).

i spent most of the afternoon xeroxing letters from gary snyder to allen ginsberg for this _selected letters of allen ginsberg and gary snyder_ book that counterpoint is doing. this is not a difficult task, but it is turning out to be very time-consuming. some of the letters (actually, they're already copies of the letters) are typed, and on 8.5x11 paper. these are the easiest, because i can just feed them into the copier. but it gets more complicated: different paper sizes, handwritten letters that require adjusting how light/dark the copy will be, and if the letters were written on colored paper, more adjustment of the color intensity to compensate for it. ohhhhh my god it is taking forever.

also i made myself a crappy lunch today. completely unsatisfying; i didn't even eat most of it.

BLAH NOW I AM SICK I HATE EVERYTHING.

for most of the morning and early afternoon, i put together mailings for a couple of the new titles. i put a book and a press release into a mailing envelope, put a label on the envelope, and then sealed the envelope, like 200x. eventually i developed a system. the labels came six to a sheet, so i would fold six press releases in half, shove each one inside a book, put each one in an envelope, label each envelope, and then seal them. then do six more. it was raining today, and i had to go over to the other suite in the office complex that counterpoint uses as a storage unit (to get more envelopes, yo) -- i took my umbrella, but i was still very cold and sort of wet.

i know i am sick because my eye sockets feel itchy.

o hai!
too bad about heath ledger; RIP, ennis.

today was not the best of all possible days. workmen were putting in new carpet back where i usually work, and i think the fumes messed with me. i was having a really hard time concentrating, and i felt all heavy and lethargic and exhausted. roxy (the managing editor) even noticed. i took a walk and got some coffee, and that helped, but i still got pathetically little accomplished today.

then i stopped on the way home and got some delicious ramen at a japanese noodle shop. i thought it was pretty authentic. it featured a hardboiled egg -- alas, fully hardboiled instead of still kind of gooey in the middle, but i guess concessions must be made to health codes here in the states. it also suffered a little bit because i got it to go and they put the soup in one container and the meat/noodles/egg/veggies in another carton, and then i combined the two myself when i finally got home. the noodles had congealed a little by the time i got home, but it was still tasty. dinner was a thumbs-up ending to a sub-par day.

i have been too tired at night to do anything but watch _arrested development_, eat, and sleep. hence, i'm going to sleep now; maybe tomorrow i'll actually have energy to go somewhere or do something after work, even if it's only writing a little.

today i tried to catch that same #18 bus, and the same thing happened: it lumbered past me as i was a block away from the stop. so i waited and read again, then the bus came, blah blah blah. there's not a bench at my bus stop, though, and i mourn this more every day. (mah hypothetical bench, ah mourns it.) i visited a thrift store that seemed a lot like buffalo exchange, except it had better stuff, it was cheaper, and the people who worked there weren't huge tools. so i guess it was nothing like buffalo exchange. anyway, i'm almost willing to go out of my way to visit other locations of this store. it was great, on an impersonal level -- i mean, they had a great variety and all that. but because i apparently have the most average-sized body in the world, it was hard to find stuff (ESPECIALLY SHOES) in my size. buuut i still got a sweater.

ugh then i was going to take another bus to go to another thrift store (called out of the closet, run by an AIDS charity), but i had waited 25 minutes and there was no sign of a bus, so i decided to just cross the street and catch the bus to go home instead of going to another store and then having to wait even longer for the buses to take me home.

it is raining today, and, because i am stupid, i wore the wrong shoes: my tweedy cloth flats. my feet were so cold and squeaky-wet. in my defense, it was not raining when i left the house... but, yeah, ok, it had been raining earlier so i probably should have known.


now i have tea! and a space heater! everything is a-ok.

this has happened to me at least three times:

just as i'm walking on to shattuck, a block away from the bus stop, the very bus i wanted to catch drives past me.

CURSE YOU, #18 BUS!

this happened today, so i stood at the bus stop and read. but it was chillier than i realized, and i didn't have a jacket. the occasional wind made the twenty-minute experience very unpleasant. it was balanced out by the pride i felt when i remembered which stop to get off at to go to berkeley bowl, and the smugness i felt when all of my groceries fit perfectly into one of my reusable bags. but then i had to wait twenty minutes for another bus, so i pretty much broke even.

here are pictures of where i live:

the awesome front of the house. the front door itself (hidden by trees in this shot) is pretty impressive, too. i'll try to take a picture of that soon.



this is the side of my house, and the door to our actual apartment.

today, i walked around on telegraph avenue. i visited a number of excellent bookstores (one of which had a GREAT selection of moleskine notebooks, which i think is a sign of a truly extraordinary establishment), and a thrift store where the people were really nice. i had dinner at some place that advertised its healthy fast food. veggie burgers instead of hamburgers, basically, but the fries were good, too. saw _persepolis_, AND IT WAS REALLY GOOD. i liked it a lot.

i took the bus home, and, walking from the bus stop to my house, i noticed that i had managed to break one of my shoes during the course of the day.
look at that! the right side of the shoe! the top is pulling away from the side at an ever-increasing rate! gah! i noticed this when i was walking past the bar at the corner of deakin and shattuck, and i said, "son of a bitch!" (sorry, aubree/scott, if you're reading this; i was mad.) the hipster kids standing outside, smoking, gave me a funny look.

i was going to go see _persepolis_ tonight, but my head hurts, and i am tired. so i'll go tomorrow night or something.

you know, work is not like school. at school, everyone does the same things wrong at the same time, because you're all learning the same things at the same time. at work, you show up and try to blend in with people who already know what they're doing, and you try to do what they do and keep up, but you do all of these little things wrong (like using staples instead of paperclips; who knew?) and PLUS they all work on macs and you've got a PC, jeez. plus it's hard to concentrate who you still can't quite talk yourself into eating breakfast and it's 3 PM and you've been too busy to take a lunch break.

anyway, i find the work world both terrifying and exciting. everyone at the office is nice and helpful, and a lot of the women wear boots (cowboy and otherwise). i am trying to work up the courage to speak german with bernhard, the german account/something-or-other.

i am going to have an outing this weekend! i am not sure what it will be, but it will be fun!

today did not start off well. i woke up a little late, and i am not good at hurrying in the morning, and, anyway, i missed the bus that was supposed to take me north on shattuck (the closest main north/south street to me; it's like a quarter of a mile from the house), so i thought, hmm, i bet if i walk it i can still get there in time to catch my next bus. HOWEVER i underestimated how long the walk was (IT WAS ALMOST A MILE), so by the time i got there i had missed not only the bus i had originally planned to take, but also the next one. so i was starting to freak out. but then the bus came at 9:2o, and i thought, ok, even if i'm a little late to work, everyone will understand. (the trip planner website said the ride would take 15 minutes, plus a little walking.)

the bus got to my stop at like 9:30! i got to the office at like 9:34! and i didn't even have to rush!

the bus driver did get a little snippy with me when i didn't know what to do with my bus pass, and i almost told him i hadn't done this before, but i didn't want to talk to him. he had a mean face.

the rest of the day picked up. i wrote some copy for the fall catalog in the morning. i was so hungry (i have been too nervous to eat breakfast, although today i was able to choke down some tea), but going to lunch was easy and guilt-free because i reached a good stopping place in my work and everyone else in the editorial department was in a meeting, so there was no one to trip me up by asking me to xerox things. which i am more than happy to do.

after lunch, i got to work on publicity stuff! for the first time! i was going through author questionnaires, trying to pull out some stuff that we could use as hooks for advertising or that would help promotion, and i came across the following:

15. Please list any awards or prizes you think your book may be eligible for, and we'll look into nominating it if appropriate.

Well, Hitchens was nominated for the National Book Award, and my book is much better than his.

bahahaha. then my pregnant editor told me she had a milkshake for lunch. there was much yelling at the office today; people were knocking things over and having aggravating phone conversations right and left.

this is my mom, in my room. everyone is jealous of her hair color -- as they should be
this is my bed, a queen-sized air mattress with five pillows. i dumped all my stuff on it when i came home. sorry, ma; i'm picking it up right after i finish this entry. you can perhaps also see my small ikea lamp and my awesome space heater.

here is the other wall of my room: two closets and a nook. it's a sweet deal.



this was me, this morning. my hair is very big in this picture. the bottom only got bigger as the day went on, but it was ok, because today was THE FIRST DAY OF MY INTERNSHIP. it was pretty cool. everyone is really nice at the office, and there are only like ten people (who are all pretty distinctly different), so it is easy to learn names. today i intimidated a xerox machine (its name is gary, because one of the press's biggest authors is gary snyder) into working, and i wrote copy for the fall 08 catalog. i worked 9:30-6, with a half-hour lunch break. i am very tired. but not too tired to post more pictures.



this is my roommate's cat. this picture makes him look like a psycho demon, but he is very nice and affectionate.

you may have to squint a little on this one, but hopefully you can see the hinge on my closet door. it's triangular. LIKE IN A CASTLE. there are sconces on the wall in the living room, too.

mom and i had dinner tonight with her friend carmen at a place called eccolo in berkeley. i ate butternut squash lasagna and bread pudding with currants. already, i have eaten so much delicious food here!

today we visited berkeley bowl, a grocery store that is awesome in general, but especially awesome because of its produce section. there were like ten kinds of mushrooms, lots of heirloom tomatoes, SO MANY SWEET POTATOES, and carrots with their green leafy tops still attached, like in cartoons! most importantly, they sell meyer lemons, which are a cross between a regular lemon and a mandarin orange, so it's this sweet, thin-skinned lemon. in short, the meyer lemon is my favorite thing ever.

i think i will post pictures tomorrow, or maybe the next day. tomorrow will be my first day of the internship. i'll let you know how that turns out.

i am in berkeley now, and i am scared. there is no reason to lie about that. actually, i'm with my mom at my aunt and uncle's in albany, north of berkeley. the drive up was ok. we smelled skunk a few times, which was kind of like the way an eraser smells when you use it a lot. we just got back from this really nice italian restaurant owned by my parents' friends. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS.

anyway, i'll write more later, but, for now, i am good, but also really scared of having a job and living without my family for what seems right now to be a very long time.

for my family, the universe is shaped exactly like the earth. we have gone straight long enough, and now we've ended up where we were.