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.