krink

did i mention i got my diploma? finally? i think i might have.. but just in case.. i got my diploma. wOoOHoo.

the trade show was pretty much what i expected.. lots of sales-fake type people playing nice. i did meet some interesting people. the vendor dinner was western-themed, and i got to show off my shooting and line-dancing abilities. in that order. cracker barrel had a booth at the show, and the old man in suspenders who was working it knows my brother. that was a funny coincidence...

tonight i rest. i will call the russian and go out in the city friday night, i need to have some fun.

new york is lots 'o fun. my homebase was lower east side, in a circumference around my cousin's apartment. she lives at 21st and 2nd, just east of gramercy park. i sat in union square and read a magazine, i rode the subway uptown, i dined on tasty pizza at stromboli, and cruised the shops on st. mark's with nate. i witnessed scantily clad prostitutes fleeing nypd, and transsexuals who were still working in the meat packing district 10am sunday morning. i ate brunch at a french cafe. i had a driving tour past ground zero and the statue of liberty, i walked through the crowds outside of bloomingdales, i saw the dakota looming over central park. i played with an adorable baby (child of cousin's friend), sang 'boomer sooner' to her, and we bounced up and down.

it was altogether a pretty tasty weekend.

proximity to 'celebrities' was realized when i passed chloe sevigne on the sidewalk. that was surreal.

it's good to be back home, but i'm tired. trade show tomorrow and wednesday, with a woman from work who thinks she is my mother. wish me luck.

My reward for complaining about being bored at work: work piled up to my ears. Mountains of data entry from sales missions and meetings with travel agencies that require follow-up mailings and phone calls.. blah blah blah. Makes me wish we had an intern now that I could boss around, instead of having to wait until the summertime.

P.S. we're getting an intern this summer who I get to boss around :) I was talking to Pat about that.. he has an intern under him in DC, and we were laughing about getting to say "have that on my desk by 5!"

Health insurance effective next week. It has been two years since I went to the dentist. Cheers to teeth cleaning, chiropractors to fix my back, doctors to fix my headaches, and reimbursed gym memberships to make me buff. Oh, and free contacts and eye glasses! Does life get any better then that! How about this.. we have a 401(k) that matches investments up to 5% of each check. So I'm getting about $1200 a year from the bureau to invest towards my retirement. Free money! I'm going to start investing. I work full-time. I have business cards and my own work phone number. Aren't I such a grown up.

Once a friend said to me "I wonder what you'll be like when you're thirty?" - at the time, aged 21, and I hadn't the faintest idea. Now the picture is becoming a bit clearer. Two months ago I was living with my parents, unemployed, broke, despressed. Now I'm slowly establishing myself as an independant adult. People tell me they're proud, that I deserved this chance, that I'm going to do great things. I thank them, and I wonder if it's true. What WILL I be like when I'm 30...?

i can't get over the idea that if i drive for 30 minutes, and jump on a train, in two hours i can be in new york city. i'm headed up this friday. big city, here i come.

it's been an interesting weekend. good interactions on friday night by way of todd fagan being in town.. hung out with him, and his sister (my new buddy) andrea, her boyfriend joe, and another former normanite named april who now lives in baltimore i think. we ate some nummy thai food, and went for a drink at the house of jack rose.. who i think may also be former normanite.. at least musician, he played a show at the opolis last october. he and his lady have a nice apartment in fishtown, a little district in northeast philly. we listened to some good music. his record collection was AMAZING. heard some old british folkster, john martyn - who was cheesy at times - but a great voice and good guitar playing. listened to tim buckley's starsailor album, and joe commented... "you know there's a band called starsailor now" to which jack replied "yeah man, but they're not a good as this fuckin' record."

i thought that was pretty funny.

saturday was a shitty day, i woke up with a headache despite no partying the night before. i needed to get out of town. i thought of going to dc but pat wasn't around, so i jumped in the honda and drove out to ocean city, new jersey. first visit to new jersey, it's an interesting state.. first walk on the jersey boardwalk.. it's an interesting place. it was very cold, but the salty air and seagulls and sand blowing in my eyes was still fun. i climbed out on a rock jetty, and the ocean took up my entire field of vision. it was a happy feeling. i like being near the ocean. it's the one thing that's been lacking in my life, despite my time in sweden, and i will take comfort in the fact that it is now an hour away. i drove home and drifted between sleep and television the rest of the day.

sidenote: one drawback to having roomates, particularly male roomates, with girlfriends, when you live in an old house.. being woken at 3am to the sounds of the girlfriends getting off. hmm... it's funny, but also annoying, and it makes me lonely. c'est la vie.

today i *drove* into philly, this was a big achievement, something i have been scared to do up until now.. but i survived. picked andrea up and went to belly dancing class, then mooched around rittenhouse square and giggled at the well-coifed rich yuppies, then back for yoga class. yoga kicked my ass. i will never go back to that teacher.. he is like a drill sargeant! ugh. i prefer my meditative yoga in media. but belly dancing was fun. the studio where the classes were held also offers capoeira on wednesday nights.. reminded me of robert.. will have to check that out soon.

i felt the first twinges of homesickness yesterday but i got through them, and i turned myself around. that was a good feeling. back to the grind tomorrow.. i'm going to have a talk with my boss and see what i can do to make my work more interactive, because lately i've been bored to tears. wish me luck.

love!

it's going to snow again tonight... 6 inches or so. yikes! long drive to work in the morning.

p.s. i deleted all my lj friends, i'm just using it to monitor communities now.. but i still read people's pages.. so don't delete me. unless you want to :)

i can't believe the enormity of the debate that this whole real world pulling out of philly has caused. today i got into with some guy on a message board about how people complain about there being nothing to do but never actually getting off their asses and looking for something.. or calling a tourism bureau and asking what is going on. there is so much to do if people just look! i am so turned off by complacany.

reading this made me like my little city even more...

today i survived my first east-coast-freak-spring-snow storm. i drove to work and i didn't die. that's pretty good considering how horrible visibility was.. more snow today then in 4 months of an okie winter. now if i can just make it home in one piece, and if they will have shoveled my street so i can park... brRRrrRrrr!

senor todd fagan will be in philly tomorrow for work-related activities. going to be hanging with him, his sis, and her boyfriend tomorrow evening or so. the rrrrussian called, he's back from seattle, and we might get together later this week.

my second roomate, jack, finally moved in. now if we can just get living room furniture our little house will be complete. jack and i live upstairs (my room, spare room, bathroom, his room) while roomate/landlord rob lives down in the basement. last night about 10.30 i was craving sweets, and it was nice to be able to walk down the hall and knock on a door, and have someone to go to WaWa with for mint chocolate chip ice cream. cheers to roomates, especially male ones, who won't turn into psycho catty bitches.

in other (sad) news... my sister-in-law lost her job. she was basically made a scape-goat for the actions of her co-workers and the company management. as sad as i am to say this, everyone should boycott cracker barrel. particulary and especially the store in norman. shame on them - a hard-working girl who has given six years of her life to the company is now unemployed... my brother of course now wants to quit his job working at the cracker barrel in okc, but will hang onto it until his wife can find work. they have two small children to support. it's such a shame! after all my family has given to that lousy company, this is what they give back to us. i'm disgusted.

everyone should check out 'all songs considered' on npr.. you can listen to the shows and the songs online.. it has been mucho useful in making the office house pass more quickly. good listening by way of sigur ros. also the candles new site - where i can hear my favorite album online... check it out.

p.s. one thing sadly lacking from my life at present: decent mexican food. i would give my left leg for some pepe's right about now.

this city is amazing, but oh so expensive. this morning i had brunch with a friend and saw woman walking six dogs. i took the train home and now i'm sleepy. last night i gave my business card to a cute boy, and sat at a bar in rittenhouse square next to a transsexual prostitute. she(he?) had a very beautiful smile.

druuuunk. if i called you, i'm sorry, you can blame it on the black opal shiraz. it was on sale. love to all the good children....

my friend adam sarmiento had a brush with fame this past weekend. he was interviewed for a segment on npr's "all things considered." it's a good chance for those friends of mine who are unfamiliar with his band the candles to give them a listen.. and hear another great norman band, the starlight mints. check it out by following this link.

sunday was my three year blog-a-versary. everyone wish a happy birthday to my blog!

it's impossible to recap everything that is happening.. i want to remember it all! just have to do the best i can.

the highlight of the weekend was meeting up with jude downtown... and via that encounter meeting two other really neat people who are living in philly. there was a group of about 10 of us, we spent saturday afternoon at the museum of art and had a personal tour by cool new friend #1. he is jack, from england, he's 27 with i believe a masters in art history. he works at the philadelphia museum of art, if you come visit me, we'll go there - it is AMAZING. he got us in for free and walked us around and showed us displayed he had worked on, and funny little insider stories about different exhibits and paintings and people. it was so great. i had the biggest smile on my face all afternoon.. plus just being a big social group like that, with everyone from all these different countries (2 out of the 10 were american)... just like being an exchange student again. fabulous.

after walking around we were exhausted, we went and had some beers, and then later on went to this very 'intimate' jazz club. the food was so-so, but the atmosphere was wonderful. great music, tasty wine.. all the fixin's. we left about 11 to find a pub, i stopped off to freshen up and so exited the club after everyone else was already outside. as i walked along the bar to the exit, this older somewhat gruff and crusty but 'hip' gentlemen stopped me, and asked me if i was from philly. i said "no", he asked where, i said, "well.. oklahoma believe it or not." he laughed and exclaimed "girl you walk like you own this bar! you just go ahead now! you're a badass!" that was pretty cool.

we stumbled back to jack's apartment after that and passed out.. then on sunday woke to beautiful weather. we had coffee on his balcony and then walked to the italian market. produce and fish vendors up and down the street.. it was really unlike anything i've ever seen before. we wanted philly cheese steak, and there are two great places down there, pat's and geno's. lots of debate as to which is better - a homeless guy drinking a guiness said geno's was cleaner, that was pretty funny.. so we had some philly cheese. i don't like it much, the meat it too dry, but for the two englishmen it was quite an experience. we ended up back at jack's in the afternoon, for naps in the sun with beer and revolver playing in the background. it was altogether just a fun and relaxing weekend.. and it made me wish i lived in philly proper instead of the burbs. but i could never afford it. good thing i have friends that can...

this morning i had a meeting for work at one of our member sites. the qvc studio park. that's right, the home of the qvc shopping channel. we had a little tour of the studio. that place is enormous. who knew so many people watched that junk? not me for sure... but they bring lots of tourists to the area so cheers to them.

back to knitting, love to all.

an amazing weekend.. stay tuned for more once i let the multiple experiences digest a bit.

bottom line: three new and cool philly-based friends. more to come. much love!

according to some new friends, the members of bardo pond live close by, and if you go stand in the right place on the street, you can hear them practicing. that's neat to think about.

me, on the phone to hotels,

'hi this is kate calling from the valley forge convention and visitors bureau'

trying saying that 3 times fast. that's right, the name of my work is 12 syllables long. not to mention, i keep getting tounge tied and making an idiot of myself on people's voicemail. these calls will have to wait until tomorrow. 55 minutes to go....

one of the main goals here in my department is to get 'heads in beds...'
tourism-speak for people to stay in hotels.

.snicker.

flashback this weekend, seeing my friend jude, with whom i experienced crazy drinking escapades in london about 2 years ago.

I just had to call the OU Career Services office and have them deactivate my account because I'm still getting calls about job openings.

Damn that felt good!

it's yoga night! i'm happy. i haven't streched in so long.

recent home additions - a bed courtesy of rob's mom. it's turned out to be a furnished room, cheers to not having to buy stuff.

my ibook rules.