Soo desu ne?

Today I love all things Japanese. A silly grin pops up on my face every time I remember Roksu (who's in Kyoto). He says he's going to send me a postcard with Hiragana and Katakana characters, so that I can ask the cute Japanese boy from Tech Support to translate it. I took Nihonggo in high school and college and I still remember the characters pretty well, but Jap Boy doesn't need to know that, does he? Thanks for the idea, Roksu, but you know I'm not gonna do it, anyway.

I've been looking for a lounge band to like. How timely then that my alarm clock/radio was tuned in to this station (I'm not even sure which, really) yesterday, and the guest was a guy who "swankified" popular rock songs. I love Richard Cheese and his band Lounge Against the Machine (Bobby Ricotta, Gordon Brie, Buddy Gouda). How can you not adore someone who takes angsty songs like Radiohead's Creep or Pearl Jam's Betterman and actually makes them sound...happy. So I've been downloading all day and tadaah! I now have lounge versions of The Rockafeller Skank, Suck My Kiss and even Nookie (with an upright bass!) And their version of Garbage's Only Happy it Rains has the riff from Singin' in the Rain! I still can't get enough of them but thanks to Amazon, in five to nine business days, I'll have a copy of their first album Lounge Against the Machine in my hands! Yay!

I got to work Thursday on the dot, nine AM, not a minute sooner. So it was not a pleasant surprise when I found a loooong line to get into the building. And I was thinking to myself, is the job market really that bad that we all now have to get in line to go to work? Well, it IS that bad. But it also turns out they were X-raying everybody's bags, briefcases, purses, shopping bags, what not. Another Al Qaeda threat. No one was even surprised anymore. "They're X-raying everyone's bags. Al Qaeda." "Oh, okay."

Went to Battery Park for lunch. This time, I stayed and sat by the water, set my phone's alarm, read a chapter, watched the businessmen and tourists with their cameras, listened to an Oriental guy playing some kind of string instrument. It was a beautiful, cold but sunny day and from where I sat I could see the Statue of Liberty. It was not without regret that I left twenty minutes later, and I realized I had not eaten anything.

My vacation starts on Monday, and already I've planned two whole weeks in my head of not doing anything.

Ian: You're gonna get bored.
Me: I want to get bored.

I'm going to pay back my sleep debt. I'm going to go grocery shopping and then I'm going to cook menudo (I just discovered this wonderful thing called Mama Sita's Menudo/Afritada Mix, which I got at the Filipino store in Queens). I'm going to spend one whole day at the library. I'm going to do my laundry, iron my clothes, clean my room and shift stuff around. I'm going to sit in front of the computer all day and not care if I stay up until three AM because I won't have to get up early, or get up at all, the next day anyway. I'm going to watch TV until my eyes hurt. I'm going to exercise like crazy and then I'm going to take a nice long shower but I'm not going to dry my hair. I'll let it air-dry while I read one of the ten books I'll bring home from the lib. I would shop if I could, but since I'm not going within 100 feet of the office, I can't pick up my check, so I'll be broke. But I'll be happy broke. I'm going to alphabetize my CDs and gasp! listen to every one of them, if I want. I'm going to paint and draw and color, and maybe even finish my Katakana workbook. I'm going to watch DVDs galore. I'm going to have a wonderful time.

"Shut up and eat! Too bad no bon appetit!" - Birthday Cake, Cibo Matto

What's in the box?

Yesterday, I found out a terrible secret. It's something that the people concerned don't know about. If I say anything, people could get fired for divulging information that is confidential for now. It bothers me that if years ago, if this was one of those quizzes that claim to tell you who you are, and I were asked if I would tell them, I would, without hesitation, say yes. But now, confronted with the situation and the complications, I know I will never say anything.
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While reading Me Talk Pretty One Day on the train, I had to look away and skip a few parts lest I get mistaken for a creepazoid. Seriously, I was forcing my lips not to tremble and emit guffaws. I had to cough about 27 times because I was in serious danger of laughing out loud, and not just a giggle either. The hyena kind of laughing out loud. Lesson learned: Never read Sedaris on the train. Read it in the privacy of your bedroom where you can laugh out loud all you want.
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After work yesterday, I had lunch at the McDonald's with a piano. An Asian woman was playing lounge music: "Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a treeee..." Sometimes it's a Duke Ellington look-alike playing jazz up there (on a ledge on the second floor), and the waitress always whips a (paper) place mat out just as you sit down, and you forget for five seconds that it's a McDonald's. I got off at Union Square because I remembered I had my sister's Barnes and Noble card, and that I was thinking of getting a Japan travel guide. Well, I ended up with a travel guide AND a workbook (which I started on last night) and Ellis' The Rules of Attraction.
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I watched Seven again for about the umpteenth time yesterday. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and I was telling a friend who didn't like "slow" movies that I would have liked it more if it weren't for Brad Pitt. Strange, but two of my favorite films (Seven and Fight Club) have him in them, despite the fact that he's easily one of my least favorite actors.

"Information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age..." - Information Travels Faster, Death Cab for Cutie