Eventful week

[sub_divided]

petronia was down from Montreal and I had dinner in NYC three times, spending THIRTY HOURS' PAY BEFORE TAXES on food and transportation. (Pay at the library, that is. I am making more now at Pearson, thank God.) New York City is so expensive: there's "sticker shock," and then there's "if I actually had to pay my own bills, it would be another four months before I could afford another week like this". Hooray for living at home?

Getting the shout-outs out of the way quick: the cast included, on Saturday, me, Chrissie (sesame_seed), Kara (emblem), Sabina (petronia), and Alex (starlighter); on Sunday, me, Sabina, Jae Young (serendip), hemlocke, Tristan (vonbrigthi) and Vivian (redplasticglass); and on Thursday, me, Sabina, Jae Young, Whitney (beeblebabe), and Lauren (peripheralsight).

Saturday: Covered in exhaustive detail elsewhere.

Sunday: Remembered the last time I was at a restaurant with Jae Young way better than she did, doubtless proving that I do this kind of thing less often. Would like to see Tristan and Vivian's apartment.

Thursday: Felt like a jerk for drinking at a bar in front of Whitney without once mentioning her heroic efforts to drink less. Felt this was kind of like going to the circus and carefully not mentioning the pink elephant. Then again, I don't know her very well at all. (Although I have a friend in a similar situation -- she isn't trying to cut back, and her drinking doesn't make her an unfun person or interfere with her work, but she spends so much money on booze, she is ALWAYS flat broke.)

Overall: Ate a lot, spent a lot, drank a lot, fought off feeling like an extremely boring person -- boring not in the sense of "never does anything exciting" (though that's true as well), but in the sense of "doesn't have strong opinions or well-defined tastes". Rationalized that there's no competing with Sabina on this front. ^^; Also, everyone else was older -- 25, 26, 27, 28. If I still have nothing of interest to say at 30, then I'll start worrying. (Although I have worked in a LIBRARY and now work with TEXTBOOKS -- maybe I SHOULD be worrying.) Topics of the day were music fandom and younger siblings in precarious positions: I am a good person with whom to discuss the later, but a terrible person with whom to discuss the former.

In between, hung out with falxumbra and fiendery, started work, wrote (!!) a few pages (orz), finished three books, watched Juno and parts of three other movies, and worked out a deal to stay a few nights a week with a best friend from kindergarten happens to live near Paramus. My brother was home from school this week as well.

Books:
Carlo Emilio Gadda, That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana
Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls, Bay of Naples and Southern Italy
Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
Thant Myint-U, The River of Lost Footsteps <-- currently reading