10.31.2004

everything looks perfect from far away

location . washington, dc . home on mass ave
temp . 66
humidity . 35%
conditions . halloween on a sunday

monday was the start of the 26 day marathon (get it?). 26 days without a day off work. i'm looking forward to it already. november 20. i can't wait.

tomorrow is the start of my 11 day tour-o-texas. nothing like being in texas on election day. i'll try to at least be in austin.

sometimes a cover is better...
iron and wine . such great heights

10.26.2004

i am not one half of the problem

location . washington, dc . home watching grosse point blank
temp . 60
humidity . 64%
conditions . it's getting dark earlier

about three weeks ago, there was a planting frenzy in the district. in a matter of days, all of the planters in downtown were filled with beautiful, bright flowers. nice colors, too. yellow, red, purple, burnt orange... three weeks later they are all, of course, dying. not surprising, really, when you consider that they were probably living happy in a greenhouse somewhere in virginia before being transplanted into the dirty, polluted city.

pavement . zurich is stained
sun kil moon . carry me ohio

10.24.2004

turn your back on this waiting

location . washington, dc . living room floor
temp . 52
humidity . 77%
conditions . cloudy. mostly cloudy. completely cloudy

sweet lord, thank you jesus! after a MONTH of trying to get my computer back in working condition, some sweet soul at best buy finally came through.

a month ago, while watching tornados out of a hotel window near the denver airport (no joke), the charger on my laptop died. being the astute young lady that i am, i didn't notice until my battery only had about 10 minutes of juice left. since the laptop was still under warranty, i took it to a store in ghetto, maryland as soon as i returned. they filled out a service order, instructed me to call a 1-800 number and report all the information on the service order (why they couldn't have done this themselves, i'll never know), and i'd get my new charger promptly. when i received the charger in the mail (7 days later), it was, of course, the wrong one. seems the genius at best buy noted that i had a completely different kind of computer than i actually have. when i called to report the little miscommunication, i was informed that the only way they could ship me a new one before they actually received the incorrect one back in their warehouse was for me to give them my credit card information. i did so without hesitating, and waited patiently for my prepaid shipping label and new charger to arrive. a week later, when i'd received neither, i called them back, only to discover that they lady never recorded my credit card number, and that, at this point, the only thing i could do was wait for them to issue me another prepaid shipping label, ship them the charger back to california, wait for them to acknowledge they'd received it, and send me the correct charger. this whole process would surely take at least two weeks, the lady on the phone told me. seeing as how i'm leaving for a two week business trip next week, this obviously wouldn't work. *sigh* my only solution? go back to best buy and spend $150 on a universal charger that i may or may not be able to return when i got the correct charger in the mail.

so today i made the trek out to best buy (there are none in the city) in ghetto, maryland. upon looking closely at the universal chargers, i discovered, of course, that none of them would fit my laptop. of course. i mean, they work with 98% of all laptops, why would they work with mine? out of desperation, i went to the service desk to explain my situation, hoping that maybe they could at least charge the battery for me so that i could get some files off of the computer. instead, the nice old man at the counter said they had lots of old chargers in the back, and that if he had one that fit, he'd just give it to me. that's right. give it to me. i don't even have to return it when i get the other back. sweetness! needless to say, i'm working on my laptop in the living room floor now. and, the best part, i won't have to drive around the heart of texas without my laptop next week (and the next).

for those of you who remember my computer forrays in rome (screen flickering in a dark classroom EVERYDAY), my cell phone problems in fayetteville, my palm pilot droppings in europe (all of them), or my camera being stolen in the netherlands, this certainly comes as no surprise to you. while trinity loves electronics and gadgets, she tends to drop them, sink them in water, or slam them out of frustration. but she didn't do anything wrong this time! really!

woah. i'm talking about myself in third person. creepy.

built to spill . temporarily blind

10.22.2004

all the boys on ship set sail

location . washington, dc . at the office
temp . 56
humidity . 69%
conditions . cloudy

i was alone in the office all day. how depressing. this is going to be my first weekend off in three weekends, and after this weekend, i'll have to work three more. of course, the one weekend i have off is the one weekend michael actually has school work. and so the wheel weaves. sigh.

the leaves are changing in dc, but we've yet to have one of those lovely, crisp fall days (that's not true. i think we did while i was away in minneapolis or denver). it's been rainy and dreary for days on end now (at least 7 days). i didn't move to seattle; i moved to dc. surely this is irregular. maybe the lack of sunshine is contributing to my mood.

i voted (absentee) today. it's futile to vote democrat for president in arkansas, but, what the hell, maybe my vote will count.

bonnie 'prince' billy . madeline mary

10.21.2004

get up and run away with it

location . washington, dc . home on mass ave
temp . 56
humidity . 84%
conditions . yet another day of haze and drizzle

i've tried not to talk about my job.

with mike (exec dir) and jake (pres) both out of town, i (vp) was the default choice to attend an event by lafarge (one of our key sponsors for forum) this morning. background: lafarge is working to secure a 'starchitect' for forum for us. background: i ran for vp so that i could do more internal work with membership (read: i don't schmooze well). i learned about the event only last week, and the primary purpose of our organization attending was to help secure that starchitect (read: starchitects were going to be there ). naturally, i tried to do some research on exactly who was going to be there. of course, my contacts at lafarge were out of town, and the people at the national building museum (where the event was held) knew nothing other than a general schedule of the day. via internet research, i came to understand that this event was a precursor to a symposium at princeton, but could find nothing about the portion at the nbm. anyway, enough background.
i get to the nbm this morning (which was great, btw, since i only live a few short blocks from it), locate a few lafarge people, and, after hinting that i had no idea what was going on, discovered that about 75% of the people there were FRENCH. that's right. french. do i speak french? no. could we afford to pay for travel for a french starchitect? no. it doesn't matter anyway; most of them were engineers or materials research people - not architects. i've never felt so out of place in my life (that's not true. i tend to feel out of place often). i was on the early tour, so when it was finished, i had about 2 hours to blow before the presentation began. i spent most of the time in the museum bookstore, which isn't that exciting when you work in the aia building in dc (read: excellent architecture bookstore). i ended up late to the presentation (reading an interesting anecdotal book on a guy who moved from the city to the suburbs), so i had to stand the entire time in heels (speaking of heels, i was wearing a suit while everyone else was very casual. they probably all thought i worked there). lunch was the first time i talked with anyone other than the two women i met from lafarge - and they were engineers out of atlanta. what a waste of time. there was no point in my being there. i should have left.

cat power . he war

10.20.2004

empty bottles and an old country song

location . washington, dc . home on mass ave
temp . 54
humidity . 94%
conditions . haze and drizzle

we had plans last night. honestly, we did. we were going to olssens (a 'hip' version of blockbuster where you can rent foreign/indie flicks and buy books and cds), coming home to cook, going to watch part of the game, interrupt it with the ladykillers, then watch the end of the game. of course, it was raining, so i didn't feel like walking to olssens (it's about 6 blocks away). being the logical person that i am, i decided it would be much more efficient to run to olssens instead (we don't have a car here in dc). 2 dvd rentals and 2 new cds later, we're running back home, and we pass the new regal cineplex at gallery place in chinatown. i thought it wasn't opening until friday, but people were streaming inside. we stopped to see what all the activity was about and discovered the cinema was showing all movies for $1 (along with $1 sodas and popcorn). needless to say, we purchased tickets for the 9:30 showing of the manchurian candidate, and our plans for the evening were ruined. we did, however, catch the first three innings of the game and the bottom of the ninth (the beginning and the end - isn't that all most people usually read in books anyway?).

the growth around chinatown is pretty incredible. since we've moved here (in july), we've gotten a new united colors of benneton, urban outfitters, city sports, a health club, and this new 15 screen movie theatre. we'll have a few more restaurants and an aveda spa next month (speaking of restaurants, there's no better area of town for food right now than galleryplace/chinatown - except maybe adam's morgan). as a resident of the area, i'm thrilled to see downtown revitalization at work. as a person with a background in architecture and urban planning (and as a human being who can clearly see what's going on), it's quite sad to see chinatown overtly commercialized. the 'native' residents won't be able to afford living here in a few short years (or be able to pay rent on their little restaurants and shops).

hopefully we will still be able to take the chinatown bus to nyc for almost nothing.

lucero . drink till we're gone

10.19.2004

eating snowflakes with plastic forks

location . washington, dc . at the office
temp . 61
humidity . 87%
conditions . haze . 2.5 miles visibility . fall flowers in bloom at the white house

i actually watched the entire red socks / yankees game last night (well, if you consider the fact that i didn't make it home until around 5:45). i honestly didn't care that much who won. i mean, yea, i hate the yankees, but doesn't everyone? aren't you some sort dominating-i-will-stomp-on-weak-people-with-disabilities human being if you like the yankees? perhaps. either way, i didn't care enough about the game to watch the full 6 hours of it. but i did. and i'll probably watch game 6 tonight.


modest mouse . trailer trash

10.18.2004

it's another busy day

location . washington, dc . at the office
temp . 66
humidity . 43%
conditions . mostly cloudy, with the promise of rain in just a few hours

it *is* a busy day, but i didn't have to be at work until lunch time (a "benefit" of having a board meeting all weekend).

my ipod died just after getting off the metro this 'morning,' but luckily my charger was at work. i'd hate to have to take my launchcast back from nicole. i really did like launchcast - it was a great way to listen to music without having to load my work computer with files or tote my laptop to work every day. but, alas, i got an ipod. who needs launchcast when you can carry all of your cd's on a well-designed-tiny-white thing? and the best part about the ipod is that you get those cool all-white headphones. i almost bought an 'offbrand' ipod, but the left side of my brain started screaming and, well, i bought the ipod.

since my entry was so bad today, and i neglected you all yesterday, you get two songs today.

guided by voices . cut-out witch
yo la tengo . stockholm syndrome

10.16.2004

it's sunny and 75 it feels so good to be alive

location . washington, dc . at the office
temp . 52
humidity . 76%
conditions . rain

just half a day left on the board meeting...
we actually 'entertained' last night! i'm not sure how entertaining we were, but it was fun to use dishes from the wedding that we usually just watch collect dust. do people still register for things like china? i mean really, are you ever going to use it? there's always an excuse not to: it's just the two of us, the kids are too young, i don't want to wash them later, what if they get broken, etc, etc. there's no real reason to buy 'nice dishes;' not when there are so many creative dish sets out there. it's more fun to get new dishes than watch old ones collect dust and turn yellow.

silver jews . people

10.15.2004

the blogging begins

location . washington, dc . at the office
temp . 63
humidity . 77%
conditions . cloudy, on the brink of rain

murrye and i are starting our blogs this week; not surprisingly, she started before i did. anyway, she wrote a little about the conundrum of the blank piece of paper. intimidating, full of optimism... full of dread. i can't tell you how many sketchbooks i've started using on the second page - and never gone back to fill the first. we spent too much time contemplating the blank piece of paper in architecture school.

thus, out of respect for it, i'll end my first episode in blogging.

song . since the title of my blog is poisondartsofpleasure, i couldn't use anything other than this song for my first blog. i'd recommend right clicking the link and downloading the song instead of clicking and waiting for it to play.
franz ferdinand . darts of pleasure