Me, a reader??	April 19, 2007

I cannot fully communicate the significance of this... it's huge. Huge, I tell you!

I have always wanted to be someone who reads a lot, someone who has something to contribute when the book-talk begins. Shoot, I work with a bunch of librarians, and all they do is talk about books! I read all the time as a young kid (every single offering of The Babysitter's Club, then Sweet Valley High, then Christopher Pike, and ultimately, Stephen King). But in about 9th grade, I sorta lost my interest in reading, and it started to feel like a chore.

And it's continued into my adult life. During what downtime I have at home, I tend to watch TV, sew, or mess around on the internet. In the past, I've tried to be a commuter-reader, but I've got something of a fragile stomach, and reading on busses and trains makes me nauseous after a few minutes. I manage to read just a few books a year, most of which happens on airplanes.

But all of this is changing, and it's so awesome! For you see... my new commute generally goes like this: 5 minutes of waiting, 10 minutes on a bus, 5 more minutes of waiting, 10 minutes on a metro. That's a half-hour each way, so a whole hour every day. And since the parts on moving vehicles are fairly short and interspersed with batches of fresh air, my stomach seems to be handling it OK! I bought that zombie book on Monday, and I'm already halfway through it.

At this rate, I could consume 2-3 books a month!! So, I welcome book suggestions. After World War Z, I have Reading Six Feet Under to read (which was a recent gift from Steve), then Prep, which I bought with a Christmas gift card and still haven't even opened. What should I read after that? I am SO EXCITED!

As you know, I ♥ zombies	April 16, 2007

So, yesterday, Steve told me about some buddies of his who went to see David Sedaris speak somewhere, and one of the many subjects he covered was his passion for zombies, zombie movies, and specifically, the zombie-themed writings of Max Brooks. I just did a little Googling, and apparently he’s on tour, spreading his zombie wisdom wherever he goes. Now, my love of zombies needs no validation, but it’s nonetheless wicked-awesome to hear that someone who I respect and admire shares my passion.

Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide is a must-have for those of you who want to be prepared for truly anything. Did you know that long hair can make you more susceptible to a zombie attack? (Note: that is not the reason I cut mine off, but what a perk!) Did you know that zombies cannot climb, and as such, the best defense against a zombie attack is to move to the second floor and demolish your stairs? These are important pieces of information, and I for one am thrilled that Sedaris is getting the word out.

Today on my lunch break I was babbling away on the subject of zombies, and my coworker convinced me that we needed to stop into Borders so I could buy the newest of Brooks’ zombie books, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. I am so anxious to crack it open, and rumor has it a World War Z movie is in the making as well.

It’s bad. Very bad.	April 10, 2007

I took Friday afternoon off to meet my mom and Doug at the airport, and I had a little unexpected downtime because their flight was delayed. I was on my way to Pentagon City Mall to buy a baby shower gift and wander for a while, when it occurred to me that I had enough time available that maybe I could squeeze in a haircut.

I’ve been meaning, for months and months now, to get a significant amount of hair chopped off (like, shoulder-length). But I’ve been stalling, wandering aimlessly in search of a new stylist. At that moment, however, I thought it’d be a great idea to do something impulsive, and just do it and get it over with. I know several people with great hair who go to Bubbles, so I stopped in there to see if they could take a walk-in. And they could. So I walked in.

I didn’t catch the name of the woman who did my hair, and I wish oh I wish I had. I would broadcast it far and wide. She was so awful. I gave her a thorough explanation of what I wanted, and all of her responses seemed to indicate that she understood, and she started chopping. I was feeling fairly confident until my hair was starting to air-dry and I could see what the ends were doing. They were sticking out in clumps, forming blunt squarish shapes pointing this direction and that. She started attacking my head with those thinning shears, which she would yank down until she’d pulled a huge ratted mess of hair from my head. It hurt a lot, and seemed to be making no improvement on the shape of my head.

I’ve had bad haircuts before. Unfortunately, my reaction is not composed and assertive the way it should be. I start to feel myself getting emotional, and once that happens, I just want to get the hell out of there. So I started to swat her hands away, and saying, “I want to go now.” And I got up and basically bolted toward the door, not saying a word to her and throwing my money down on the way out.

I thought that a few days of working with it, washing it and styling it myself, would yield better results, but today cements it – I have a bad haircut. My hair is impossible to style anyway. It’s got a slight but strong waviness to it that I keep trying to smooth out, but it doesn’t usually work so well. It just pushes my hair in a direction I don’t want it to go. But, as thick and wavy as it is, it can also become painfully static-y and limp from time to time. It sucks.

I’ve done a little hair research, and I’m seeking hair that looks like this or this. Can anyone in the DC area have a suggest a stylist for me??

Update: I called the folks at the Bubbles downtown and explained to them that I had gotten a bum deal at the Bubbles in Pentagon City, and they scheduled me a free haircut with their manager to fix me up right. She did a much better job, and I’m pretty happy with it, but it’s now much shorter than I ever intended it to be.

Could it be?	April 4, 2007

Saturday was one of the smoothest moves in recent memory. Of course, no moving day can be without a small snag here and there, but all told, it went extraordinarily well. The weather was gorgeous and no fewer than FOURTEEN BODIES were on hand to help us. All of ya'll who came out to help now have a special little place in my heart. I really am touched! In addition to Steve and myself, the following folks did the hauling: Sarah, James, Rachel, Evelyn (while babies are not including in the 14, her cheerleading presence was nonetheless appreciated), Earl, Eli, Andy, Megan, Chuck, Jon, Phil, Will, and John. Seriously, ya'll... you freakin' rock.

So yes, the snags... the Budget truck place didn't have furniture dollies (can you believe that?), so Steve had to go hunt down and buy one, which meant he was late getting to my place with the truck. Plus, the dude in my apartment building who was supposed to unlock the freight elevator didn't show up until about 2 minutes before we finished. So we had to move everything in quick bursts down the public elevator. Around noon, I was beginning to worry that the day was not shaping up so well. But the mad hustling skills of the morning moving crew compensated, and before I knew it we were rolling to the new place ahead of schedule.

Pizza was consumed (thanks, again, Earl!), then Sarah, Megan and I stayed at the house moving stuff to the right floors and making rooms start to look like rooms while everyone else moved on to Steve's house to pack up his stuff. His return marked the biggest challenge of the day: the couch. It is a big, heavy, very comfy overstuffed couch and, well, it didn't want to come inside. First they tried the front door, and even after removing the screen door and the light fixture inside, it wouldn't fit in. So the back door and the back screen door were removed, the feet were taken off the couch, and some amount of grunting, huffing, and proclaiming "Sparta!" was needed to finally get it in. I tried not to watch the whole spectacle, as the things I occasionally overheard such as, "why don't we just remove the window?" made me very very nervous. So I stayed hidden for most of it, but I heard that Chuck was the master engineer who made it all happen, and a particular debt of gratitude is owed to him.

So here we are. In a house, with all of our stuff. There were a few more snags come Monday - DirectTV man couldn't get a line of sight, so no satellite TV for us (boo!), then Comcast man failed to arrive whatsoever ("before 11:00 am" evolved into Steve screaming into the phone after 7:00 pm). Comcast man finally came last night (he was there until 9:30 pm), and alas, we now have TV and internet - the final pieces have fallen into place. I'm getting to know the neighborhood and the bus routes, and soon enough I'll even have a Virginia driver's license. There's been so much stress and worry leading up to the move - it's frankly kinda hard to believe that it's all over!