everyone shop Whole Foods tomorrow (downtown Baltimore and Mt. Washington locations). 5% of the proceeds will go to the Baltimore Believe campaign. Plus it's just a great store anyway.

// took my bro out to Babalu for his birthday last night. slightly overpriced i thought for the food, but it was cool. they're very big on plantains there (is that a cuban thing?) - plantain chips, cooked plantain w/ my bro's lamb, cooked plantain with my shredded flank steak dish, and more plantain chips with our lime-y seafood appetizer.. (bro kept trying to call it plankton.) plantains and Ricky Ricardo. very large black-and-whites of him and him with Lucy on the walls.
Power Plant Live was loud, with music blaring from the bars at the north end. I bet those places get packed on friday and saturday nights.
also saw a bit of umbc afterwards. they've got a great new student union building with a great gameroom - plasma tvs everywhere (cable.. i miss cable), pool tables (cheap), arcade games (only 25c), foosball ;) and the outside is beautiful, with light spilling out of its tall glass walls into a large courtyard.
for some reason, everyone i saw was either african-american or asian (and my bro knew every single asian we passed of course)

[ i am absolutely getting buried alive in work.. help.. ]

the busier things get, the messier my area gets. the messier my area gets the more i feel like
i'm losing my mind.
how i wish i could put everything on hold and do some serious reorganizing.

hullo.
felt weird going home at 3:30. listened to a jeremy northam interview on npr. (he's playing dean martin in a cbs movie this sunday evening.. maybe i'll remember to record it.)
caught the last half of oprah on tv.

by the way, i didn't feel like mentioning this before but on tuesday or so the random emailer sent a third email, saying something about needing to ask me something, will i reply so he'd know the email "went threw". uh-huh.
i only mention it now (i ignored it again of course) because walking to my car after orientation today a man and a woman were in a car turning the corner where i was waiting to cross. the woman (passenger)'s window rolls down and the guy leans over to say to me, "hey, i'll email you!" what the..? there's no one next to me, he must've been talking to me. it was only about 3:30, so i wouldn't expect a city employee to be driving around outside ...
i don't know, it may not even be related.
don't worry, i'm actually not really bothered by it all. yet. thoroughly confused and slightly curious, yes. maybe one of you can make something out of all this. i never was too good at solving mysteries. by the way, i was carrying all my information from the seminar in a plastic bag that said in big letters "MECU" (municipal employees credit union), and "www.mecu.com" (or something like that) on it. I don't know if that's a relevant clue or not...

oh uh, well...late for me means 5. (don't hate me cuz i'm government)
and no, the bean takes the bus.

good morning, Ms. elf. (are you going to correct your math or will i have to?)

this week has been weird and strangely Bean-less. in the few months she'd been riding with me to work and back i had gotten used to her company. she was always the one who pulled my parking permit out for me when we parked in the morning, and i didn't realize it but she had become the reason i made sure to leave work on time - so she wouldn't be kept waiting.
these days i'm just hoping my my car doesn't get towed (i keep forgetting to display that thing), and leaving work later and later. oh jeanbean...

yo, buy ME a segway :) on the market this march eh? How cool is that. HEY, I wanna visit the factory too.
I heard there's all kinds of segway rip offs in the pipeline -
3-wheeled electric scooters and whatnot.
oh, fro.. for some reason certain pet stories come to mind - how when owners go on vacation and come back they find out how much their pet missed them cuz of the "presents" they find in their shoes or on their beds, and other mischief...
(i'm not neglecting you hon, i've been kept away)

As for my love of words.. i dunno, my brain's drained and i can't think of a single word i treasure or am intrigued by..
i will have to get back to this assignment...

busy busy busy
my cube is a mess of papers
(and i'm fighting to stay sane)

// is there an ungruesome way to catch mice? We're pretty sure we have two of them now - the dark chocolate brown one i told you about and a tiny gray one my roomies were describing.. It's bad having mice running around our place but i don't know if it's any better to have dead or suffering ones that I'd have to do something with..! eeeeek.

that's awesome, you minimalist you.
head-to-toe wash to clean yourself with
and vaseline to moisturize.
Impressive.

// I must say, there are some cravings that only samgyupsal (that korean grilled pork thing we ate) or yookkaejang (a SPICY soup of cut beef, scallions and vermicelli in a red-orange broth) can quench. And I had both this weekend :) happy me. (HanAhReum's yookkaejang was surprisingly good. must recommend. Although to eat there you literally have to fight for a seat.)

(as i write, a load of STUFF is coming into my inbox... boohoo, must post quickly..)

i was putting on my night-a-mins (Origins, it's this great nighttime moisturizer) and thinking how there are some products i think i'll be buying for the rest of my life. Night a mins i think has just become one of them. It works well, feels good, smells WONDERFUL (like citrus fruits and fragrant roots i forget the names of). Yum.
Another one (sorry this list is so girly and cosmetics-oriented) is this great hair treatment thing, from Bain de Terre. It's the only thing i ever put in my hair (most days i forget to use it, but on days like when i actually blow-dry my hair it makes it nice and smooth and straight and shiny). I don't know what's in it, but it's kind of just like this magic oil. Like putting a few drops of (clean) oil in your hair where you need it.. sounds gross? well, it's great. $14 at salons for this tiny maybe 2-oz. bottle but it's lasted me forever and proven to be more than worth it.
hm, what else? Nads (but shh, i didn't say it)...

OK, this is kind of girly and frivolous, but i want to hear about your discoveries..! maybe i shouldn't have put it as an assignment, it's kind of hard to remember stuff like this on the spot.

Last time I went to visit my mom, she had this big fat hoola hoop sitting next to her bed. "WHAT is THAT?" I asked. And she showed me.
It was HILARIOUS watching my mom hoola-hoop (and she was GOOD!). As I cracked up and rolled on the floor and pounded the bed, she was saying how great an exercise it was and that the bumps (the inside's not smooth, it's lined with big bumps) kind of massage? help tone? your abs.
Anyway, I tried after she was done, and wasn't half as good, and the bumps kind of hurt (my abs have not been exercised or toned in like forever).

Why, dooda! hello. long time no read.
you cut your hair!! and it was getting so long and pretty! if you had told me before i would have stopped you. but you didn't and now you are an ajumma. :*(