Took the day off from school to go to Thrift City with Erika. She, Natalie, and I have been trying to get there to buy me some new shirts for a couple of months. Natalie has harped me no end about me buying shirts that are too big, shirts I have bought bigger on purpose to cover my big belly. I purchased nothing bigger than a large. Go me.
Natalie didn't make it with us to TC since she left for home yesterday, but it was still a productive trip. I got ten new shirts and a book for $16.26 (it was half price Thursday, except for the book which was a whopping $2.52 – my most expensive item). My two favorites are a mocha colored light sweater which even *I* will admit looks pretty damned good on me and a little short-sleeved black number with a lace-up front. The most interesting find was the very first one: a short-sleeved, scoop-necked job in a shade of green I NEVER would have bet money I could pull off with my hair. Erika has a great eye.
We’re planning a digital fashion show for Natalie after step two.
Step two comes week after next when E gets back from her Mexico trip: a new hairdo. ::bites nails::
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
On Time and Darkness
When did it get to be May? Times goes by so quickly sometimes that it makes me dizzy to think about it. Sarah will be eighteen in two months, and it seems like only a year or two ago that I was mad that no one called me at camp to tell me she’d been born. I was sixteen then. Was I ever really sixteen?
I’ve lived in New Orleans for nine months. Nine months. It’s so much time yet not much time at all. Sometimes I think I have nothing to show for my almost 34 years on this planet, and other times I think I’ve done so much.
I watched "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape" tonight, and the scene where Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis watch the sunset and then walk along a deserted dirt road in the utter dark with fields spreading to either side made me a little nostalgic for home. I miss watching the Sun set over the fields, watching Darkness envelope me slowly and lovingly, watching the Stars peek out of the Darkness one by one until there are hundreds then thousands then millions of them winking at me. Darkness is not known in the city, not even here on the edge where the lake stretches to the horizon. The city’s inhabitants are afraid of Her, and even as a child I never understood why. Without Darkness there are no Stars to play hide-and-seek. I feel Them beyond the edge of the city lights. My eyes search in vain for Them, and I feel Them call to me, but They are hidden from me by the city’s fear. Even the Moon is sometimes difficult to see.
It makes me more than a little sad.
I’ve lived in New Orleans for nine months. Nine months. It’s so much time yet not much time at all. Sometimes I think I have nothing to show for my almost 34 years on this planet, and other times I think I’ve done so much.
I watched "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape" tonight, and the scene where Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis watch the sunset and then walk along a deserted dirt road in the utter dark with fields spreading to either side made me a little nostalgic for home. I miss watching the Sun set over the fields, watching Darkness envelope me slowly and lovingly, watching the Stars peek out of the Darkness one by one until there are hundreds then thousands then millions of them winking at me. Darkness is not known in the city, not even here on the edge where the lake stretches to the horizon. The city’s inhabitants are afraid of Her, and even as a child I never understood why. Without Darkness there are no Stars to play hide-and-seek. I feel Them beyond the edge of the city lights. My eyes search in vain for Them, and I feel Them call to me, but They are hidden from me by the city’s fear. Even the Moon is sometimes difficult to see.
It makes me more than a little sad.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Lazy, hot Saturday
I headed off to the Quarter and the Marigny today. A woman who had inquired about an attendant position with me a few months ago but subsequently couldn't do it invited me to "coffee or lunch or whatever." At the time she answered my ad, her part-time job had gone full-time, but she said she thought I sounded like "a very interesting woman" and wanted to meet me anyway. She emailed me again at the beginning of the week, and I met her at her other part-time job in the French Market at around 11:00.
I had never been in the French Market, and it really isn't that big of a deal. It's overcrowded with tourists, it's hot in the Summer (and it IS Summer now here), and the merchandise isn't anything I haven't seen before -- though admittedly I've never been to any place which boasts three stalls in quick succession devoted strictly to Tabasco products. It was a little difficult to maneuver Reba and myself through most of it, and I was just starting to get cranky when I looked up and saw a sight which never fails to cheer me and make my heart go pitty-pat.
Amber. Loads and loads of amber. ::sigh:: Oh, happy, happy Dawn!
I drooled only a few seconds over earrings and bracelets when one of the ladies came around to help me -- since I could and did easily rest my chin on the tabletop. She produced a tri-colored bracelet set in sterling and draped it across my wrist. Green and cognac/cherry ovals winked against my browning wrist accented by muted butterscotch lovelies. ::sigh:: //Oh, take me home// it whispered seductively. However, just before the lady had come around, a multi-stone bracelet (moonstone, onyx, amethyst, garnet, mother-of-pearl, and a stone that I can't decide whether it's rose quartz or pink moonstone) had caught my eye, so I placed the two bracelets across the same wrist to let them duke it out for who got to go home with me. Problem was -- they played nice with each other. I balked a little at the price on the amber one (being an afficionado, I know it was over-priced, but not much). I warred for a couple of minutes until I decided I deserved them both. I've worked hard the last five months, I have an idea of what I'm going to do for my diss, and I just plain wanted them both. So I bought them. Take THAT, frugal conscience!
I then met Debbie and we took off for lunch in the Marigny. I really like the Marigny. It's quiet, it lacks tourists, it overflows with excellent food and drink and music and pleasant people, and there's lots to see even if some of it IS from the doorway because there's a step at the entrance. Debbie, though QUITE talkative, is a great woman who is originally from San Francisco (actually born there to beatnik parents) but has lived in NO for the last twenty years. She's 55 and done a lot from tutoring/mentoring kids to being a legal secretary to managing a fledgling band. She's discovered Hinduism and so in the last half hour of hanging out we had some interesting religious discussion. She was helpful enough to volunteer to help me over the stoop of the corner bookstore (next time, I said, as I'd been bouncing over bumpy sidewalks for a while and just didn't feel like volunteering for more bouncing) and clean up after Reba who decided to pop a squat in the middle of the sidewalk (::blush:: -- my dog has absolutely NO shame). After the bus arrived to take Reebs and me home (we were BOTH pretty hot after four-and-a-half hours in the Sun), she said we need to get together again soon because we still have LOADS to talk about. I agreed.
Also on our excursions, I found a place where I might consider getting my next haircut and a groovy clothing store called Gargoyles full of leather and lace and twenty-something Goth salesclerks with groovy tattoos (Anita, Jonikka, Jessie, and Sarah are SO getting taken there when they come visit me -- hint, hint). I stopped by Erzulie's only to find that it was owner Anna's day off. Her regular sales clerk (Nancy?) assured me she'd tell her I stopped by to say hello, and she told me Anna would genuinely be sorry she'd missed me. Seems, according to Nancy, Anna was muchly impressed with my knowledge of oils. ::blush:: I get the sense it takes a lot to impress Anna, so I'm honored.
Came home to discover the jerk-wads who live upstairs and like to throw their cig butts over their balcony onto my and my neighbor's stoops had decided to leave three bags and one box of trash on the sidewalk. I called the staff to report it because my next-door neighbor Erick and I refuse to get charged for it. I was told that someone had already called about it (discovered later it was Erick), they knew exactly who it was, the perps had already been written up for a previous offense, and if the trash was still there in the morning they would be written up and charged $30 for removal. Good, as long as you don't think it was Erick and/or me.
Now I'm just reading Harry Potter 5 and trying to stay awake. All in all, a good day.
I had never been in the French Market, and it really isn't that big of a deal. It's overcrowded with tourists, it's hot in the Summer (and it IS Summer now here), and the merchandise isn't anything I haven't seen before -- though admittedly I've never been to any place which boasts three stalls in quick succession devoted strictly to Tabasco products. It was a little difficult to maneuver Reba and myself through most of it, and I was just starting to get cranky when I looked up and saw a sight which never fails to cheer me and make my heart go pitty-pat.
Amber. Loads and loads of amber. ::sigh:: Oh, happy, happy Dawn!
I drooled only a few seconds over earrings and bracelets when one of the ladies came around to help me -- since I could and did easily rest my chin on the tabletop. She produced a tri-colored bracelet set in sterling and draped it across my wrist. Green and cognac/cherry ovals winked against my browning wrist accented by muted butterscotch lovelies. ::sigh:: //Oh, take me home// it whispered seductively. However, just before the lady had come around, a multi-stone bracelet (moonstone, onyx, amethyst, garnet, mother-of-pearl, and a stone that I can't decide whether it's rose quartz or pink moonstone) had caught my eye, so I placed the two bracelets across the same wrist to let them duke it out for who got to go home with me. Problem was -- they played nice with each other. I balked a little at the price on the amber one (being an afficionado, I know it was over-priced, but not much). I warred for a couple of minutes until I decided I deserved them both. I've worked hard the last five months, I have an idea of what I'm going to do for my diss, and I just plain wanted them both. So I bought them. Take THAT, frugal conscience!
I then met Debbie and we took off for lunch in the Marigny. I really like the Marigny. It's quiet, it lacks tourists, it overflows with excellent food and drink and music and pleasant people, and there's lots to see even if some of it IS from the doorway because there's a step at the entrance. Debbie, though QUITE talkative, is a great woman who is originally from San Francisco (actually born there to beatnik parents) but has lived in NO for the last twenty years. She's 55 and done a lot from tutoring/mentoring kids to being a legal secretary to managing a fledgling band. She's discovered Hinduism and so in the last half hour of hanging out we had some interesting religious discussion. She was helpful enough to volunteer to help me over the stoop of the corner bookstore (next time, I said, as I'd been bouncing over bumpy sidewalks for a while and just didn't feel like volunteering for more bouncing) and clean up after Reba who decided to pop a squat in the middle of the sidewalk (::blush:: -- my dog has absolutely NO shame). After the bus arrived to take Reebs and me home (we were BOTH pretty hot after four-and-a-half hours in the Sun), she said we need to get together again soon because we still have LOADS to talk about. I agreed.
Also on our excursions, I found a place where I might consider getting my next haircut and a groovy clothing store called Gargoyles full of leather and lace and twenty-something Goth salesclerks with groovy tattoos (Anita, Jonikka, Jessie, and Sarah are SO getting taken there when they come visit me -- hint, hint). I stopped by Erzulie's only to find that it was owner Anna's day off. Her regular sales clerk (Nancy?) assured me she'd tell her I stopped by to say hello, and she told me Anna would genuinely be sorry she'd missed me. Seems, according to Nancy, Anna was muchly impressed with my knowledge of oils. ::blush:: I get the sense it takes a lot to impress Anna, so I'm honored.
Came home to discover the jerk-wads who live upstairs and like to throw their cig butts over their balcony onto my and my neighbor's stoops had decided to leave three bags and one box of trash on the sidewalk. I called the staff to report it because my next-door neighbor Erick and I refuse to get charged for it. I was told that someone had already called about it (discovered later it was Erick), they knew exactly who it was, the perps had already been written up for a previous offense, and if the trash was still there in the morning they would be written up and charged $30 for removal. Good, as long as you don't think it was Erick and/or me.
Now I'm just reading Harry Potter 5 and trying to stay awake. All in all, a good day.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Grade check
All my grades are finally posted for the semester. Two of them I wasn't worried about. Scientific Communications (the one I was doing the proposal for) I wasn't so sure about. I pulled an A there, as well.
The first person to say "I don't know why you were worried you always get A's" will be phrenologized with my elevator stick and then shown last semester's B in my seminar class. It ain't as easy to get an A in the Ph.D. program as one might think. Especially from Dr. Grady. I've gotten two A's from that man (Sci Comm this semester and the infamous fish class last semester), and I've worked my ass off and deprived myself of much free time and sleep for them.
This semester's GPA = 4.0.
Overall GPA = 3.875.
Getting an A on my proposal from one of the toughest profs ever = priceless.
The first person to say "I don't know why you were worried you always get A's" will be phrenologized with my elevator stick and then shown last semester's B in my seminar class. It ain't as easy to get an A in the Ph.D. program as one might think. Especially from Dr. Grady. I've gotten two A's from that man (Sci Comm this semester and the infamous fish class last semester), and I've worked my ass off and deprived myself of much free time and sleep for them.
This semester's GPA = 4.0.
Overall GPA = 3.875.
Getting an A on my proposal from one of the toughest profs ever = priceless.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Barbecue fun
Hosted a barbecue today. My pals Erika and Natalie and Natalie's boyfriend were the only ones to eat. Melissa came over with her mom and her friend, but I knew she probably wouldn't stay long since she's packing to move back to Pennsylvania on Tuesday. ::sniff, sob:: My first pal in NO is leaving. Rachel was working in the lab, and science being science, her gel preempted her plans to come eat burgers and grilled veggies and salsa. Chad never bothered to show, which I suspected on Thursday when he replied that he "wasn't making any promises" about coming when I asked. I found out from Melissa that he had gone scuba diving with another grad student and her husband. He couldn't just say he was going diving -- he had to be such a freaking MAN and beat around the bush. Jerk. His loss, because the burgers were perfect and Natalie's strawberry cheese pie was a hit. Erika and I each had two slices, and we soon regretted it when we couldn't breathe. My salsa sucked because I put in too much chili powder, but no one's perfect.