dear friends, i just want to say that even though i haven't seen so many of you in ages, i really really miss you and know that even though all i do now is read applications and eat swedish fish, i wish we could have one giant reunion in gettysburg...everyone would be invited: college friends, friends from connecticut, family, random strangers who looked cool.
and we would have joyous times together. just wanted you all to know that.
and thanks for reading my lame blog, those of you who do. because you could be internet shopping right now but you're reading this. and that touches me deeply.
<3 to all
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
fairy lights
i want to write something.
but i don't know what to write about. sometimes, i have these flashes of a profound thought or a clever phrase, but just as my mind begins to consciously examine the spark, it goes out. it's like it can only exist when i don't look directly at it, like a light in the dark. have you ever noticed that if you look up at the night sky, the brightest stars are never those in your direct vision, but the ones just radiating away from the center of your focus?
it keeps haunting me, the sound of a voice, a word, a vision out of the corner of my eye, just behind my left shoulder, but no matter how instantly i turn, i've always just missed it.
but i don't know what to write about. sometimes, i have these flashes of a profound thought or a clever phrase, but just as my mind begins to consciously examine the spark, it goes out. it's like it can only exist when i don't look directly at it, like a light in the dark. have you ever noticed that if you look up at the night sky, the brightest stars are never those in your direct vision, but the ones just radiating away from the center of your focus?
it keeps haunting me, the sound of a voice, a word, a vision out of the corner of my eye, just behind my left shoulder, but no matter how instantly i turn, i've always just missed it.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
the sauce of life
i was making spaghetti tonight and went to grab a jar of sauce to toss on the beef. i constantly debate which size jar i should buy, because when i buy a large one, i never use it all before it goes bad, but sometimes the small ones aren't enough to cover a standard pound of beef, which is the smallest quantity that you can buy these days. and of course, this time i had the small jar and it wasn't enough.
life, like spaghetti sauce, seems to never come in the right size. so how do you work with the size you have and recognize it for the blessing that it is?
life, like spaghetti sauce, seems to never come in the right size. so how do you work with the size you have and recognize it for the blessing that it is?
Monday, January 12, 2009
internet impatience
i've been noticing for quite some time now my extremely limited patience when using the internet. one of my friends from work posted a funny youtube video on facebook about the impatience of people in general when dealing with technology, but it's odd, isn't it? i mean, of course there is a logical explanation for the often direct correllation between improved technology and your unhappiness.
i can view the profile and check the status of each of my 300+ friends on facebook instantaneously and continuously, but somehow i feel unhappy when i'm on facebook too much, like i'm some kind of coke addict who has the need but no longer feels pleasure from the fix.
on the other hand, i very much enjoy this new facebook application for the new shopaholic movie that's coming out in february. you get to pretend to shop, and you get a closet full of prada. ahhh.
i can view the profile and check the status of each of my 300+ friends on facebook instantaneously and continuously, but somehow i feel unhappy when i'm on facebook too much, like i'm some kind of coke addict who has the need but no longer feels pleasure from the fix.
on the other hand, i very much enjoy this new facebook application for the new shopaholic movie that's coming out in february. you get to pretend to shop, and you get a closet full of prada. ahhh.
new kitten!
so life continues in the wells household with the addition of our new kitten, huckleberry. huck is four months old, with orange stripes and a white chest and white paws. he snuggles into my lap and then kneads my chest the way he did to his mother when he wanted milk. i'm not sure how to explain to him that it's unlikely to happen. but anyway, the first night with him was all howling as he ran around the bathroom and generally freaked out...as was the second night...and the third day.
but now he seems to be adjusting happily, so much so that he will cuddle with kayla and me just about anywhere, and he and jack now have a little game where one crouches underneath the bed by the wood panel at the foot, and the other crouches next to the bed on the other side of the wood panel, and they swipe their paws at each other, duck, then swipe again. i thought they were fighting at first but then huck began to cry when i pulled jack away so i let them have at it.
if you're still reading this: clap, clap. i just wrote all of that above and then thought: really, agatha? do you think your friends really want to read an extensive narrative of your cats' behavior? but clearly you do if you are still reading.
also, this evening huckleberry started farting every time i picked him up. i really hope this goes away.
but now he seems to be adjusting happily, so much so that he will cuddle with kayla and me just about anywhere, and he and jack now have a little game where one crouches underneath the bed by the wood panel at the foot, and the other crouches next to the bed on the other side of the wood panel, and they swipe their paws at each other, duck, then swipe again. i thought they were fighting at first but then huck began to cry when i pulled jack away so i let them have at it.
if you're still reading this: clap, clap. i just wrote all of that above and then thought: really, agatha? do you think your friends really want to read an extensive narrative of your cats' behavior? but clearly you do if you are still reading.
also, this evening huckleberry started farting every time i picked him up. i really hope this goes away.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
time
i am a crucial part of social change.
words from a young woman's application essay. this is what i love when i read applications: even in the midst of reading a lot of trite essays, you see the potential of so many. you see minds opening newly, thoughtful observations about the world that now are so easy to accept but, ah! at seventeen, they were so fresh and unheard of.
then you remember all of the things that you learned from that moment to this, and you remember that there is no end to learning, and no end to opening. the world is so, so wide. but when you get older, you forget to see it. if you imagined yourself seventeen again, open to learning, what else would you discover, that you now think yourself incapable of?
then you remember all of the things that you learned from that moment to this, and you remember that there is no end to learning, and no end to opening. the world is so, so wide. but when you get older, you forget to see it. if you imagined yourself seventeen again, open to learning, what else would you discover, that you now think yourself incapable of?
Monday, January 5, 2009
back to the grind
i have so not adjusted to a proper sleep schedule yet. ugh. today was surprisingly productive, however, given my minimal brain functioning. did you know that your IQ drops about twenty points when you go on vacation? i swear that i read that somewhere but, of course, i don't yet have the mental alacrity to cite the source for you. i'm sure that your own experience would support the theory, however.
it's nice to be back, at least. being home is always stressful, but being back at work i can see everyone again and hear all of their stories. i am lucky to have such an office.
it's nice to be back, at least. being home is always stressful, but being back at work i can see everyone again and hear all of their stories. i am lucky to have such an office.
Friday, January 2, 2009
an astrological beginning
a lovely start to my new year! hmm, i say it like i'm the only one experiencing 2009 right now and that's not true at all. i feel very much one with the global community.
so i broke this into two parts since the last post about the casino was getting rather long. but the part two is that on new year's eve, we woke up in the hotel and looked out the window and saw that it was heavily snowing. ok, i didn't look at the weather forecast earlier, but i forgot about the existence of snow, living in gettysburg, aka "the south."
i then got a text from vicki informing me that she was sick and that her new year's celebration had been canceled due to that and the inclement weather. totally disappointed, there was nothing to do but head back to greenwich. em and i decided to stop at the outlets on the way back, and wait out the storm a bit, which was predicted to stop around one. but instead of getting better it got worse. determined to make it home before dark, i told em that i wanted to head out, so we parted but after i'd been on 95 south for about ten minutes she called me and told me that her friend andrea had invited me to stay with her as well, since she was much closer than greenwich and it would be safer.
so i slowly drove north to south windsor, taking much more time than usual because of the weather and because of the mean connecticut people who are not nice on the road. if you're from connecticut and you drive in connecticut, i mean all of you: you don't need to speed when there are six inches of snow and ice on the ground, and the wind is kicking it up so that you can hardly see a couple feet in front of your car. that is unneccessary. that is why your ford pick-up ended up in that guard rail back around exit 76. also you are a man and you were over-confident. that is also why you pay more for insurance.
anyway, i'm sorry that vicki was sick, but hanging out at andrea's ended up being a blast so i was very happy that it all somewhat worked out in the end. we watched "baby mama" which was dumb but vaguely entertaining, interspersed with episodes from the twilight zone marathon on the scifi channel. we also made homemade chocolate chip cookies and played sequence, which is this weird card game with chips and a playing board that i'd never heard of before and was much more challenging with the addition of champagne. and if you're wondering, yes–i was too scared to open the champagne bottle. but so was em. andrea opened it for us.
the next morning was great. andrea's mom and dad are awesome–her mom was excited to try out the new belgian waffle maker she'd bought, so we had fresh blueberry waffles, and her dad was excited to keep serving us cappuccinos and espressos from his espresso machine which only he knows how to use.
then andrea got out her astrology books and we took turns looking up each other's personality horoscopes and relationship horoscopes. then we contemplated playing in the snow. actually, i contemplated that silently but i don't think anyone would have wanted to join me, as it was about 15 degrees outside.
this afternoon i met vicki on my way home at a barnes & noble and that was nice, too, except apparently she's now given her stomach bug to her fiancé. oops!
happy new year, dear and lovely friends. you light up my life so much more than you can know, and i think of how lucky i am to have so much love around me, when love is the most important reason to live. it is such a happiness when good people get together–and they always do.
so i broke this into two parts since the last post about the casino was getting rather long. but the part two is that on new year's eve, we woke up in the hotel and looked out the window and saw that it was heavily snowing. ok, i didn't look at the weather forecast earlier, but i forgot about the existence of snow, living in gettysburg, aka "the south."
i then got a text from vicki informing me that she was sick and that her new year's celebration had been canceled due to that and the inclement weather. totally disappointed, there was nothing to do but head back to greenwich. em and i decided to stop at the outlets on the way back, and wait out the storm a bit, which was predicted to stop around one. but instead of getting better it got worse. determined to make it home before dark, i told em that i wanted to head out, so we parted but after i'd been on 95 south for about ten minutes she called me and told me that her friend andrea had invited me to stay with her as well, since she was much closer than greenwich and it would be safer.
so i slowly drove north to south windsor, taking much more time than usual because of the weather and because of the mean connecticut people who are not nice on the road. if you're from connecticut and you drive in connecticut, i mean all of you: you don't need to speed when there are six inches of snow and ice on the ground, and the wind is kicking it up so that you can hardly see a couple feet in front of your car. that is unneccessary. that is why your ford pick-up ended up in that guard rail back around exit 76. also you are a man and you were over-confident. that is also why you pay more for insurance.
anyway, i'm sorry that vicki was sick, but hanging out at andrea's ended up being a blast so i was very happy that it all somewhat worked out in the end. we watched "baby mama" which was dumb but vaguely entertaining, interspersed with episodes from the twilight zone marathon on the scifi channel. we also made homemade chocolate chip cookies and played sequence, which is this weird card game with chips and a playing board that i'd never heard of before and was much more challenging with the addition of champagne. and if you're wondering, yes–i was too scared to open the champagne bottle. but so was em. andrea opened it for us.
the next morning was great. andrea's mom and dad are awesome–her mom was excited to try out the new belgian waffle maker she'd bought, so we had fresh blueberry waffles, and her dad was excited to keep serving us cappuccinos and espressos from his espresso machine which only he knows how to use.
then andrea got out her astrology books and we took turns looking up each other's personality horoscopes and relationship horoscopes. then we contemplated playing in the snow. actually, i contemplated that silently but i don't think anyone would have wanted to join me, as it was about 15 degrees outside.
this afternoon i met vicki on my way home at a barnes & noble and that was nice, too, except apparently she's now given her stomach bug to her fiancé. oops!
happy new year, dear and lovely friends. you light up my life so much more than you can know, and i think of how lucky i am to have so much love around me, when love is the most important reason to live. it is such a happiness when good people get together–and they always do.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
high rolling at mohegan sun
fate is a strange thing, to make a complete understatement. in the case of new year's, em and i originally planned on spending the 30th together going to the mohegan sun since i've never been to a casino, and then parting on the 31st to spend new year's with respective friends. i was to go to vicki's and em to her friend andrea. ironically they both live in relatively the same area outside of hartford, but we ended up taking two separate cars for the occasion.
so, on the afternoon of the 30th, emily and i hop in our two separate cars and head on 95 north towards branford, ct where we planned on having dinner. this was when i remembered how much i hated highways in connecticut. can you guess what will follow that sentence? yes? traffic, duh. what should have taken an hour to drive ended up being three hours, after two manueuvers on and off of the merritt, and back onto 95. finally we reached the (i am not making this up) u.s.s. chowder pot iii, our seafood restaurant of choice. oddly enough, this was when i kind of missed new england. it was like t.g.i. friday's, except all of the decor was nautical instead of random crap thrown up on the walls, and there really was a fisherman sitting at the bar in a moth-ridden old wool sweater, thick beard, wool cap, and swarthy expression. you could tell he had been gutting fish or something earlier that day.
dinner there was excellent and coma-inducing. afterwards we stopped at a liquor store where we purchased the very fancy cook's ™ champagne for $6, and then proceeded up to groton where we were staying at a hilton garden inn for free, thanks to my diamond member status.
after enjoying a complimentary beer, a partial episode of the office, and some time in the hot tub, we finally were ready to head out to the mohegan sun, which included its own exit ramp off the highway purposefully laid out so that visitors could admire the grandeur and glamor of the casino. em had prepped me for this, so i knew what to expect. even so, i was still floored by the number of senior citizens in house slippers punching despondently at the slot machines with expressions of complete morosity. there were several "casinos" within the entire lot, and there was a definite distinction between the one that the young and glamorous and sexy youth gambled in, and the one where your grandmother wins your birthday checks from.
all in all, it was fun to walk around in what felt like a giant amusement park, but it was also so sensorily stimulating that after awhile i felt numb to everything. the crown of the evening was that i was excited to play the penny slots because i felt that i could enjoy the experience of gambling without actually spending much money.
but it is a lie. i still plan on writing to the ceo of the casino and complaining. the penny slots and the 25¢ machines would only accept at a mininum a $5.00 bill, so you couldn't just stick a penny in and play once. you'd have to sit there for ages and keep playing, a hundred times i suppose, without any end in sight. some of the machines even made you put in at least $10.00 to play. who wants to sit there for three hours and pull a lever? and you have to keep playing until all of your money runs out, otherwise you collect your pennies and have nothing to do with them but stick them back in the machine and do it all over again.
they also had these mechanical wolves (you know, because it's native american) that would jerk their heads and tails around if you won pennies back, so that every time you lost more money, you would think "and that's going to pay for another mechanical wolf." excellent. i was also bemused by the paintings of native americans communing with nature on the walls, like they were having a profound moment with the Great Spirit while high rolling at blackjack.
i am being overly critical. em says that it's fun to go if there's a good concert, and then everything else is just a side form of entertainment rather than the main attraction, and i believe her. but i can't help still being miffed that i couldn't play my penny slots.
so, on the afternoon of the 30th, emily and i hop in our two separate cars and head on 95 north towards branford, ct where we planned on having dinner. this was when i remembered how much i hated highways in connecticut. can you guess what will follow that sentence? yes? traffic, duh. what should have taken an hour to drive ended up being three hours, after two manueuvers on and off of the merritt, and back onto 95. finally we reached the (i am not making this up) u.s.s. chowder pot iii, our seafood restaurant of choice. oddly enough, this was when i kind of missed new england. it was like t.g.i. friday's, except all of the decor was nautical instead of random crap thrown up on the walls, and there really was a fisherman sitting at the bar in a moth-ridden old wool sweater, thick beard, wool cap, and swarthy expression. you could tell he had been gutting fish or something earlier that day.
dinner there was excellent and coma-inducing. afterwards we stopped at a liquor store where we purchased the very fancy cook's ™ champagne for $6, and then proceeded up to groton where we were staying at a hilton garden inn for free, thanks to my diamond member status.
after enjoying a complimentary beer, a partial episode of the office, and some time in the hot tub, we finally were ready to head out to the mohegan sun, which included its own exit ramp off the highway purposefully laid out so that visitors could admire the grandeur and glamor of the casino. em had prepped me for this, so i knew what to expect. even so, i was still floored by the number of senior citizens in house slippers punching despondently at the slot machines with expressions of complete morosity. there were several "casinos" within the entire lot, and there was a definite distinction between the one that the young and glamorous and sexy youth gambled in, and the one where your grandmother wins your birthday checks from.
all in all, it was fun to walk around in what felt like a giant amusement park, but it was also so sensorily stimulating that after awhile i felt numb to everything. the crown of the evening was that i was excited to play the penny slots because i felt that i could enjoy the experience of gambling without actually spending much money.
but it is a lie. i still plan on writing to the ceo of the casino and complaining. the penny slots and the 25¢ machines would only accept at a mininum a $5.00 bill, so you couldn't just stick a penny in and play once. you'd have to sit there for ages and keep playing, a hundred times i suppose, without any end in sight. some of the machines even made you put in at least $10.00 to play. who wants to sit there for three hours and pull a lever? and you have to keep playing until all of your money runs out, otherwise you collect your pennies and have nothing to do with them but stick them back in the machine and do it all over again.
they also had these mechanical wolves (you know, because it's native american) that would jerk their heads and tails around if you won pennies back, so that every time you lost more money, you would think "and that's going to pay for another mechanical wolf." excellent. i was also bemused by the paintings of native americans communing with nature on the walls, like they were having a profound moment with the Great Spirit while high rolling at blackjack.
i am being overly critical. em says that it's fun to go if there's a good concert, and then everything else is just a side form of entertainment rather than the main attraction, and i believe her. but i can't help still being miffed that i couldn't play my penny slots.
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