Peach Daquiris

They are good, but not when you drink many of them and don't eat dinner.

Groan.

The weather has been disgusting. Hot. It's the kind of weather during which you feel disgusting so you take a cold shower after work, feel refreshed, get out of the shower and sit stationary for about five minutes, and then become disgusting again. Post-daquiris I decided to pay D a visit prior to heading back to my apartment to clean in preparation for Parent Visit #4. D coerced me into staying the night, but I was unprepared. I didn't have any clothes other than a tank top that was, well, a bit sweaty from having walked many miles the day before (not to mention entirely work-inappropriate) and the clothes I had on that day. I decided to hand-wash everything (hand-wash!) and let them dry overnight.

I woke up this morning sweating to death. My stomach was extremely unhappy. Bitchy. D said "Were you cold last night?"

"No, actually, I was really hot, which is weird, since it seemed like it was cooling off."

"Oh, yeah, well, I shut the fan off because I was cold."

Seething. R says that D is non-responsive to the heat because he is half-Vietnamese. D says "I think I am meant to live in a hot climate. I just love this hot weather." Summer is my least favorite season. I am a spring/fall girl, and I can tolerate winter, because there are always ways to get warmer. Getting colder, however, is not easy, which makes summer frustrating.

I think this could be a problem, and we may have to start doing summer hours or something. Regardless, I very calmly explained my philosophy on sleeping and said "You see, D, when sleeping with another person, it is easy to get warmer but not easy to get colder. For example, you don't believe in multiple blankets. If you did, you could easily regulate your temperature. In fact, we could regulate our temperatures separately and both be comfortable. In the current set up, we each have only one option. Really hot or really cold. Not good. If you are cold at night, you could leave the fan on and then either use a sheet (or blanket!) or utilize body heat to your advantage. Shutting the fan off when its 90 degrees outside and when somebody else who can't sleep when its hot is in your bed is just not nice."

He understood. Progress!

It was then that I realized that my clothes were still wet and that I therefore had nothing to wear to work. D said "You can wear my clothes." I said "Wearing your clothes is just as obvious as wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday." I ended up blowdrying my clothes. I am, however, wearing D's giant navy man socks, which makes me laugh and makes me no longer bitchy.

He also gave me a shirt to wear. He said "This shirt is small. It's tight on me. It will fit you."

I insisted "It won't."

"I think it will."

"It won't."

I wasn't even going to try it on (because, obviously, it wasn't going to fit) but I decided to humor him and said "This is going to look like a smock on me."

Then I started to laugh, because I haven't said "smock" in over a decade.

Smock. It sounds like a verb. Or a derogatory term for something.

It then started to pour, which is stressful because my Parents and Brother will soon be en route to New York City with a couch tied to the top of their SUV.

They will also be bringing an air conditioner. I asked them to pick one up for me because (a) it would be cheaper in MA than in NYC and (b) it would be easier for them to get one than for me to transport one and (c) there was no way I was going to get one prior to their visit and it is best for all of us that my apartment not be a raging sauna while four people try to sleep in it. They originally bought one that was a bit on the small side (I want to use one air conditioner to cool my entire apartment because it is a raging sauna) so they picked up another one instead and, gasp, kept the original one for themselves!

I was not raised on air conditioning. My parents are opposed to it - my theory is that its a financial opposition - and were hard-core fan users. Consequently I have been a hard-core fan user and am not fond of air conditioners. Over the years, though, I've gotten more used to air conditioning through more hotel stays etc.

Anyway, Father called last night to make sure everything was coordinated for Operation Remove Apartment Door to Deposit Couch and said "We kept that air conditioner and, well, it's cold! This is great! Wow." He just couldn't get over it.

Whatever guilt I had regarding asking my parents to find an air conditioner for me is now alleviated by knowing that their lives have been vastly improved by this experience!

I am working a half day today (half day Fridays!). I am going to run home and clean, read my mail, put the fan in the window, nurse my ulcer regarding my parents' visit and try to stifle my being convinced that they will hate my apartment and be very disappointed in me, and try to think of fun things to do with people who don't like to walk at all or be outside when the weather is less than optimal.

I am thinking street fairs! Flea markets! Coney Island! Wining and dining! MOMA! Will my parents enjoy these things? I have no idea.

I have decided that a potentially effective method to get my parents to walk is to say "You can either walk or, Mom, you can hail a cab." My mother will be afraid of this and will then be psyched to walk if it means avoiding the awkwardness of summoning a cab.

(Incidentally, people in NYC call them "taxis," but I have yet to incorporate this into my daily speech.)

(Incidentally, people were making fun of me last night for saying "wicked." Half of the people thought it was lame, but half found it endearing, so I have no feeling on this whatsoever. I wish they would just get over it.)

I am starving. I really want pancakes, but I can't go get any because I have to get tons of work done in order to get home in time for The Couch.

Allegedly The Chairs are being delivered to work today. How awesome would it be to have Couch and Chairs?

And, in the most exciting and bizarrely fantastic news of the year, Sid and Buddy Karaoke is now on Thursday nights at the bar we normally go to for Happy Hour on Thursday nights!!! This bar is right around the corner from D's apartment. I can now live out my fantasy of becoming a Sid and Buddy regular!!!!

Weeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In My Head...

.... right now, on repeat, is Lionel Ritchie's "Say You, Say Me."

I have no idea where this came from.

UPDATE: I do have an idea where this came from. I also have a Pinback song in my head that sounds similar. Well, not really. There's one measure of an instrumental in this song that sounds like the melody from the chorus of "Say You, Say Me." Thank god I figured this out!

Soup

I just braved the hot soup that is NYC to adventure into China Town on my quest for cheap lenses for my four pairs of eyeglasses that now require a new prescription.

Get ready....

Now, as you all know, most things in NYC are ridiculously overpriced. In fact, until two weekends ago, I was convinced that everything, from groceries to socks to bathroom accessories, was overpriced in NYC.

Then I found Fabulous Fannies, with their fabulous but cheap eyeglasses!

The fabulous people at Fabulous Fannies referred me to a place in Chinatown that they said was the best deal in the city.

This place is apparently the best deal in the world because...

Are... you... ready....

$65 for one set!

$65!!! I am getting four sets of lenses for only $20 less than one set at Evil Pearl Vision.

And they didn't even try to pressure me into getting anti-reflective coating!

Ah, New York, you have my heart again.

Topic: Human Pheremones

I think they exist. They are not universal, though. Perhaps pheremones attract us to certain people, but its not like those certain people are attractive to everyone.

A chemical basis of attraction isn't that far-fetched.

I remember seeing some weird documentary in high school or college about a pheremone-research lab. Apparently people in this lab didn't get along well with one another. The PI secretly left out some pheremones in a beaker or something and all of a sudden people started getting along.

Anyway, Human Pheremones are the Topic du Jour because I think I am experiencing something pheremone-related this week.

I look exactly the same as I looked last week.

I am behaving exactly the same as I behaved prior to this week.

I am carrying myself the same way that I have always carried myself.

Suddenly, people at work are coming up to me and saying "You look great!" and "Your hair looks wonderful like that!" and "Don't you look nice!"

Random people on the street have been talking to me. Men have been smiling at me. People in stores have been bizarrely friendly.

I sneezed outside yesterday in a huge crowd and someone actually stopped walking, turned around, concerned, and said "God bless you!"

D said "Maybe everyone's just in a good mood because its finally sunny."

Maybe. But I definitely look exactly the same and people are all of a sudden telling me I'm cute. Or maybe its the summer attire. But are people saying these things to everyone who is suddenly showing arm? I think not.

Or maybe its just because I am swollen in certain places, which is a much more depressing explanation of people's suddenly being nice to me than my sudden production of some sort of universally responded-to pheremone.

OK. Work now.

Nails on the Chalk Board....

... are nothing compared to the grinding metallic horror that is the sound of a key being made.

Dear god.

The poor boy at the hardware store around the corner not only has to listen to that sound all day but has to listen to it in the absence of air conditioning while being exposed to the fabulous aroma that is NYC in the summer.

I should bring him a popsicle or something.

Lenses

I buy eyeglasses like some people buy shoes. Or purses, depending on who you are.

I bought another pair of glasses this weekend (and was an evil enabler of LBF who visited from Boston and left NYC with not one but two fabulous pairs of cat eye glasses with rhinestones!) and thought "I haven't had my eyes checked in over three years. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure my prescription hasn't changed before I put lenses into the new pair."

I made an appointment with Pearl because, gasp, I get a $5 discount on the eye exam through my insurance! Yes!

I arrived late, of course, this morning and had to fill out much paperwork, indicating whether or not I experience various eye-related problems. The paperwork made me feel healthy because I haven't had any eye-related issues other than being basically blind, but whatever! No double vision! No weird tearing! I checked "Yes" for chronic headaches, but I know that those are not eye-related.

The eye doctor. Weird dude. Very socially awkward. Very nervous. I'm not entirely sure that he was not an eye-checking cyborg.

He robotically said "Put your things on that chair, sit on that other chair, and I'll be back in a moment."

While waiting for him, I started to look around his office and couldn't help but stare at this horrific collage of photos he'd arranged on two of the walls. First of all, the man has no eye for layout. It was unbearable to look at, and the frames were awful. There were about 50 or so shots of various people on a beach. The sun was setting. Who were these people? I have no idea, because they were all in silhouette.

Silhouette shots are fine. I dig a good silhouette. Sometimes they are even pretty. The sunset was lovely. But, endless silhouette shots = overkill.

And, endless silhouette shots in an eye doctor's office are just mean. Is he trying to make everyone think that they have macular degeneration? I was like "Wait, have I gone blind? Wtf is with these photos? Is there something weird with the light in here? Can he see who those people are?"

Also, is he trying to hide the fact that he's plastered the exam room with personal photos which is bizarre, or does he think that he's being aht-sy?

I have no idea.

When he came back, he was all "You'll have to excuse me for a moment. I was out on Friday and they brought someone in to cover for me and there is schmootz all over my desk." He proceeded to osbessively-compulsively clean the desk with Ethanol for five minutes, and then began wiping down everything this other guy could have possibly touched, including pens.

We chatted while he checked my eyes, and I explained to him that no, I don't want contact lenses, because I have worn eyeglasses since the age of 5 and therefore feel no urge not to wear them. I've never had clear peripheral vision and I've been just fine, thanks!

Smarmy and without hints of robot he said "So, I guess I'm one of the few priveleged people in the world who have gotten to see your face without glasses."

Ew.

Yes, obsessive-compulsive automaton eye doctor, you are amongst the priveleged!

It's true, and, well, that's just weird. Unsettling.

Ewwwwww.

When he was writing out my prescription, he had to get his stamp out from a drawer. He opened the drawer and said "HA! Looks like that other guy on Friday didn't find this stuff!" and then laughed maniacally and explained to me how there is another guy who sometimes covers for him who breaks all of the equipment and uses his stamp to write prescriptions.

I said "Isn't that illegal?" Yes, it is. Right.

I said "Might it not be easier to just not have eye exams on the days you are out?"

What I meant to say was "Maybe you shouldn't take so much time off to frolic on beaches with your oh-so-mysterious friends who exist only in silhouette!"

Anyway, the point of all of this is that lenses cost $210 even with the insurance discount.

THE HORROR.

I will not be purchasing four pairs of lenses from Pearl. I won't even purchase three. I was thinking I'd be willing to give up one of the old pairs, but man. NO!
I won't do it. $210?!?! For one set!?!?

I am considering not getting new lenses at all, but it was really nice to see well. When he handed me a weird spoon and said "Put this over your right eye" I was shocked to learn that I can't really see at all out of my left eye even with the glasses.

I am also pissed because the woman was doing the hard sell on the glare-resistant coating, which is (a) unncessary and (b) annoying because it makes you see worse even though (c) people can apparently see your eyes better. I hate that coating, and I said, before I knew how much the lenses would cost, "Can I get these lenses without the coating?" and the woman was all put out.

I hate people.

No, I'm lying, I don't hate people today because there were two friendly policemen at the laundromat this morning who were excited about my Mighty Mouse t-shirt and who sang "Here I come to save the day!"

I am excited about my Mighty Mouse t-shirt every time I wear it, and was thrilled to be able to share my enthusiasm with singing policemen.

And now I must pour plates.

Until we meet again....