smile

hurray for fantastic weather and depression.

fantastic news

Senate Panel Approves Broad Immigration Reform Bill

interview

i just got off the phone from an interview at a place that i would really really love to work at. and of course i stammered, paused and uhmmed during the conversation. :(

rediscovering philly

the weather this weekend has been perfect - temperature hovering between 60 and 70 F. it's great to be out and about with only a t-shirt or a light sweater. on friday, i started the day with three layers - a polo, a green wool sweater, and my black peacoat - but by the afternoon, i had taken off the sweater and the peacoat and i sat outside the union with my computer, enjoying the sunshine.
i made great plans for today, the last day of spring break. initially, i wanted to go to new york for the whitney biennial or the armory show but that would entail me getting up at 8 in the morning and spending the better part of the day in the city. then, i thought maybe the philadelphia institute of contemporary art would suffice for the day. that, too, fell through. instead, i found an ad online for molly's cafe and bookstore which was having a dollar a pound book sale. molly's was located in the heart of the italian market. it was decided that i would go to the book sale and pick out a few books as gifts for the people i stayed with this past week in grantham.
as soon as i got on the train, i realized that i had forgotten the address for molly's. i cursed quietly and decided that i would just take a walk to rittenhouse square although the light shower in the morning meant that i would not be able to sit and read in the park.
as soon as i got out of the station, i heard the banging of drums and saw the streams of people dressed in green. turns out, i had walked right into philadelphia's st. patrick's day parade. kids were dressed up as poor irish farmers, middle aged men were drinking unabashedly from blue plastic cups and many irish flags flew high in the sky.
after a few contingents had made their way past the walnut/broad intersection, i made some headway into my day's plan. i walked towards rittenhouse square and decided that some coffee would be great to start the day. i walked into la colombe and was instantly welcomed by the smell of fresh coffee and throngs of people standing and sitting. this is definitely my favorite coffee place in the city - it reminds me of the coffee joints in lisbon - because the lattes are rich and creamy, the service brisk, the patrons especially attractive and the croissants harken back to barcelona where i would have a 'cafe con leche' with a chocolate croissant for 1.50 euros. in lisbon, it was not unordinary to order your coffee at the bar and drink it while eating an egg tart standing up. very casual. i love spanish/portugese cafes.
since there was very little room at la colombe, i ordered my coffee to go and walked further west on walnut street. i passed church of the holy trinity and read that the university of pittsburgh's glee club was performing today. i made a mental note of the time and decided that i would return for the concert.
meanwhile, i walked back east, across broad street and felt that i should be at least a bit productive, start on an op-ed article i wanted to write for the college newspaper. i knew i had to be at the last drop cafe on 13th and pine where the atmosphere is more condusive for concentration and ample seating too. i got myself a cup of tea, added some sugar and cream and sat outside on one of the alfresco tables, scribbling on my notepad. i took a short break and looked up for a short second when i saw, stuck to the telephone pole, "Molly's Cafe and Bookstore $1 a pound sale, 1010 S 9th Street." I jumped up, put my pad in my pocket and started the 10 or so blocks walk to the store. i found the store and in a mix of glee and anxiety, i dropped my cup of tea as soon as i walked into the front door. horrified, i looked at the woman behind the counter, apologized profusely, and volunteered to help mop up the mess but the storekeeper would have none of that (how gracious. she had very well behaved and adorable cats too). i spent about 45 minutes picking out books, thinking of who would like what, and weighed my books and paid the hefty $6 for about 7 books.
by this time, it was past 3pm, the start of the glee concert, and i hastily made my way back to rittenhouse. i caught the last three songs and when i exited the church, the sky had turned a unpromising shade of grey. i walked back across broad street and tried to find lunch/dinner. i thought of santa fe burrito because i didn't have too much money. on the way there, i passed caribou cafe, a place that i had wanted to try since last summer. i looked at the menu but decided santa fe would be more affordable but as i approached the restaurant, i saw that it was closed. in a secretly pleased manner, i walked back to caribou, repeated to myself - "this is your treat for not going anywhere for spring break" - and ordered a thin pizza topped with a pungent cheese (bleu perhaps?), onions and bacon and a glass of chardonnay. i felt as if i was back in paris or budapest, serenely reading while sipping white wine, waiting for my meal. the atmosphere was friendly, quiet humming of conversations but not too crowded since it was in between lunch and dinner time.
to end the wonderful day, i decided on a guinness at my favorite bar and i sat at the counter watching the ohio state/iowa bball game, smug about the day's finds.

Pat Robertson's "Homosexual Agenda"

stolen from a blog

6:00 am: Gym

8:00 am: Breakfast (oatmeal, egg whites, and mimosas)

9:00 am: Hair appointment and manicure

10:00 am: Shopping (preferably Neiman's, Saks, and/or Bloomingdale's)

12:00 pm: Brunch

2:00 pm: Assume complete control of all U.S. federal, state, and local governments; destroy all healthy marriages; replace all school counselors in grades K-12 with agents from Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels; bulldoze all houses of worship; secure total control of all forms of mass media including the internet

2:15 pm: Be fabulous

2:30 pm: Mud mask and forty winks of beauty rest to prevent wrinkles caused from the stress of world conquest

4:00 pm: Cocktails

6:00 pm: Light dinner (soup, salad with romaine, radicchio, arugula, and balsamic vinaigrette, and a dry Chardonnay)

8:00 pm: Theatre

10:30 pm: Dancing and more cocktails

12:00 am: In bed

1:30 am: Home

laugh till you pee yourself

....

there was a point last week where i began to have ambitions to update my blog everyday, but that's a process not unlike drilling for oil in a dried out rig. 3 mid-terms this week and an interview/test with ameriprise tomorrow, which isn't an ideal job but i'd like to learn more about the company. spring break starts on saturday. and i'm dying to go to the whitney biennial exhibition.