Today is going to be update day so let's get started with this video of Gracie Lou having some puppy play time. This just goes to show that despite her emo pictures she's not always depressed and dark.

Dean and Deluca?

I’ve spent 95% of my adult life on a college campus where relationships begin over heavy drinking and a random hook up that turns into a 3 year thing that sometimes goes somewhere but usually leads nowhere. So the world of dating is very new to me. Men planning things? Paying? Flirtation with strangers? Gwat??!!

So I went on my first date a few weeks ago. The guy worked in a school and I know I said I was only looking for ibankers but he seemed nice. He called me "adorable" in an email which I should have known was a warning sign. I'm an adult! not a child! And then before I knew what was happening I was being invited to a date at a Starbucks in a heavily populated part of the city. We’re in the most awesome city in the world and you want to go to a Starbucks?! I talked it over with a few people who said that maybe he was just wanting something very neutral. But really we were trying to make chicken out of chicken shit. Is that even a saying? I have no idea.

so there i was on a Wednesday night walking into the most bland looking, empty starbucks at 7pm. I was embarrassed to see myself there. I saw the guy and of course, classic online dating scenario...he was way shorter than he listed himself as being and was balding. But I could see how the pics he took of himself were from good angles and from those good angles he could almost be cute. But from real life angles he was just kind of sad. and i'm not even that into looks but as i soon found out, he really didn't have the personality to make up for his looks. If someone is REALLY hot and you just want to stare at them you can forgive them a terrible personality.

so that was problem number 1. then this little exchange happened

him: did you even know there was a starbucks here?!

me: (confused because there is a starbucks EVERYWHERE! In fact there was one literally around the corner) um....no?

him: yeah can you believe it! there is one right here!

me: um...yeah

He was genuinely surprised and excited about the starbucks in the middle of nyc. ??????????????? As you can imagine it all just went downhill from there. He was really awkward and just stood at the entrance staring at the part of the bar where they serve your finished drinks. I said to him "should we get in line?" His response was jarring "oh i didn't even see a line. I wasn't sure about how this worked." Now did that mean he didn't know how this particular starbucks worked or how any starbucks worked? because THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!! MY GOD!! they are designed to be like catholic mass, identical and easy to follow no matter where in the world you are!

He was a guidance counselor and said he related to the ADD children he worked with. hmmm. He'd gone to a local CUNY school, which i'm not judging, but he was also from manhattan and had never left. he said "i have everything i need here. i can go to the movies, get whatever i want 24/7 from the local corner store, anything else i can get online." oh like CULTURE and AN INTERESTING PERSONALITY!? and he came from a wealthy family so it's not like you can attribute his lack of world savy to being low income or something. he also said that he was sorry for acting so tired because Wednesday's were his longest days. Yet he suggested we get together on Wednesday...

other strange things he said. "do you go to the movies?" obvi i do but when i asked him to elaborate he said he liked "all movies." hmmm. "do you like to work out?" no, not terribly but i said i do specific things occasionally. When asked to elaborate he said he "works out all the time and does everything. that's the only other thing he does other than work or movies." and he didn't look like it, let me tell you. It's just very strange when a person has no sense of humor. strange. So of course i had my back up plans and met the slammers for falafal. And he even texted me a few days later saying he had a great time and wanted to get together again. unfortch before i could write him back to say thanks but no thanks i lost my phone and with it his number. point taken, world.

It was just really random and sad. And while most people would lose faith in humanity after such a date and say things like "i'll never find someone! wah wah wah" i had a different take on the situation. If the majority of the women that are in my dating pool are as boring and uninteresting as this guy then there is like NO competition. I don't want to bag the boring men. I want the interesting fun men because i sort of think that i am interesting and fun. And if the interesting and fun men are going out with women who are as boring as this guy then i'm going to KILL in the world of dating! I can seriously have a conversation with a wall so talking to strangers is not a problem. And lesson learned, i will stick to my plan of wealthy men. because let's be honest, i'm not looking for anything long term.

in the next entry...when "w's" become "v's": my date with an indian man, dot not feather.

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever"

So at the ripe old age of 28 I have realized that although I am attracted to tall white men and Indian men the kind of people who share an attraction to me are neither of these groups. I have narrowed my type down to a very specific group of men: short, hairy, half italian half mexican men. yeah, it's that specific. I don’t know what it is about those Italian boys but they love me (sidebar: their mothers HATE me. Not sure why). So when I got on match I thought that things would pretty much mirror real life.

Oh how wrong I was. My first few day on match I listed myself as Hispanic/Latina. I didn’t say that I was Mexican, I just left it at that. In a curious case of events I started getting winks galore from black men and Indian men. Now hear me out, I would gladly date either of these groups and have tried but failed miserably. Let us not forget the Mexican/Punjabi Indian in college who I never met but was sure was my soul mate. Indian men, despite my very in depth knowledge of the culture have never actually pursued me in real life even when i throw myself at them. And black men have absolutely no interest in me. My assumption has always been that men of color feel like first they’d rather pick someone in their racial group and if they are going to date outside of it why not just go for a white girl or an asian girl. Men almost never say “I want me a nice, educated Latina woman with a phd! Yes yes that's the girl for me! i choose the short, mexican, smart girl!” Ask around. It NEVER happens. I assume it’s because it’s seen as dating down.

So back to all of these Indian men who were hitting on me online when i was Latina…They were kind of sad and tragic and had names like “lonelyboy” and stuff like that. But the black men were sending me messages calling me baby and asking me if I salsa danced. I took me a second but I realized that the meaning of the term Latina is quite different on the East Coast. On the West Coast it means taco trucks and cleaning ladies and spicy food and salma hayek. But on the east coast Latina means Puerto Rican or Dominican or loud or salsa or a curvy body or J Lo. Am I J Lo? I think not and my junk leaves much to be desired. So in the interest of not lying to these men I decided that perhaps I should change my status to White because culturally despite my hatred of the terminology I am indeed “whitewashed.” Is this lying to say that I’m white? Well if you believe like me that race is socially constructed than you can say whatever the hell you want.

Being a social scientist I decided to leave my profile exactly the same except for changing my race to white. All things being equal, what would people think….The results: I was still getting hits from the Indian men but his time they were more attractive less pathetic ones. Ibankers!! Consultants!! On top of that I was getting zero black men winking at me and more white men. In fact the education and income level of the men also rose. I was getting men in the 100K plus bracket who were lawyers or had gone to b-school. Very interesting indeed!

But then it felt a little bit like lying and for the sake of the experiment I took it a step further. I changed my race to “other” and left everything else the same. Well you will never guess what happened. No black men at all, the white men abandoned me and the only group that was pursuing me was Indian men. VERY INTERESTING!

So yeah, I’m not really sure what to assume about all of this because when it comes down to it have I ever actually been able to bag an Indian man? Absolutely not.

the next experiment i'm conducting will be changing my height from 5'0 to 5'2. I've noticed that men seem to list 5'2 as their cut off. Like 5'0 is dauntingly small or something. so we'll see what happens. just appreciate that i am sacrificing my dating life for the cause of science and your entertainment!

“Relationships are hard”

So since I’ve recently become single and am no longer in the middle of fucking nowhere in the middle of America I decided to try out the online dating thing. My goals here are very small.

1. I’m not looking for a boyfriend, I just want free drinks and fancy bars that I can’t afford to go to myself. I figure that despite the fact that i make almost no money my high brow education and worldliness has made me very able to mingle in the world of the wealthy so dating rich men could be fun.

2. Since in real life I’ve never actually dated wealthy ibanker/consultant type men I decided that in my online life this would be my goal. And since new york is kind of like a fake life in an of itself I thought this would be the perfect place to test out this type of man. Are ibankers assholes? Yes. Do I want to marry one? Probably not. Do they have lots of money and can take you in cab rides and pay for EVERYTHING? Absolutely.

And those friends, are my 2 goals. To get free drink from rich men. Lofty, I know. So join me on my adventure!!

What would Sally say?

so me and my man ended things because sometimes people don't know what they have and they take it for granted and a woman has to respect herself. I've been doing better than with other break ups. no tears, no overdramatic remarks of how "no one is ever going to love me again!" etc etc because come on. i'm awesome and will have many lovers. And New York is an awesome place to be single so i've been living it up but i have my moments and that's all i'll say on the topic.

BUT sometimes the world gives you signs and you just have to listen to them. So i lost my phone at thanksgiving dinner at my own house. It was next to me and then as everyone was leaving around midnight someone must have picked it up, thrown it in their bag, and is too careless to look for it now. At any rate, it's gone and i can't do anything about that. And whatever, it's just a phone but i lost all of my numbers and that is annoying as shit. And i guess i also lost any old text messages i've ever had not to mention all the photos i've taken the past year. This year includes what i thought was memories of a happy relationships. aaaaanyways i started feeling mopey about it wishing that it would just appear, and hoping that if i just visualized it the power of "the secret" would make it somehow magically reappear. And then i started remembering how when david and i broke up i was miserable and thought i was going to die (but in the immortal words of peggy lee, "but then i didn't, and i said to myself, is that all there is to love?"). I lost my phone then, and along with that phone i lost his number and any contact we had ever had. And i felt awful! but then i started thinking, you know this could be the push i needed to really force me to move on. And it really was a turning point and after that the healing started Well it's only been a month since this last love ended and the world has taken my phone from me again and i can't help but wonder if it's a sign that i need to move on or something. All photos of our impromptu roadtrips just gone. His number, gone, text messages he has sent me, gone. So i guess that's that.

Musings on Subway Rides

You always hear the most random things on the subway. For the most part people keep to themselves but there are always those few, usually ethnic people, let’s keep it real, who just like to advertise their problems and their conversations. Case in point, today a woman who I garnered was named Erika and who I based on the conversation was either a cleaning lady in some sort of medical facility or a cleaning lady in a hotel was talking about her boss who she refered to as Miss Mary. Erica was black and had a slight Jamaican accent and wore ONE rasta colored giant peace sign as an earing on her right ear. Not 2 earings, just 1. And she was yelling to her friend who was sitting across the tube from her. Things that I learned:

1. Miss Mary is a real bitch and has it out for Erika

2. Erika got a tip from a patient/customer of 25 dollars in an envelope addressed to her because she talked to a sick elderly woman about Texas.

3. But Erika found out from Jose “who barely speaks no English” that Miss Mary had pocketed her tip instead of giving it to her and she was planning on figuring out a way to let Miss Mary know that she knew she had taken her money.

4. Jose’s was presented in the story as a comparison for how awful Miss Mary is. Because even Jose, who didn’t’ speak no English, which was supposed to be evidence of his inferiority, still had the morals to tell Erika about the stolen money.

4. Erika’s wore her one peace sign earring as a message to Miss Mary. “do you see this peace sign miss mary! Do you see it! It means peace! So stop being a bitch!”

5. Erika wanted to buy some smoked sausage with her 25 dollars, which was the only thing that she ever liked from Texas.

6. Cleaning people hate when they have to clean up our tissues from the bed or the hotel room.

And that is your lesson for the day from subway. Clean up after yourselves and peace!

Going Back to High School

So it turns out when you take a long sabbatical from writing it’s really hard to get back into it. Humph. Anyways I’ve been spending a lot of time at this high school in Brooklyn where I’ve been doing my research and so I’m trying to integrate myself into the community by doing things like going to basketball games, chaperoning high school dances (no joke!), going to after school events with the kids. It’s been really cool actually and i’m hoping that in the process I may finally heal the wounds of adolescence that have been gaping since I was 15. Here’s a rundown of my week there.

1. Basketball game: freshmen and sophomores are really tiny! They might technically be taller than me but they just look like kids. This actually makes me feel old.

2. I’m just going to come out and say this and I apologize if I offend anyone, but high school dances in the hood are WAY MORE AWESOME than high school dances dominated by white students. Imagine being in a real life Sean Paul Music video like this



mixed in with a little bit of this



yes, there was an actual vogue battle happening in the middle of the dance floor and it was AWESOME! I left before this happened but apparently during “I whip my hair” shit got real serious. Also instead of having a dj the kids just had a kick ass sound system and played music from their ipods so I got introduced to what is hot right now for instance have you ever heard of a song called “teach me how to dougie” cause I haven’t! And because most of them are Caribbean they were playing totally awesome music I had never heard from the islands like this




But someone who i guess is into "old school" music put in Shaggy "wasn't me" and it took me back to pimp and ho parties in college. it unfortunately did nothing for the kids so they quickly changed it. In addition "ignition remix" got NO response and was also quickly changed which was so shocking!! I thought that for sure R. Kelly would have withstood the test of time. S o yeah this is just my PSA to let you know that we are old.

Dear Sally,

As you can see I’ve changed the title of the blog. When I chose “the good times are killing me” I was at a different point in my life and the good times literally were killing me (note all of the drinking and physical alements which have all but left me now). So as I enter the middle of my 28^th year on this earth it seems that a shift has happened and a new title is necessary. “So what does new shoe leather mean?” you may ask. Well first of all, if you don’t know, I judge you. But let me drop some knowledge in the form of a song

I recently moved to New York in an attempt to briefly escape my old life, take a time out from all that nature and Midwesternness. Granted I was able to sell it to my department as a professional trip where I would be doing data collection. But really I just needed to get away from academia and figure out what I want to do with my life. Become a new version of me, if you will. Well it only seemed fitting that since I was moving to New York I should take the time to rewatch one of my most favorite shows of all time “Felicity.” Young girl from California moving to the new big city to follow a dream! Hello, this is my life! Except that I’m 28 not 18...wah wah wah

So I reconnected with my old coop friend Tory here in Brooklyn, Park Slope to be exact. She and I have emailed over the years since college mainly about cheese and sandwiches that we've eaten. But back in college one of our favorite things to do was to randomly belt out the revised Felicity theme song of season 3. It was our motto. It got us through most days. And occasionally when we wanted to say that we had moved on or needed to move on we’d just say “new show leather, whatevs” and we both knew what it meant. And so it only seemed appropriate that in this new journey to become a new version of myself I should change my title to reflect that journey. So join me friends! There will be lots of critiques about things I find silly about new york generally and park slope specifically. There will be lots of discussions about my day trips to soho and day drinking with my fellow “self employed” friend Ramit. There might even be some discussions of this "work" that I am so diligently completing here. But most likely it will just be gratuitious puppy shots like this one.

and this one
she really is, dare i say it, a strikingly handsome animal. So welcome back friends. Leave a comment if you still read or care.

yo yo bitches, wassup. life's been pretty hectic.

1. i broke my foot. it's a ridiculous story not because of the actual break incident but because of the circumstances surrounding the break. Nick's been staying with me because he hasn't found a job yet. Well to top things off the poor guy tears his achilles tendon a few weeks ago, has to have surgery on it, no insurance. It's liek a 6 to 8 month recovery. It's ridiculous. anyways so on our way to the supermarket i was walking out the front door wearing these

platformed monstrosities. Yes i wear my slippers to the market. Sue me. also i think i have learned my lesson since i stepped on an uneven part of the ground, fell off my platform SLIPPER and twisted my ankle. i felt like a giant jackass and i laughed in between my tears as i fell to the ground because i was like...we can't both be crippled. So i couldn't walk but luckily i had an old crutch from one of my many costume parties laying around the house. So there i was on one crutch with a giant swollen foot, thinking, "year of the dog!" So i waited a few days before going to the doctor. Nick kept telling me it would get better and i think i wanted to believe it because we could not both be on crutches. you 2 working legged people don't realize all of the things that you need 2 legs and 2 arms for. i know, because i didnt know until it happened to me. you cant' carry like a glass of water to the couch to watch tv. you cant' wash dishes very easily or cook or do ANYTHING. when you wake up the pee in the middle of the night it's so hard to hop to the bathroom. Anyways i finally went to the doctor and he took some x rays and said it was broken. excellent. So i was walking around on it in pain because nick was so embarassed of us both being in crutches that he kept being like "come on it's not that bad. you can walk without the crutches." So now i have this boot that i have to wear for like a month. Pros: i can take a shower and "walk." cons: it's not real walking. It's like when you walk with ski boots on only it hurts when i step down.

we have become a huge joke and people feel no qualms about commenting and laughing at us in public. Some teenagers heckled us at the movies. assholes. And people randomly ask us if we're both "handicapped" all the time. But since there is no able bodied person to help either of us we end up having to do things that people with a broken foot and achilles would not normally have to do. So we went to the market which was so ridiculous. Imagine a person with crutches driving around in one of those motorized wheelchairs with a basket in front taht goes 2 mph. Now imagine 2 people side my side. Yeah...that's what we look like EVERYWHERE WE GO. right now i just walk with one crutch so i end up doing lots of things around the house sinc ei have to most limbs. i'm worried i might not heal properly. Also nick is always trying to coax me to walk without my crutch because he feels like people stare less. and i'm like DUDE MY FOOT IS BROKEN!! but since relative to his tendon it's not so bad it makes me seem like a whiner or something. but seriously, my foot is broken. please give me some sympathy points.

so anyways halloween as lady gaga was kind of a bust. So i decided that we'd go as mummies. I made some KICK ASS mummy costumes that took me like 8 hours. ridiculous but so very me.

people asked if i was going to wrap toilet paper around us. WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, SOME KIND OF AMATEUR! this is serious stuff. i sewed all of the pieces onto some under clothes and covered our heads in tea dyed cheesecloth. serial. you can't see but trust me, it looked bomb. note nick's black boot and my grey boot. stylin! out in public people thought taht the crutches were part of our look and i almost fell over several times from people just stepping on me and pushing me around in a crowd.

close up of me and wolverine

nick and kim jong il
here we are eating soft serve fernando. not that i'm all about the slutty ______ costumes but this is by far the first time in a long time that i have not worn a leotard or mesh body suit as part of my costume. next year!

in other news i've been breaking out into intense body rashes for the past 6 months. daily. it's awful. it's like my skin is burning and i just watn to take it off. my allergist thinks it's some unknown allergy or i have a parasite. i'm kind of hoping for the parasite that way it can be treated and this wont' be some weird lifelong condition. People also think it might be stress related but come on, i can't not be stressed with what i do so that's not a solution. "oh just don't be stressed. take yoga." i hate when people suggest yoga. Anyways so i've had the skin test before and no one has any idea waht the problem is. my mom came into town and after an hour of being in town we were eating dinner and she goes "you eat onions now? you never ate onions growing up. maybe that's giving you the rash." Leave it to a mother to be able to notice these kinds of things. and it's true, i never ate onions growing up. i don't know why. i used to occasionally get these rashes a few times a year growing up but i never knew what it was. But now i'm thinking maybe it was like when i ate pico de gallo or those rare situations when onions were in something i ate. So now i'm gettign tested on tuesday to see if i'm allergic to onions which would be TRAGIC. i've grown to really like them. But it's the only new thing about my diet that i've changed teh past year. It would also mean i was allergic to garlic WHICH I'VE BEEN TELLING PEOPLE FOR YEARS AND NO ONE BELIEVES ME. assholes. garlic makes me vomit immediately. this would explain why. So anyways i dont' like garlic, so no big loss. but onions...this would be a tragedy. it would also mean i couldn't eat lots of pre made and packaged foods a la doritos cool ranch chips, my weakness, and i could pretty much rule out eating out for my meals. so while it would encourage a healthier lifestyle it would suck.

so anyways that's waht's going on with me. life is hectic as usual. did i tell you all i'm a professor now? i'm not just a TA. i teach my own course with all my own content and i make up my own lectures and all that shit. it's pretty tight

hello out there blogosphere. does anybody still read this?? It's just a question i'm putting out there. I used to write with a set audience in mind but now it's like, "are you there god, it's me, Margaret." I know cathy reads this but i talk to her almost every day so no real news to report to her. so yeah, leave a comment if you're still reading this shizz...

anyways what's up with you? i'm watching the emmys which were entertaining the first 2 hours and then i got bored and decided to internet stalk people and then i thought, "i wonder if anyone is internet stalking me right now? i should write a post for anyone out there curious about what i'm doing." Well something that' i've been pondering...i think i now understand why people get married in their late 20's. Sometimes it's because you want to and all that jazz but i think most of the times it's because there's nothing else fun to do and everyone else is married or coupled off and you're just alone with your things so might as well plan a kick ass party because parties are so rare these days in old age. I haven't had any real fun in a while. All of my peers are no longer new to grad school and starving for company and willing to go out all the time anytime because they dont' want to sit alone at their house. Instead now everyone is moving to the outskirts of ann arbor, buying houses, having babies, moving in with people, leaving the party at 10pm to go home and snuggle...etc etc. And i'm not better. My weekends are now spent working at the computer lab and going to the farmer's market. this makes me sad! what happened to my youth full of theme parties. speaking of shacking up, nick has been living with me in ann arbor. scandalous! It's been fairly drama free except that neither he nor I know when he's moving out of the state, but we know that he is in fact moving at some point.

my professional life is still a pretty big disaster. I'm taking this professional development class about how to get a job and every time i leave the class i feel like i've been doing everything wrong. All the jobs that i'm qualified for are jobs that i hate (ie things pertaining to stats and research) and apparently no will will probably consider me for these jobs because i have not published a minimum of 3 papers. Basically i've VERY seriously considered dropping out of grad school several times this past week. Thsi is more than my usual consideration of dropping out. but then i realized that this is the worst economy ever and i have a guaranteed gig for the next 2 years, with the second year being all me and no actual job that i ahve to do. I willl just get paid for sitting around and writing. Or i could get a real job and move back to LA. so torn, so torn.

Anyways nothign really big to report. Fall is in full swing and it's AWESOME! not too hot, not too cold, no rain (yet) NO SNOW! it's ideal. Cathy will probably think it's freezing when she comes but ti's so awesome.

my apartment

alright so the long awaited post of my apartment. i didn't include any pictures of my bedroom because as of right now it has no real flavor to it. living alone thus far has been pretty liberating except at bed time when i get kind of scared and close and lock all the windows. but otherwise it's pretty cool. ok so here goes.

here is my bathroom. i painted it "honeydew." I"m mexican, i like bright colors. so sue me. i need a new side thing because this one came with the place and is ugly. i acknolwedge this but i needed a place to put my things. i'm hunting. i'd prefer someting not white but i don't know
i unintentionally ended up with a bird motif. but i kind of rike it
kitchen wall and art that i bought at pitchfork. i have to actually frame it in this frame. this is just temporary. also the orange was a failed wall color attempt. please suggest kitchen wall colors. right now it's a very pale pale yellow that just has no life
i decided to display my dishes thusly since these shelves were there when i moved in
my tumblers. love! also i have like 8 of the butterfly ones and 5 of the owl ones and both of these sets cost me a total of 10 dollars at the flea market
my counter top. i still need a microwave. i finally have a gas stove again which i love love love!
my old school sink. i kind of love it. the dish strainer is just connected so i never have to worry about water getting everywhere.
my tea cup collection.
my 2 absolute favorite tea cups. in fact i might scrap the whole collection at some point and go for a black and white floral theme of cups
and now onto the living room. i painted the wall myself and it's called "empress teal." It sounded very gay and so obvi i had to pick it. empress teal might be my tranny name someday. this painting project was a real bitch and after the bathroom and this room i pretty much decided to wait on the kitchen and bedroom. this chair needs to be re-upholstered. suggestions on fabric colors? right now i have an extra panel of the shower curtain which could work but i also have an orla kiely print of pears ? i could also make pillows out of either of these fabrics. thoughts?
my new couch which i LOVE! clearly i need to put up my art. working on it this week.
my gigante tv. i might die. i was watching flipping out while taking this pic. you can't tell in this pic but it's big

couch = love! i need to make some pillows. i think i want to embroider them or make some out of cool fabrics that i find at the flea market. also this is my old trunk that i'm using as my coffee table. on top are some african woven bowls that annette brought me back from uganda. hella cool!
and now finally for the piece de resistance. every shopaholic dreams that someday they will have an entire closet dedicated to just their shoes. but then when it actually happened it just made me sick to realize that i probably had thousands of dollars worth of shoes in this closet. 7 LEVELS OF SHOES!! i don't know whats' grosser, that i own that many shoes or that i decided to display them thusly. jealousy or judgement? which are you feeling? also i had to double up some shoes so if they were all layed out one by one there would be more shelves. ugh.

so anywhere i need help from you guys. what color should i paint my bedroom and my kitchen? any suggestions? it's a small odd shaped room so the way i have it set up is kind of what works and i'm too lazy to try to move it around since i can't physically pick up the television.

canada and maine.

hello, world!!! where have i been?? where HAVEN'T i been. I was in DC living the life of a demographer...not so fun. In fact, all of the sitting in un-ergonomic office chairs gave me 3, yes you read that, 3 PULLED NERVES. i pretty much can't do anythign with my left arm and am currently in physical therapy. the cost of an office job is very high. anyways i'm back in Ann Arbor but not before taking a little jaunt over to Canada. I was there for a conference on michigan's dollar. it turns out canada really IS everything that they say it is. It kind of made me want to move there. ti was like America without all the drama and it was super diverse, which is a word i try not to use in this context but it really was! they also really drink canada dry gingerale. Oh, and they have ketchup flavored potato chips which i was initially wary of since it sounded strange. i was worried we were going to have a repeat of the "beef stick" potato chips circa thailand. but no! they were delicious! imagine french fries with ketchup condensed into a processed bag of snacks.

we stopped by niagra falls on the way back. It's actually not a very photogenic place, lots of mist and all, but it's pretty cool to see. for some reason i thought that niagra would be this magestic natural beauty out in the middle of nowhere amidst a forest with hardly any people. turns out there is this awful town called Niagra that has been built around the falls and it's like a family Las Vegas (read: excalibur hotel and casino and circu circu and there are tourists EVERYWHERE. clearly i'm dumb.

then i moved back to ann arbor which led to SEVERAL break downs. nothing like packing up all your shit and moving it a block to make you realize that you have too much shit. ugh! it's been 2 weeks and i barely finished unpacking last night. Most of my breakdowns had to do with nerve pain in my arm and having to move a lot of my shit because no one was in town. being little and injured pretty much marks you as useless. Luckily nick came a few days into the move to help me and i was able to make him do all the big things like beds and such. so we relaxed for like a day and then we drove to Maine to visit our friend Adam. turns out maine is really far. it's like almost 1000 miles. we drove through ohio which is teh worst state to drive through ever and then into northern penn and southern new york which are pretty. then we hit vermont which is so pretty! but then that led us to new hampshire which was kind of a downer. Maine is very foresty. it's like what i imagine oregon being like. it kind of reminds me of Forks from Twilight. Maine is very photogenic and very east coast.

did you know that maine has a longer coastline than california? it's just all scrunched up into peninsulas and coves and shit. pretty cool. this is nick and adam walking to the beach. again, i restate, very east coast. where else would you walk through reeds and trees to get to a beach?

east coast! mind you it was not that hot and the water was freezing but everyone was out. people not from LA don't know.

paging dawson and joey!
the boys took a dip. i stuck my leg in and it got numb so i decided that it was too cold for a real dip
adam said that the cold was "invigorating"

so east coast
one lone flip flop travelling the world
adam's parents lived in a house like this, literally feet from the water. LITERALLY! i didn't take any pictures because i'm dumb but it was cool and they had like 7 deer living behind their house.
scenery
99% of the coast is rock like this

then we hiked to the top of this mountain and looked at this harbor which was full of sail boats.

swearage
fun with my camera's color features. nick needs a haircut so bad
it really was a glorious day.

i am pretty pissed that i didn't take any pics of the lobster. MY GOD THE LOBSTER!! we went to the docks and each ate a lobster in it's entirety and everywhere you go they just give you cups of butter to dip everythign in. god, so good! they just have stew pots of warming, melted butter that they give to you in plastic cups. we also had steamers which are just steamed clams that you dip in, you guessed it, butter. so good!! what is special about eating at the docks is that they boil the lobster in the salt water so it's extra tasty. we also ate a lobster roll which is really simple. just lobster meat in a toasted hot dog bun with butter poured on top. god, i might die. so next post, pictures of my apartment. blaze

me, a road biker

guys!  i have become a city biker!!  and you know what, i hate every second of it.  seriously outdoor activities that force you to sweat and be in pain and struggle and challenge yourself are just not for me at all.  I am more of a mental work out person.  but nick is all outdoorsy and moderately athletic and he wants to bike everywhere and i don't want to always be the one that's like...no let's take the bus (we can't afford cabs) so we bike places.  also the buses aren't always convenient or reliable so bikes really are the "better" option in terms of "yay!  we're going to make it home tonight!" Unfortch we sort of live at the top of a hill so the road to places is always awesome, relaxing and down hill.  but the trip home is always exhausting and just not the way you want to end your night, you know!  So anyways on saturday we biked to the bars 3 miles each way.  all uphill the way back.  i almost cried at one point.  i got off and walked a bit and i yelled at nick for making me do this.  And then i felt really embarrassed because i am so weak and out of shape. ugh.  Then yesterday we went to the zoo and then down to the waterfront, and then had a burger at thsi place called 5 guys, burgers and fries.  It was pretty good but i still think that in n out is better.  i'm just saying.  Anyways that whole trip was 7 miles!!!!!!!!!!   through up hills, downhills, dirt roads, rock creek park, etc.  there were lots of bikers on this tiny road zooming by and people running with ipods who dont' always see you so they dominate the whole biking trail and onetime this woman stopped very uprubptly in front of me and and i started breaking and yelling "excuse me!" and she didnt' hear me!  and then i finally stopped like harshly in front of her and yelled in her face "excuse me!!!!" and she took out her headphoens and was liek...oh sorry.  PEOPLE!!  take off the headphones!!  seriously it irritates me.  ok whatever anyways 7 miles. Then luckily nick let us take the bus home because i didn't think i could bike back up the hill. 

then we went back down to the waterfront for a movie, another 3 miles.  I saw Up which was awesome!  i swear i bawled through the whole thing.  Then we had drinks on the waterfront that we couldn't afford and biked back home at 2:00 am, for the 3 mile UPHILL ride.  UGHH!  guys, again i yelled at him and almost cried and my legs hurt so bad the the hills and i had to stop and walk 3 times and i had to wear a helmet because we were street biking.  and or course i wasn't wearing tennis shoes.  I was in a dress and some clark's sandals (not totally inappropriate) and i had lost my hair rubberband so all of my hair was just sweating stuck in my helmet.  

on the one hand you all should be impressed that i even accomplished any of these things.  But on the other hand you should be judging me because i suck at these sort of things that normal people love doing!  why!  i wish i loved excercise.  i wish i got endorphins and craved them.  i feel nothing but wretchedness!  i wish i enjoyed being sweaty and wearing ugly clothes that woudl allow me to do these sort of activities.  I wish all of these thigns but if i were any of them i wouldn't be me.  But then i know htat nick really enjoys these things and i would like to a certain extent share them with him and be able to do a 3 mile bike ride home, you know.  So today i'm going down to the flea market...maybe...and i'll do the ride back up alone, without anyone pressuring me, and i'll see if i can do it.  but then again i might also sit at home and watch "you've got mail" (thank you lifetime!) and knit until my fingers hurt.  

guy waht do i do

so i'm in dc...living in sin with my man.  there have been no major freak outs yet and we cleaned this weekend.  yay!  and it wasn't even because i said we should.  he insisted we clean as a way of "changing the energy of the room."  It's also really hot in DC.  like, the kind of hot where at some point in july i will officially stop going outside for fear of death by humidity asphixiation.  i want to move to LA so badly!  no humidity, no snow, no rain.  it's like the best thing ever.  

anyways important issue.  So nick and i are becoming city bikers.  yes, indeed friends, i am a city biker.  this is partially because we don't have money for cabs and can barely afford the bus or metro.  But this is also because we don't live anywhere near a metro and buses are shady so we need a way to get places quickly.  the only problem is that i can't use my purse when i ride and obvi i need some sort of satchel to carry all of my thingssssss (wallet, extra pair of shoes, thigh chaffing stick, snack in case we get stranded somewhere and i have one of my food freak outs).  So i don't really think this can be a purse of any sorts and i really want to go for something that can be carried eqally on both arms backpack style because of my bad pack.  So messenger bags are sort of out of teh question unless someone can argue with me htat a good messenger bag won't fuck up my shoulders.  so anyways back to this backpack.  i don't want it to be teh size of like a school backpack.  But i also want it to be fashionable!!  IN a perfect world this is what i'd want.  something sort of fun and retro school girl

unfortch this bag costs a whopping 750 on etsy.  hello!  that is ooc.  can you guys think of anything cool like this that is say in the 50 dollars or less range????  Here is another option that i have which is more functional and way less cute.  

http://www.rei.com/product/763416

woefully uncute.  but are city bikers ever cute?  i don't think so 

shoes

guys, i'm getting really old.  So back around my birthday i bought myself these shoes. 
They were ridiculous and gaudy and i knew that i could pull them off.  I was planning all of my outfits and was generally very excited.  After attempting to wear the shoes around my house and almost spraining my ankle i decided today that i had to give up the dream.  If i couldn't even walk around my house how was i going to go dancing or walk around bars UNDER THE INFLUENCE??  it was not going to happen.  so i returned them and bought these.they're clarks.  yes i traded out some awesome platforms for some orthopedic european walkign shoes.  I'm ashamed of myself.  But i knwo that in dc this summer it's going to be hot and muggy and humid and my feet are going to SWEAT like crazy and i'm goign to need good shoes to go wtih my new urban lifestyle.  so yeah...i've changed.  

I'm movign all of my stuff to dc thsi friday, then i'm gonna be in la next week then i'm coming back to michigan for about a week to defend my prelim exams, then back to dc and on and on.  so anyways i started packing and i have way too much stuff.  My bag of shoes for the summer was like 12 shoes.  12 SHOES!!  why do i need 12 shoes for 3 months!???  ugh self loathing.  not to mention that i bought 2 new pair.  what if nick gets grossed out by my excess and decides that he does not like me??  we will be living in a studio together!  a studio!  scary.  

on a positive note i assumed that i got paid at the beginning of each month so i wasnt' going to get paid for may and i'd be broke and unable to pay my rent.  but i'm dumb.  in actuality i get paid at the END of each month and so my april paycheck will last me through may and i'm getting some grading hours so that's like extra money to pay for my move and maybe i can pay off some bills too.  the truth is that i live paycheck to paycheck so my bank account goes from full (payday) to empty (bill pay day, the day after pay day), so i never really notice when all of this happens.  so woo me!  

oh i forgot to mention i got THE COOLEST chair today.  Since reading all these design blogs i've gotten really into mid century modern furniture.  yes, i'm a douche.  Anyways these things are sort of easy to come across here and they are usually really cheap since no one gives 2 shits about danish furniture.  So anyways i was at a house party a few weeks ago when i saw the most awesome chair!  so it turns out the people were graduating and moving and through some facebooke exchanges we struck a deal.  here it is.  

the chair next to it is gonna go in my kitchen in my breakfast nook.  So i have mixed feelings about the plaid since it's pretty ugly, albeit unique.  but it also just doesn't go with my aesthetic so i was at target today and found THE LAST orla kiely tablecloth so i thought about reupholstering it with this.  Either that or i'm contemplating some sort of really cool orangy yellow.  now i just need to find a sweet couch!  emily i want yours!  

i'm also looking for a new credenza which i think will be pretty easy to find at the barnyard antique mart.  aaaanyways i just have to learn how to sew so i can redo this chair.   project!!

packing and moving advice

guys and gals, i need advice.  So my summer plans are quickly approaching.  I might have gotten a subletter but the way this is gonna work is i'll be moving to dc in late may, and then coming back in mid august to move into my new place.  So since i'm getting a subletter i probably have to pack up most of my shit, right???  like i said i have no idea how this works.  I'm planning on driving all of my stuff down to nick's place this weekend for our anniversay and also just to move all my shit down there.  So today i started packing up some of my stuff, and MAN i have a shit ton of stuff!  it got me really stressed out.  i think i need to give stuff to salvation army for sure.  

ok so here is my question.  target has those plastic boxes on sale for 5.99.  So shoudl i buy a bunch and pack up what i can?  or should i just go to the market and get some boxes and pack my shit in those?  I sort of think the latter is better because once i'm done i can just throw them away, whereas the plastic boxes would take up space (and cost money).  But i have a giant basement in which to store shit next year so i guess space isn't really an issue.  I don't know!!  what should i do!!  help me guys.

chafing

ugh guys.  so it was like 85 degrees today.  You think i'd be happy but the HUMIDITY!  why!  why can't this state just be not wretched in either direction!  so anyways humidity and my body do not work well together mainly due to my hyperhydrosis.  I sort of forgot about this problem since it's been winter and it's just not an issue.  But i wore a dress out tonight and a few hours into the night after walking around town from bar to bar my thighs started chafing.   And then all the memories came back of my chafed thighs and as i was walking home it got pretty painful.  ugh!  remember how last summer my ultimate goal was to make it so that my thighs dont' touch??  it's for this very reason!!  does anyone have any solutions for chafing?  i googled it and there all some sticks that you can rub on your leg to make it stop.  Also my favorite was these things called luvees which are basically like spanx only with padding at the thighs so that they don't chafe.  the slogan is "the discreted, comfortable thigh solution." amazing!  would you judge me if i bought them?  would nick ever sleep with me again?  i know this is really not an issue for most women because they don't sweat like i do but it's really wretched.  or is it an issue?? is this another one of those things that happens to all of us but that we just never talk about??  i really need to know. 

oh shagoodness i forgot to mention!! so the weather has been pretty volatile, blah. i don't want to get into it. suffice to stay the trees are still brown and dead looking and there is very little grass coming up so spring is DEFINITELY not here yet. BUT, yesterday it rained super hard so i went out in my rain gear and collected lots of worms for my compost!! yes, i am now officially a vermicomposter. total cost? 4$, what i paid for the used bin i am keeping my scraps in. I had intentions of ordering worms but they were expensive and nick laughed in my face noting that worms are everywhere and it is not green at all to order yoru worms online. These damn practical midwesterners! So anyways i stood outside at midnight last night with a fork and a tupperware collecting worms that had crawled out to the sidewalk and now they are happily eating all the yumminess that is in my bin. bravo!

summer's almost here

oh peeps, what is up. i am in grading hell reading some of the WORST research papers ever. It's finals, yes we end super early. I swear i question whether english is these kids' second language. My favorite was when a student kept using the world "literally" in situations that were not at all literal, but were in fact the complete opposite of literal. oh undergrads...you slay me. like "relationship, medications, and therapy all litearlly work hand in hand." oh really!! do these things have actual hands!! i think not!

life updates, quickly. relationship seems to be going quite well. Tomorrow i find out if i got this SUPER awesome internship in dc, which would double as both helping me professionaly and allowing me to live in sin with my man for the summer. Also i would get to live on the other coast for the first time ever, AND i'd be able to visit my gay boyfriend, ivan and my peeps in new york. holler!! Otherwise i have a teaching gig lined up here in ann arbor. And if i actually end up staying here the plan is to learn to play guitar, take a sewing class, and write that whole dissertation thing. Oh and go antiquing of course.

i think i've been putting too much into this job thing though. It's with the pew hispanic center who basically do ALL of the demographic work on latinos in the US, and this summer they are running a new study lookign at latino adolescent identity development. HELLO!! this is like my thing!! So anyways it's sort of perfect in that it's a very important organization and i'd get to hone my stats skills, which are pretty shitty at present. I had an interview last week and tehy called my advisor and she said they were definitely impressed by me. So it's nice to know that i'm being seriously considered. All this weekend i have been lighting candles and putting them on the alter where my dead relatives are. i acknowledge that this is creepy but i'm Mexican, and this is what we do. Anyways i've burned out 3!! I started telling myself that if i got this job it woudl be like God letting me know that i was on the right path, and if i didn't get the job than i shoudl keep searching for whatever my path may be. I waiver constantly on this PhD thing and right now i'm on the pro side but i could very easily become con any day now. So i just sort of feel like i need some direction! Anyways i do believe in in God and sort of like, things working out as they should for some reason that maybe we don't know yet. But sometimes it's just nice to get reminders that you're doing the right thing and i really need one of those now. Not to mention that fact that it would just be so awesome to get to see Nick everyday for a few months and live a normal life.

pray for me guys!!! or send me good vibes!! whatever is your thang