15 Sep 06

Time:

?

Money:

$5, banana shake and blueberry muffin, Glendale Bakery (which is awesome.)
$5, gigantic cup of coffee from Oren's Daily Roast.
$51, purple sweatshirt, finally. [didn't come from weekly budget]
$4, shish kebab sandwich from a new favorite hole-in-the-wall, almost literally: Mamoun's.
$5, a really good almond cappuccino from Caffe Reggio, which is 79 years old.
$5, two falafel sandwiches and a 7Up from Mamoun's again (but this time was with faithful roommate and fellow chowhound Ben, rather than my classmates.)
$1, student-discounted cupcake from Tonnie's.
$5, Peanut Butter and Co. parfait (what is it with the dumb names for recipes involving yogurt?)

More interesting things:

Sat during the train ride. That alone would probably be interesting enough, since I never get to do it, but today in particular was amusing because an American businessman, who had obviously been put in charge of herding some of his British counterparts around town for awhile, stood talking with them very nonchalantly. The problem with being nonchalant on a train is that eventually you get to the sharp curves before Grand Central, and you tend to fall over at that point. From under the brim of my rain-deflecting ball cap, I saw this guy wobble fairly violently, so I stuck my hand out, and he laughed out loud, good nature all over the place: "Oh, you were going to catch me? I was going to end up in your lap! Thanks for looking out for me." And so on. I told someone tonight that such experiences mean you'd have to have kind of a pessimistic view of life to feel alone in this city.

Felt all included and cool when Professor Number Four announced the door entry code for Jenn's and my benefit. The funny thing is, I'm actually lame enough that as I sat waiting for him (or someone) to come up there and open the door, I'd wondered whether we would be told.

Found out that Professor Number Five isn't cuckoo; she is, in fact, wicked cool. We got some comments out of her today that are not, as Dave Barry would say, material for a family newspaper, but man were they funny. And it's important to note that while I would have thought all of the above in any case, it's always more likely to happen if aside from being cool and funny you think the person appreciates you, too. (Take the case of Sid, for instance. I loved Sid, I really did, but I think after the flag stuff the feeling was definitely not mutual. So that was kind of like watching the Cool Animal at the zoo, whereas this is Participating in Coolness. Much more fun.) Anyway, overall, I think that class is going to be an ideal Friday thing: REALLY smart, REALLY friendly classmates; all four of us English peeps (who are, needless to say, at least as smart and at least as friendly); good reading; briliant professors; and a lot of nearly helpless laughter. Oh, plus chow. My kind of school.

Bought my purple sweatshirt... yessss!

Almost enjoyed the rain today, if that's in any way believable. The thing is, of course, I actually do love gray and damp; I just don't feel like schlepping through it. Today, however, with my blue jacket and the aforementioned protective baseball cap, I was quite well sheltered and not totally overheated. (Oilskin in 50 rainy degrees: good. Oilskin in 74 rainy degrees: less good.) I'll have to keep that in mind for future otherwise-yecch days.

Remembered as I'm writing that last night I heard a kid - a little one, a girl - behind me on the walk home from the train station singing like a maniac. Well, that might be the wrong way to describe it in this region, what with the actual singing maniacs one occasionally comes across... what I mean is, she was awesome. I don't know if Mom was walking her home from voice lessons or what, but the exact sentence which occurred to me as we all tromped along was, "She couldn't hold on to a note any longer if you gave her safe deposit box to put it in." Seriously. Then she started kind of sing-whining in this goofy tone, which was nice because it added that pleasant hint of normalcy, but it didn't make you forget what she'd been doing two minutes before.