grab a drink, grab a glass

and after that i grab your as$.

well valentine's day is over. i received chocolate covered strawberries from patrick (and apparently he made love to my cat) and a strange package from my mother that contained, among other things, a fistful of rubber bands.

this weekend i am going to see sigur ros with my cousin nick who is like that guy in high fidelity. he's the guy who plays belle and sebastian tapes and ruins everyone's good mood (disclaimer: i love belle and sebastian and my cousin is a great person). he's very very very seriously into music (which is a good thing) but will likely come to my apartment armed with a notebook and tiny pencil. he will write down the name and length of each song and perhaps scribble a short paragraph about the differences between this particular performance of a song when compared with another. he kind of sucks the fun out of shows, but i don't care and i can't wait to go with him anyway. besides i haven't been to the calvin campus since i was a junior in college and my roommate adrianne and i went to visit a friend there for a dance recital. i remember we saw a topless girl in a dorm window and her boyfriend behind her.
the recital, by the way, was jazzulous.

i guess we are supposed to have an ice storm tonight. that makes me think of a few things:

a.) the book by ken moody, which i read when i first moved to grand rapids but didn't know anyone yet.
b.) the film adaptation of the book, which i love
c.) the possibility of missing work thursday (scoff)
d.) how much more beautiful everything looks when covered with ice
e.) the time we had an ice storm when my brother and i were young and we were cross country skiing in the snow/ice crust. a huge golden retriever we had never seen before and have never seen since came and knocked my little brother down and started to drag him away (this cherished memory was caught on film).

enjoy the ice storm.

annie proulx, will you be my valentine?

i'm reading the shipping news and cannot put it down. i cannot eat, i cannot sleep, i cannot work, i cannot post on my blog because i'm reading the shipping news and it consumes everything in my life. i'm thinking in terse, hard-boiled and woolly sentences. i'm thinking in g-ddamned headlines. i want to go to newfoundland. i did google searches for "eerie newfoundland stories" and a lot of bizarro porn sites promising britney spears and nipple biting came up. hmm.

also, i joined curves. it's fun i guess. you have to participate in lame discussions for "curve points." things like who my first crush was or what kind of shoes i will i purchase if i meet my february goals (answer: none - broke). you know. very important stuff. so anyway i can win things like insulated curves lunch bags or calorie counters for participating. it's all totally worth it. however, the old women there like to glare at me for some reason. probably because i'm a newcomer. i'll show them!

the intern we have here insists on calling all the males in the office by their last names with a "mr." in front. she doesn't do it with any of the women, which made me realize AGAIN that we do not have any women in management positions here. i'm on the "very short list" for a reproter position at a medium daily in alaska, north of anchorage. maybe it's similar to newfoundland.