Things I like all playing together

So, there is a J. Crew distribution center near where I live.  Said distribution center has a big warehouse sale once a month where lots of the cute vintage inspired clothes are marked down to prices that I can afford (can't afford J. Crew normally).  I go pretty much every time it happens if I'm able and have saved some money for it.  This morning I went and waited in line for the longest amount of time EVER (2 hours) but left with some really great pieces.

While waiting in line they had the current J. Crew catalog on hand to whet all the shopping appetites of all the many women waiting (there were some men, most there not on their own accord).  I looked through it twice and found that one of the male models in the current (September 2010) catalog HAS A GIANT BEARD and looks like he JUST JUMPED SHIP FROM THE ALLMAN BROTHERS' ALBUM "BROTHERS AND SISTERS" AND PUT ON A SUIT.

Way to go clean cut J. Crew.  Now I'm going to search my body for the device that obviously has been planted in me that lets J. Crew know everything I like in the world.  I bet the next catalog will come with a free wheaten terrier that smells like lavender when you pet it.

the end

I can't stop sneezing; I am so depressed.

So, an update that is not me whining from my blackberry. Christmas and New Years were GREAT because I didn't have to work and there were great people to hang out with at home. My mom and I had our annual Christmas party (even though it was after Christmas this year) and it was surprisingly not as awkward as usual. I think because everyone is growing up it's just ok to be who we are and catch up, high school grudges and hangups aside.

I visited some family for Christmas. My grandmother gave me the world's smallest food processor and world's smallest rice cooker (!!!!) so maybe after I read how to use the things I will be eating something other than PB&J and stir-fry. It came to my attention while I was at home that many of my comrades who are now in the working world don't cook or bring their lunch. This idea has never crossed my mind, probably because I hate eating out a lot and I'm also too cheap. It made me realize how much I hate eating out. My mom reminded me that I even hated it when I was little. I like going out with friends and on weekends and stuff.

Anyways. After lots of fights with my mom (and her sudden flight to Birmingham, AL with her boyfriend?!), quality time at my boyfriend's house playing Wii, and perusing the after Christmas sales (see, Dolla Saver), I went to Asheville with my boyfriend. We went to the J Crew CLEARANCE CENTER which is part of the J CREW DISTRIBUTION CENTER FOR THE SOUTH EAST. When I was done throwing up all over myself out of excitement I picked out a pair of earmuffs that I'd been eyeing at the regular J Crew store that were $50 but at the special clearance store they were $10!!! I also got a wool dress for $35 for those cold ass days when I am tired of wearing pants. That place is seriously awesome. Even my bf got a sweater! Probably because I made him stay in there for 2 hours.

On New Years Eve I drank gin and tonics with friends and we rang in the new year on the top of an apartment building overlooking the city. It was really nice celebrating new years without a tv.














We saw a weird new years caterpillar thing (oh Asheville).

Afterwards we went to a bar (The Z Lounge) and danced and watched the hilarious people in there.

On New Years Day we cooked collards and pork chops and hoppin' john and we slothed around all day. It was glorious. The next day me and the boyfriend and I drove down Warren Wilson Road and I stocked up on almond butter from Amazing Savings (discount gourmet grocery store that is my life-force). We ate at Burgermeisters (awesome) and drove home. I really didn't want to leave.

After that I made a trip to the Clearance Goodwill, where you can buy Goodwill items by the pound ($1.00/pound). There, sparkling and new was a Bernina Bernette 50 sewing machine in perfect working condition for $25. I packed that sucker up and hauled it to DC in my carry-on bag. The machine I was planning on bringing back was one of those old Singers that is made of solid metal. They are awesome machines because they can sew through anything (concrete, leather, moonbeams) but they weight approx. 150 lbs. So finding a nice nice lighter machine was extremely good luck. It was my Christmas present from Goodwill. I'm planning on sewing ugly/cute stuffed animals, bags, wallets, ipod holders, etc. very soon. Ideas/things to copy are welcome.

New years in Asheville was great and terrible at the same time. I realized that I really really need to move back there. ASAP. Which is still at least 2 years down the line. I am honestly sick and miserable right now to be back in DC. I feel so dumb for thinking that I would be ok living without the Western NC mountains. I am concentrating on enjoying myself while I am in DC and making a career for myself so that when I move back I can do something other than being a waitress. I also have a cold right now (round II, cool) that is making me even more miserable. It's hard to return to work- no one tells you when you're in school that you are being trained to be a cog in a giant machine that there is no way out of. Well, there are many ways out, but not if you have college loans. I guess there are my two goals: 1. build my career 2. pay off college loans. New Years Resolution 2009: pave the road back to Asheville.

NYC weekend of awesome

Oh, oh. I don't even remember what happened last week. Friday night I skipped town and took a bus to New York City! I met up with C (who lives there) and we made preparations to have as much fun as possible over the next couple days. It's basically the most awesome thing in life that I can take a bus to NYC whenever I want for round trip $35-$40. It's a 4.5-5 hour bus ride, which is a little grueling after that 3rd hour, but man! Way worth it!

She lives in Brooklyn and I am officially and huge fan of "BK" - the non scary neighborhoods are way hip. On Saturday we went to Manhattan for some Christmas shopping. We hit up the Evolution Store, which was AWESOME - basically a standard Natural History Museum but all for sale. It was kind of weird because they have human skeletons for sale- how does that work? They had lots of seashells and rocks, freeze-dried animals, nuts, bones, way cool stuff. I found Christmas tree incense!!!

We also went to the Dwell Sample Sale because C works at Dwell!!! It was so much fun!!! The stuff there is so high end and unavailable to us (for real rich people cuteness) but since it was the sale we could actually buy stuff. I got this AWESOME weekend bag so that when I go to NYC every single weekend in the future I can use my way hip WEEKENDER. I'm pretty sure it would be the first bag stolen off the bus if a thief happened to be around when I'm traveling- but luckily I made it through the trip home. I got a lot of Christmas shopping done there which is way sweet since Christmas is 10 days away (?!!!)

C and I looked in lots of other stores and had super amounts of fun looking at all the crap that you can only get in NYC. We went to a holiday market and a farmers market that had TONS OF LOCAL APPLES for way cheaper than at the stupid Eastern Market in DC (ugh!) AND hot apple cider?!! omg. I got a huge thing of apple cider. Then we hung out with some really fat NYC squirrels. City squirrels really are the coolest because they are fatter and they are pretty tame. At that point two of the best things in life encountered each other, drinking fresh apple cider with some fatty squirrels. Way cool. We could say, "HEY SQUIRREL, HEY!" and they would come to you!!!

We met up with my homegirl L (from college) which was AMAZING because I hadn't seen her in a year! We went to a really cool Indian restaurant called Milon. It was really crazy, there are so many Christmas lights and pepper lights that you hit your head on them inside. They play crazy remixes of Indian music and if it's your birthday they have strobe lights and a special remix of happy birthday!! The food was very mild, which was kind of nice for Indian food because that way I could use all of the sauces on it without it being too spicy. I'm an official fan. Not to mention that it was super cheap. Afterwards we walked around (I had no idea where we were) and went to a bar.

Saturday was also Santacon for NYC. Santacon is a "Santa Convention" where anyone who wants to dresses up like Santa and meets somewhere and goes bar hopping all day long. Seriously, it starts at 10AM. We saw Santas EVERYWHERE. I tried and tried to find out where all the Santas were- I asked all the Santas I saw. They were all either too drunk to tell me or remember or they didn't know themselves. I even gave my phone number to a Santa to call me when he found the other Santas. Oh, Santas.

On Sunday we went to a cool "flea market" in Brooklyn which was a bunch of vintage and indie hipster vendors selling really cool crap. I miss that kind of stuff in DC; there is way more art and arty kind of stuff going on with young people in NYC. DC is very much suit-oriented, even with the young people. I love NYC with a thousand hearts but I will never trade the DC metro system for anything. We had a "fear/love" scale at my old job at Warren Wilson where you rate random things according to your fear or love of it. On my fear and love scale the NYC subway is way way way far down on fear. It is like a giant bathroom under the city, complete with bathroom tile. Holy god, I still have absolutely no clue where we were or where we went on it.

It'd be cool to have a fear/love scale for the blog. Maybe I will construct an image that will live on the side bar or something and as I blog I will add things to the fear/love scale. I miss that thing.

So all the fun wound down and I had to go to Chinatown to catch a Chinatown bus to go back to DC. Of course I hit up one of the Chinatown grocery stores because they have the most interesting stuff that you have never seen. I stocked up on Hi Chews and boarded the mean long bus back to DC. Now I have a cold and I came home from work early. This week seriously needs to speed up because Christmas vacation is SO CLOSE. I'm back to slothing on the couch watching John and Kate + 8.

New New New New

Wow, things have changed a lot since my last post. I will try to catch everyone up quickly.

I flew up to Baltimore early on Friday 9/19 and, with all my stuff that I could manage to bring on the plane without paying an extra fee, took bus and train from Baltimore to Alexandria to stay with my friend J and her roommates. I couchsurfed her house and spent every waking moment looking on craigslist for apartments. I was too stressed out and crazed to go to parties and be social, which was frustrating because J and her roommates and friends are really cool. I got really homesick and scared the first night but I've been mostly ok since then.

I took the metro a lot to meet with my roommate, E, who was my childhood best friend from home. We went to school together for 14 years! Back together again! It's so amazing how things come full circle sometimes.

The first apartment we looked at we really liked. We let the landlord know that we wanted to sign the lease and he said he'd get back to us in a day about it. He didn't get back to us! So we sadly gave it up for lost and looked at another mediocre place... I thought I was doomed to couchdom for ever (this feeling occurred day 2 of couch time). But the next day the landlord emailed E and said we got it! We signed a lease on Tuesday and I moved in on Wednesday. I'm still on a couch, but at least it's my couch (the apartment even came with a really nice couch, matching chair, and coffee table!)

So I started my new job on Monday and it has been an adventure. I am a low level bureaucrat in a county government. I am a Commercial Recycling Inspector. I go around and inspect businesses and multi-family homes to make sure they are recycling the way that they are required to to comply with the county RECYCLING LAW. That's right, RECYCLING LAW!!!!!!!!! I am really happy, and EXTREMELY lucky that I got this job. Basically I will be teaching people about recycling all day. I won't be stuck in an office all the time! One main hilarious part is that I do have an office, a cubicle, in a short row of cubicles. It's so hideous! I'm going to spiff it up soon, though. So basically recycling <3 <3 <3 dreams can come true. I get to talk trash all the time with people who know more about recycling than I do!!!

Today I woke up early to go yard-sailing. The apartment doesn't have anything in it and E and I both are living out of suitcases only, so we don't have house crap, or a car to get it. I picked up some nice hangers, a pot, a hairdryer, hair straightener, picture hanging kit, peeler, etc at a church yard sale for $10 so that was very fruitful. E and I went to Target and got a lot of things we needed. I'm so used to doing that kind of thing at thrift stores but we really needed the stuff ASAP.

I just got back from going to check out a bed I found for sale on craigslist. It is AMAZING how expensive brand-new beds are, and yeah Ikea beds are cheap but they are crappy. The apartment I went to was a guy and his girlfriend, they had really nice stuff. I wish I weren't so broke (the security deposit and the rent really broke the bank and I don't get my first paycheck till next week!) But I am springing for this bed because it is really nice and almost brand new for a fraction of the new price. I got an iron, too. I haven't ironed a damn thing since I graduated from high school.

It's so weird having to wear work clothes, it's the same crap I had to wear in high school (we had a strict dress code) and I forgot how uncomfortable it is / the ironing part. yeesh.

So I am going to update the blog so it's not "recent college grad looking for work" to "happy college grad starting out new in WASHINGTON DC!!!!!!!!!!!" I'll keep you posted on the happenings of DC, there is always something insane, every day!

OH YEAH: NEW COMPUTER= FULL POSTING CAPABILITIES! I'll get on that!