Last night I got home and there was a card waiting for me in my mailbox. A congratulations card from my mom. :-) Such timing.

Today I discovered FunHi. www.funhi.com It's this gangsta dating site. Pretty funny. You buy virtual gifts for people. Someone bought me a g-string! Of course, it's just a picture of one, but that's the beauty of the business model. Someone was willing to plop down $0.10 to give me a picture of a g-string. These guys are making tons of money.

I'm on top of the world today! teehee. I love Monday mornings.

I have a fun story to share.

Last weekend, I went to Boston to visit my darling B. He had gotten us tickets to see Blue Man Group. He has some connections with people who work there, so I had actually gotten to meet one of the Blue Men without makeup on my last visit. During the show, one of the Blue Men creates a painting by shooting spraypaint out of his chest onto a canvas. He spins the canvas while he is doing this. It's quite impressive. During this part in the show, B leans over to me and tells me that KtG, a friend of ours, has one of those paintings hanging in her bathroom. I told him that was pretty cool. Later after the show, B introduced me to his friend Kelly, who works at the theatre. And guess what Kelly reveals from behind her back? The painting from the show!! B had arranged for her to get me the painting. Isn't that sweet? :-)

Today I made an astonishing discovery. My mom is the perfect boyfriend.

Apparantly, my whole life, all of my boyfriends have been in competition with my mother! Imagine that. Allow me to explain. I was thinking about what differentiates a good friend from a boyfriend, and what traits make a good boyfriend. I think it's more than just romance that differentiates a good friend from a boyfriend. There something more, a sense of unconditional love and loyalty. I also, quite frankly, have higher expectations for a boyfriend. That's where my mom comes in.

My mother treats me incredibly well. When I'm around, she leaves me little notes reminding me that she loves me. When I'm away, she's always sending cards. Even if she's really busy, she'll improvise and make a card. For example, she'll grab a pink sheet of paper and draw a heart on it for Valentine's Day or she'll grab a yellow sheet and draw and egg on it for Easter. These are by no means wonderful works of art, but they're even better, because they're homemade. If I'm coming home to visit, she'll get to the airport extra early just to be sure that she'll be standing outside of the gate when I get off the plane. If something good has happened recently, she'll have a balloon or a sign waiting for me. Sometimes she'll even bring a whole welcoming committee of my family and cousins. When I get home, I'll see that she bought my favorite snacks and she cooked my favorite dinner. I always get plenty of hugs, and when I fly home again, there's always a welcome home email waiting in my inbox from her. If it's my birthday, she'll get my favorite cake. If she sees something she thinks I'll like, she'll consider buying it for me. She knows if I want advice or if I just want her to listen. She's always willing to drop anything if I need her help. And if she can't get out of something, she'll find someone else to help me.

Simply put, my mother is amazing. What I realized today, aside from the fact that I am spoiled, is that these are all the traits I think of when I imagine the person I want to end up with. It's the little details that make people feel loved. A note, a flower, or a box of my favorite cookies. To be honest, my whole family has a lot of these traits. For example, when I went to visit my sister in DC last year, and I got stuck in Detroit overnight, she had a bag full of goodies waiting for me when I finally got into DC. I, too, try to send cards, emails, and little care packages to share a smile. I can tell you that it makes for a very happy family, but I wonder if it is completely spoiled of me to expect or even want to be treated like this.

So take my mom, turn her into a good-looking guy, add some flirting, a sense of humor, and a little romance. Voila. Of course I'm exaggerating. In reality, I already have a pretty incredible boyfriend who has raised my standards far and above where they ever were before I met him. But I really am surprised to find out that my relationship with my mother has any part in what I look for in a man.

If my mom read this, I bet she'd laugh and tell me to keep dreaming.

I'm a little screwed up in the head today. Pensive.

I just finished watching Everwood. Each episode has some sort of lesson. This one was that no matter how old you get, you never stop playing make believe. It's how people prefer pretending nothing's wrong to facing problems. I'm sure I do that myself sometimes.

I had a kind of crappy day today. It started last night when we didn't get to go to this piano bar that I was looking forward to going too. Then I drank a little more than I should have, but not enough to forget that I was pretty much on my own at The Ballroom in Fremont. Not a place where you want to be on your own. Everyone pretty much coupled off and I tried to be cool about it. I sort of went into the dance floor and danced by myself a little bit. But that's kind of depressing. So I got another drink since drinking kind of occupies you for a little, but I knew I had too much so I switched to water. I was no knowing at all what to do with myself when this guy kind of did the little head tilt towards the dance floor. He looked harmless enough, so I shrugged and went in to dance. It's nice to feel wanted. Coincidentally, his name was Angel. A little angel being sent to make me feel better. After a few songs we went our separate ways back out to the bar area, where I was once again all by my lonesome. I realized I was having negative fun, so I headed for the door. I was feeling a little bad about not saying goodbye to anyone I came with. Lucky enough, I passed one of them getting a drink and told him I was on my way out. He didn't seem to upset about me leaving. :-) Anyways, I went home and threw up all my alcohol and went to bed. I was still really hungover in the morning.

Today I found out that somebody egged my car. This is the second time in like 3 months. I wonder if I did something mean to somebody in my apartment building without knowing it. I hope not. I'm going to report it to the building manager this time.

Three weeks into my pilates workout program and I seem to have gained an inch on my waist. I have lost 4 pounds, though. I'm not sure what's going on. I think it might be the pizza and chips.

I hope to figure out my life in the next few weeks. That's a pretty big thing to do. I think I just need to commit to something and let myself go along for the ride.

I'm seeing B on Friday. We're going to Blue Man Group. I'm so psyched! I'm going to bring my new fancy purse.

--K

YES! - - -
For all you Princeton people, I think you know what I mean. I got a great piece of mail yesterday. Ack! Feeling a little stressed out, but sort of in a good way.

I have the best grandma in the world. Hands down. No doubt about it. I just got off the phone with her and instead of the standard goodbye that most people give, she said "I always love you, Kathleen. You're so good!" in her wonderful Irish accent. I cannot do it justice here, it's something you just have to hear. I makes me feel like a giddy 3-year-old who is very proud and knows she did something good. Granny is always making me feel like that. She has this incredible work ethic, and it's always...cheerful. Seriously, folks, believe it or not, she could be on her hands and knees scrubbing a floor but if you listen you can hear her humming to herself, and if you look closely, you can see a twinkle in her eye. When I was a kid throwing a temper tantrum, all Granny would have to do was look at me with that bright laughing smile and wave her finger at me. That was kind of a private joke between my siblings and Granny. She wasn't waving her finger in a commanding way - just moving it back and forth. She insisted that she could make any of us smile with the wave of a finger. And it was TRUE. We would test her. One time, I was doing a really good job, holding out, my face locked in a fake frown. Then she says with her jovial voice, "Oh, Kathleen, you're so ugly when you frown. " Well right then and there I broke into laughter. I mean, who's grandma is going to call them ugly!? I couldn't believe it. She was kind of spicy, that grandma.

She put up with a lot too. One time when she was babysitting for my older sister and I, we decided it would be funny to pee in our beds. Only I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go, and it wasn't a moral thing. So I had to use water instead of pee. Boy, Granny was angry when we told her we had fallen asleep and both peed in the bed. The disapproval was overwhelming as we watched her change the sheets for us. I remember feeling really ashamed, and understanding that it's not funny to make more work for people.

Granny taught me a ton of lessons. I could write a whole book about it. Some of my favorites were just those little sayings. I can't think of any right now. Most of them had to do with taking it easy, being laid back, keeping a good perspective, and using your head. Granny is full of wisdom.

I can't write all day, but I think I've made my point. Granny can always brighten my day. I have a ton of respect for her. And I want to be exactly like her when I'm older.

i want to give a little shout-out to my favorite big sister, am. she is the schizzle. she's chillin' out max an' relaxin' all cool in miami. doing her kung fu and sundry crazy things. she sings a lot, but hasn't quite got into the rap yet. t also deserves a mention since he just turned 21 on saturday. saturday is the perfect day to turn 21 and par-tay. i won't tell anyone that he fell asleep and pulled a humpty-dumpty. (didn't wake up till the morning) g is far far away doing that jesuit thang. we should all be so generous.

Yesterday I felt as if I were floating, just kind of an outside observer of the world.

Today was exactly the opposite. I felt like I was definitely LIVING my life. I felt like I had a real physical presence in the world.

It's strange how different people can feel. I wonder what causes it. Sometimes I think it's whatever music I'm listening too. In both cases, I was in the car when I felt these ways.

Today I bought myself 4 pink roses. They're beautiful. They almost look like wildflowers, the way they're arranged. Such simple, elegant beauty to brighten up my day. I think everyone should buy themself flowers every once in a while. I love bright, colorful flowers. That's why it's great that the spring is here.

drip drip drrrrrrrr ip
I have a leaky faucet in my bathroom. I tried to look up how to fix it on the internet but it seemed way to complicated. Now I am one with the water. Sometimes I stick a washcloth at the bottom of the sink to muffle the sound. But when that becomes saturated with water, then the dripping starts again. This time it's the water dripping down the drain. It's amazing how loud dripping water can be. Maybe an acoustician will explain it to me someday.

sometimes i wear sexy clothes underneath my work clothes and i secretly dance around inside my head all day.

today i have a lot of energy. it's great! i think food greatly affects the amount of energy i have. i just, for the very first time, tried this baboon-butt orange called a minneola. it tasted exactly like an orange. i was glad that it wasn't bad.

i just stood on my hands for a little while and the blood rushed to my head. brian said that my face was red. i told him it was a gravity problem. aarthi didn't get it.

sometimes i feel like i'm the only one in the world and i'm just playing this video game. sometimes i laugh at the other characters in the game. mostly because of awkward moments. like this guy made a funny face at me as i was rounding a corner on my way to get some water. i had momentum, so i didn't have time to make a face back before he was out of sight. i just cracked up instead. i don't even know the guy but i've seen him around at work.

it's bad to think of people as characters, even if i think of myself as just a character in a fun story. people are people, not objects. i'm reading a book all about this. it's making me realize some of the problems i cause for other people. it's called Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box. it's a quick read, and done through stories. it really changes the way i think about people in both personal and professional relationships. i'm not sure if it'll stick at all, but i hope so. i do recommend the book to everybody.

back to work. back to work. everybody. work work work work. work work.