1. An old woman on the bus wearing two different shoes
2. Every person I passed in Home Depot singing along to Cher's "Believe"
3. Two guys shouting at each other, almost getting in a physical fight, in- and outside of a Wendy's
4. My face turn red after I put Icy Hot on it
My life is so blog-worthy these days.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
I'm thinking about getting a Gmail account. This is for several reasons: 1. I won't have mmc email forever 2. "Alywooo" is not very professional but mostly it's because 3. Gmail uses ICal which I fell in love with over January. I had long thought of how useful it would be to have a calendar that categorizes your events ("school", "work", "mega parties", etc.) and that you could either see them all at once, or only see one event, or maybe only two. And guess what! That's what ICal does!! But there's only two ways to get it: 1. Buy an Apple computer--totally out of the picture, or 2. Get a Gmail account.
So I was playing around with the sign up page trying to think of what my email address could be. "AliceYorke" isn't available, but "yorke.is.alice" is and so is "chieflike06", and "boilinghot18, too.
In conclusion, I recommend going to gmail.com and trying to find your perfect email address, because even though I could have "AliceLYorke", I think "chieflike06" is really calling to me.
So I was playing around with the sign up page trying to think of what my email address could be. "AliceYorke" isn't available, but "yorke.is.alice" is and so is "chieflike06", and "boilinghot18, too.
In conclusion, I recommend going to gmail.com and trying to find your perfect email address, because even though I could have "AliceLYorke", I think "chieflike06" is really calling to me.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Big Texas-Sized Finale
So my predictions were right. Thursday afternoon we went out to eat and then did some house hunting. We ate at a place called Brio and I got lobster bisque and salmon over angel hair pasta. Delicious! Then we got a chocolate sandwich for dessert. I'm not kidding. It was toasted bread covered with cinnamon-sugar butter then smeared with nutella, served with strawberries and a vanilla cream dipping sauce. Yowza. Yow-za. I started to say "ay chihuahua" a lot in Dallas, don't ask me why. I sort of love it though. After that we drove around some more, stumbling first upon John McCain Road (!) and then upon the Rumson of Dallas suburbs. HUGE houses and every one of them exactly the same as the one before. All brick, all huge and seven-gabled, all ugly. I don't get it, it's like invasion of the house-snatchers. Imagine waking up to find that your house had been replaced with a non-feeling, brick replica of the one you had the night before. And then over time, finding that all your neighbors' houses had been snatched as well! I for one would move! (Or, not move there to begin with, in this case).
But anyway, after that came the best part of the trip. I decided to forgo the first mall because it was outside and it was too cold out to willingly put oneself outside, so instead I opted for the second, the Grapevine Mills Mall. It was indoors and right next door to the huge convention center/hotel where my dad was meeting work people--the Gaylord Texan. Yes, that's really what it's called. And people don't seem to make jokes about it, either. Anywhoo, Pops and I had already visited the Mills Mall on a previous occaision: we went to the Books-A-Million hoping to find books about Dallas and came out empty handed. Literally no books about Dallas, not even a magazine. So I decided not to start my shopping trip there. Instead I started at Steve and Barry's, a store that one can find in the Manhattan Mall that was once known merely for its low-priced sweatshirts and baseball hats, but is now more famous for its celebrity clothing lines, including Venus William's "Eleven", Amanda Bynes's "Dear" and SJP's "Bitten." As you may know, I am not an endorser of celebrity clothing lines. I once rejected the softest pair of underpants I had ever felt because Jennifer Lopez made them and they were like air, silky, silky air. However, I am now a convert to the SJP cause. I walked out of that store with $90 worth of merchandise, and that was a lot of stuff: a dress, a down vest, a suit vest, a tee-shirt, earrings for The Fashionista, mittens, a bag, and sneakers. All of it only $8.98. Everything in the store was on sale for 9 bucks. I even made shopping friends during the nearly 2 hours I spent in that store; we would pass each other and wonder aloud if it was really real, and trade the joys of a good find and the sorrows of it not being in your size. I even found jeans that fit me. JEANS. that FIT. ME! Of course, I didn't buy them because the only one in my size had a broken zipper, but I'll be back to Steve and Barry's, oh I'll be back! I'm also pre-disposed to the store because my step-uncles are named Steve and Barry. Their sister's name is Peeka. It's really Susan, but we all call her Peeka. I also went to another store and bought an adorable dress for $25.
Normally, spending a hundred dollars is torture for me. I don't really like shopping and definitely don't like spending money. In fact, last night we were shredding my mom's old bank documents and we found my pass-book from HS which was a record of all my bank activity for three years---I made three withdrawls in three years, and one was just transferred to open another account. I don't spend. However, leaving the Grapevine Mills Mall, I discovered what Retail Therapy was, and it was glorious. The world was my fucking oyster and I was going to eat that mollusk like it was my job. Now, they didn't have oysters at the mall, but they did have Dad's root beer. So I bought that. And drank it. And it was good, and this is from Miss No-Thanks-Water's-Fine. Now, I didn't it all, or even half of it, but I still drank some of it.
Then I drove the Gaylord and waited in the parking lot for an hour reading Children of Men because I didn't want to pay $12 to park for an hour. But it got really cold in that car. Finally I went to pick up my dad and went inside this place. It is huge. Unfathomably big. And the inside is designed like some sort of Texan grotto. Bridges and streams and waterfalls and a glass ceiling with a huge star in Christmas lights. There was even a canyon with a covered wagon and a replica of an old-tyme train! Then we went back to the hotel were I ate left-overs of prime rib. Such was the high of my shopping excursion that I even considered going in the hot-tub at the hotel. The outdoor hot-tub. Then I realized that it was 30 degrees outside and if I got in it I would never leave. Instead I packed and went to bed.
Next morning we meet with a realtor, Joan, who takes us to several different townhouses, some of which were pretty nice. But the best thing about that trip was Joan's Cadillac. The back seat has not only its own heat controls, but a butt warmer with back warmer option and a button that changes the lumbar support in your seat. You can roll it higher or lower, and have it recede into the seat if you don't want it, or have it bulge out if you need a lot. It was awesome. I hope my road to fame leads me to a Caddy. The car and the golf guy, I'll need both when I'm famous and wealthy.
Then we go to the airport, no problem now that I've got my license. Get some food at Au Bon Pain--very Texan--check out the big fire some place on the tarmac (pictures to come on Facebook), and get on the plane! No delay this time! In fact, the plane got in early! But still no TVs or meals. Oh well. The driver who picked us up was quite rotund (that was the dispatcher's word), and could barely squeeze into the front seat when some huge mini-van parked right alongside the taxi. Then the backseat doors wouldn't open. Not from the inside or the outside. We finally got in, but that was pretty unnerving. I decided that in the event of a fire it was every man to himself and that I would push over the fat man to get to the working door. You've got to be ruthless.
So then I was home, yay! I also had an exciting non-Dallas weekend that I'll relate in brief. Saturday Kevyn and his brother and I took their mom to see Wicked. It was good. We ate a nearby restaurant. Not so good, the lasagna burned the shit out of my mouth. Then Kevyn and I saw Mad Money in Times Square and thought a fight was going to erupt in the theatre. Then we went uptown to Steve Yates's place and drank mini Heinekens. We didn't know they were mini when we bought them, but they were tiny. It was there that I discovered that Tony Daussat, who I knew to be from Texas, grew up in Grapevine!! How crazy!! Sunday we came back to my mom's house, played an awesome game called Hoopla (by the makers of Cranium) and Kevyn, the Fashionista and I went to see 27 Dresses. I'll say this: Kevyn preferred Mad Money. It was a very cute movie, but they didn't spend enough time on dreamy James Marsden, concentrating instead on an insipid side-plot about Heigel's sister and boss, neither of whom was very good at a thing we call Acting.
Yesterday was boring, I stayed inside all day and cleaned my room and--Oh! Got my computer working! I'm on it right now for the first time in nearly two years! Wooo! Today I'm going to apply for an internship and then go into the city and get burgers a la peanut butter day. Corinne, I'm sorry you won't be there, Katie's covering for you.
Okay, that's all. Wow. So much stuff.
But anyway, after that came the best part of the trip. I decided to forgo the first mall because it was outside and it was too cold out to willingly put oneself outside, so instead I opted for the second, the Grapevine Mills Mall. It was indoors and right next door to the huge convention center/hotel where my dad was meeting work people--the Gaylord Texan. Yes, that's really what it's called. And people don't seem to make jokes about it, either. Anywhoo, Pops and I had already visited the Mills Mall on a previous occaision: we went to the Books-A-Million hoping to find books about Dallas and came out empty handed. Literally no books about Dallas, not even a magazine. So I decided not to start my shopping trip there. Instead I started at Steve and Barry's, a store that one can find in the Manhattan Mall that was once known merely for its low-priced sweatshirts and baseball hats, but is now more famous for its celebrity clothing lines, including Venus William's "Eleven", Amanda Bynes's "Dear" and SJP's "Bitten." As you may know, I am not an endorser of celebrity clothing lines. I once rejected the softest pair of underpants I had ever felt because Jennifer Lopez made them and they were like air, silky, silky air. However, I am now a convert to the SJP cause. I walked out of that store with $90 worth of merchandise, and that was a lot of stuff: a dress, a down vest, a suit vest, a tee-shirt, earrings for The Fashionista, mittens, a bag, and sneakers. All of it only $8.98. Everything in the store was on sale for 9 bucks. I even made shopping friends during the nearly 2 hours I spent in that store; we would pass each other and wonder aloud if it was really real, and trade the joys of a good find and the sorrows of it not being in your size. I even found jeans that fit me. JEANS. that FIT. ME! Of course, I didn't buy them because the only one in my size had a broken zipper, but I'll be back to Steve and Barry's, oh I'll be back! I'm also pre-disposed to the store because my step-uncles are named Steve and Barry. Their sister's name is Peeka. It's really Susan, but we all call her Peeka. I also went to another store and bought an adorable dress for $25.
Normally, spending a hundred dollars is torture for me. I don't really like shopping and definitely don't like spending money. In fact, last night we were shredding my mom's old bank documents and we found my pass-book from HS which was a record of all my bank activity for three years---I made three withdrawls in three years, and one was just transferred to open another account. I don't spend. However, leaving the Grapevine Mills Mall, I discovered what Retail Therapy was, and it was glorious. The world was my fucking oyster and I was going to eat that mollusk like it was my job. Now, they didn't have oysters at the mall, but they did have Dad's root beer. So I bought that. And drank it. And it was good, and this is from Miss No-Thanks-Water's-Fine. Now, I didn't it all, or even half of it, but I still drank some of it.
Then I drove the Gaylord and waited in the parking lot for an hour reading Children of Men because I didn't want to pay $12 to park for an hour. But it got really cold in that car. Finally I went to pick up my dad and went inside this place. It is huge. Unfathomably big. And the inside is designed like some sort of Texan grotto. Bridges and streams and waterfalls and a glass ceiling with a huge star in Christmas lights. There was even a canyon with a covered wagon and a replica of an old-tyme train! Then we went back to the hotel were I ate left-overs of prime rib. Such was the high of my shopping excursion that I even considered going in the hot-tub at the hotel. The outdoor hot-tub. Then I realized that it was 30 degrees outside and if I got in it I would never leave. Instead I packed and went to bed.
Next morning we meet with a realtor, Joan, who takes us to several different townhouses, some of which were pretty nice. But the best thing about that trip was Joan's Cadillac. The back seat has not only its own heat controls, but a butt warmer with back warmer option and a button that changes the lumbar support in your seat. You can roll it higher or lower, and have it recede into the seat if you don't want it, or have it bulge out if you need a lot. It was awesome. I hope my road to fame leads me to a Caddy. The car and the golf guy, I'll need both when I'm famous and wealthy.
Then we go to the airport, no problem now that I've got my license. Get some food at Au Bon Pain--very Texan--check out the big fire some place on the tarmac (pictures to come on Facebook), and get on the plane! No delay this time! In fact, the plane got in early! But still no TVs or meals. Oh well. The driver who picked us up was quite rotund (that was the dispatcher's word), and could barely squeeze into the front seat when some huge mini-van parked right alongside the taxi. Then the backseat doors wouldn't open. Not from the inside or the outside. We finally got in, but that was pretty unnerving. I decided that in the event of a fire it was every man to himself and that I would push over the fat man to get to the working door. You've got to be ruthless.
So then I was home, yay! I also had an exciting non-Dallas weekend that I'll relate in brief. Saturday Kevyn and his brother and I took their mom to see Wicked. It was good. We ate a nearby restaurant. Not so good, the lasagna burned the shit out of my mouth. Then Kevyn and I saw Mad Money in Times Square and thought a fight was going to erupt in the theatre. Then we went uptown to Steve Yates's place and drank mini Heinekens. We didn't know they were mini when we bought them, but they were tiny. It was there that I discovered that Tony Daussat, who I knew to be from Texas, grew up in Grapevine!! How crazy!! Sunday we came back to my mom's house, played an awesome game called Hoopla (by the makers of Cranium) and Kevyn, the Fashionista and I went to see 27 Dresses. I'll say this: Kevyn preferred Mad Money. It was a very cute movie, but they didn't spend enough time on dreamy James Marsden, concentrating instead on an insipid side-plot about Heigel's sister and boss, neither of whom was very good at a thing we call Acting.
Yesterday was boring, I stayed inside all day and cleaned my room and--Oh! Got my computer working! I'm on it right now for the first time in nearly two years! Wooo! Today I'm going to apply for an internship and then go into the city and get burgers a la peanut butter day. Corinne, I'm sorry you won't be there, Katie's covering for you.
Okay, that's all. Wow. So much stuff.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Alice Does Dallas
And it sucks. Probably more than Debbie did.
No, it's not really that bad. Just a little boring.
Sunday. The flight was at 5 out of Philadelphia so I get packed and go to my dad's and we get in a taxi and go to PA. That drive was probably the beginning of the boring since I can't read in cars so I just looked at pictures in magazines. Then we got to the airport and I realized that my driver's license was missing. It just wasn't in my wallet. And I couldn't remember taking it out, so who knows how long it had been gone for! But I get in because I have some other ID card which passes muster. So we're there around 3.30 for a 5 o'clock flight which we don't board until 6.30 and which doesn't leave until 7. Also, word for the wise: don't fly American. They have stopped serving meals and snacks (bag of chips, snickers bar, etc) cost $3. Also, there are no TVs and no radio stations! In short: nothing. But the flight was only 3 hours long and I had "Watchmen" to read. We are staying in a Quality Inn which is the Fair Cleaners of hotels: Quality, but not too much. (Except that I do get a king-sized bed!) We are in Irving, TX, a suburb of Dallas and there is nothing around but other hotels. We eat at the Denny's nearby. Of the server my dad whispers, "Is that a man or a woman?" Oh Baffles.
I spent Monday and Tuesday morning hanging out in the hotel watching daytime television and eating biscuits and gravy at the hotel breakfast. That part rocks. I love biscuits and gravy. Monday my dad and I get lunch at a French bakery (in Texas) which is pretty good. It is there, in Grapevine, that I discover that They aren't joking when They say everything is bigger here. Pictures (and poetry) to follow on the Facebook. Tuesday afternoon we get lunch with some people from my dad's work at the BBQ place across the street. It has a meat-pit. And sweet tea. It was great. Corinne, don't ever go to Texas, or at least, don't expect to eat much. In the afternoons we drive around looking for places for my dad to live. All the houses look the same here. They're all made from brick and it's sort of creepy. Streets and streets of the same house. Then you go to the next complex, and they're all the same as the last one. Yikes. Monday night we have dinner at a steak place and I have a delicious prime rib and a local beer called Shiner Bock--yum! Tuesday night we go out with my dad's boss and his wife to a seafood place that gets their scallops from 10 miles south of Sea Bright. I have Nigerian shrimp. They are called U-2s because you get less than two shrimp per pound. I wish I could have taken a picture, they were HUGE. Our server was a guy named Josh who looked like a young Alan Tudyk. We are running away together. Sorry Kevyn.
Yesterday my dad was in a meeting all day so I planned to go into Dallas proper. I found a few places that I wanted to visit and figured out the public transportation enough to have a day's worth of stuff to do. I drive (license-less) to the train station and realize that it is not 60 out like the weathermen said and also that there is no one else around. That's because the next train isn't for 40 minutes--who would have thought to look up the schedule?? So I go back to the hotel, put on more clothes, and resign myself to watch TV and wait for the next-next train. I get into the city no problem and make my way to the Sixth Floor Museum which is the JFK museum in the former Book Depository. It's a really good museum made better by the 6-year old French boy running around. However, don't ever go there by yourself, or at least bring tissues. It's really sad. After that I find a place to eat and get served the thickest slice of French toast I've ever seen. Yum! After that I discover that Dallas is not a tourist town. You can not walk from one place to another and the free trolleys that all the maps say exist, don't. I wander fruitlessly for two hours before deciding to just leave. So I get on the train and come back to the hotel, dejected. But then a Texan in his pick-up truck hits on me and I feel loads better! Sad but true. My dad and I go out to a chain-Mexican restaurant and I get a weak but good pomegranate margarita which I stumble through ordering, ending up saying "pomegrant margareety". Oh yeah.
Today I get up and do the old morning routine: biscuits and gravy, daytime TV. I decide to go to a local mall to get some new jeans because I discovered on Monday that, in addition to the hole in the knee that I knew about, there is also a hole in the crotch that I didn't know about. However, I haven't done that yet. I'm at my dad's office posting this blog. I bet this afternoon we'll do more house hunting. This evening my dad has a work-dinner so I'm going to go to a different mall (because that's what there is to do around here). Tomorrow we're going out with a real estate agent to look at townhouses and then we're coming back. I pretty much can't wait. I keep trying to loudly address Baffles as "Dad" in public places so that people stop thinking I'm his date. Yikes.
The trip (except yesterday) has been more fun than I'm letting on, but I'm bored right now, so everything is seeming extra boring in retrospect.
Also in case you were concerned, my mom found my license and sent it here. I have it now.
Well, that's all I suppose. See you all soonish.
PS. Texas is really flat.
No, it's not really that bad. Just a little boring.
Sunday. The flight was at 5 out of Philadelphia so I get packed and go to my dad's and we get in a taxi and go to PA. That drive was probably the beginning of the boring since I can't read in cars so I just looked at pictures in magazines. Then we got to the airport and I realized that my driver's license was missing. It just wasn't in my wallet. And I couldn't remember taking it out, so who knows how long it had been gone for! But I get in because I have some other ID card which passes muster. So we're there around 3.30 for a 5 o'clock flight which we don't board until 6.30 and which doesn't leave until 7. Also, word for the wise: don't fly American. They have stopped serving meals and snacks (bag of chips, snickers bar, etc) cost $3. Also, there are no TVs and no radio stations! In short: nothing. But the flight was only 3 hours long and I had "Watchmen" to read. We are staying in a Quality Inn which is the Fair Cleaners of hotels: Quality, but not too much. (Except that I do get a king-sized bed!) We are in Irving, TX, a suburb of Dallas and there is nothing around but other hotels. We eat at the Denny's nearby. Of the server my dad whispers, "Is that a man or a woman?" Oh Baffles.
I spent Monday and Tuesday morning hanging out in the hotel watching daytime television and eating biscuits and gravy at the hotel breakfast. That part rocks. I love biscuits and gravy. Monday my dad and I get lunch at a French bakery (in Texas) which is pretty good. It is there, in Grapevine, that I discover that They aren't joking when They say everything is bigger here. Pictures (and poetry) to follow on the Facebook. Tuesday afternoon we get lunch with some people from my dad's work at the BBQ place across the street. It has a meat-pit. And sweet tea. It was great. Corinne, don't ever go to Texas, or at least, don't expect to eat much. In the afternoons we drive around looking for places for my dad to live. All the houses look the same here. They're all made from brick and it's sort of creepy. Streets and streets of the same house. Then you go to the next complex, and they're all the same as the last one. Yikes. Monday night we have dinner at a steak place and I have a delicious prime rib and a local beer called Shiner Bock--yum! Tuesday night we go out with my dad's boss and his wife to a seafood place that gets their scallops from 10 miles south of Sea Bright. I have Nigerian shrimp. They are called U-2s because you get less than two shrimp per pound. I wish I could have taken a picture, they were HUGE. Our server was a guy named Josh who looked like a young Alan Tudyk. We are running away together. Sorry Kevyn.
Yesterday my dad was in a meeting all day so I planned to go into Dallas proper. I found a few places that I wanted to visit and figured out the public transportation enough to have a day's worth of stuff to do. I drive (license-less) to the train station and realize that it is not 60 out like the weathermen said and also that there is no one else around. That's because the next train isn't for 40 minutes--who would have thought to look up the schedule?? So I go back to the hotel, put on more clothes, and resign myself to watch TV and wait for the next-next train. I get into the city no problem and make my way to the Sixth Floor Museum which is the JFK museum in the former Book Depository. It's a really good museum made better by the 6-year old French boy running around. However, don't ever go there by yourself, or at least bring tissues. It's really sad. After that I find a place to eat and get served the thickest slice of French toast I've ever seen. Yum! After that I discover that Dallas is not a tourist town. You can not walk from one place to another and the free trolleys that all the maps say exist, don't. I wander fruitlessly for two hours before deciding to just leave. So I get on the train and come back to the hotel, dejected. But then a Texan in his pick-up truck hits on me and I feel loads better! Sad but true. My dad and I go out to a chain-Mexican restaurant and I get a weak but good pomegranate margarita which I stumble through ordering, ending up saying "pomegrant margareety". Oh yeah.
Today I get up and do the old morning routine: biscuits and gravy, daytime TV. I decide to go to a local mall to get some new jeans because I discovered on Monday that, in addition to the hole in the knee that I knew about, there is also a hole in the crotch that I didn't know about. However, I haven't done that yet. I'm at my dad's office posting this blog. I bet this afternoon we'll do more house hunting. This evening my dad has a work-dinner so I'm going to go to a different mall (because that's what there is to do around here). Tomorrow we're going out with a real estate agent to look at townhouses and then we're coming back. I pretty much can't wait. I keep trying to loudly address Baffles as "Dad" in public places so that people stop thinking I'm his date. Yikes.
The trip (except yesterday) has been more fun than I'm letting on, but I'm bored right now, so everything is seeming extra boring in retrospect.
Also in case you were concerned, my mom found my license and sent it here. I have it now.
Well, that's all I suppose. See you all soonish.
PS. Texas is really flat.
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