Happy Halloween, everybody.

Well good god damn and other such phrases, I've just been chastised for not sharing this, so here you go.

My concern: I look more like mother with each passing year. Her lips are bigger than mine, but I feel we have similar features otherwise. She's aged as gracefully as one can hope for given the particular circumstance of her life. My body type is more like my grandmother's. I'm the same height and general build. Even in her seventies though she wasn't skinny, she was never fat either. I call us a solidly built family. ;-) Perhaps I'm too young to worry how I'll look as I age, but there is that one gray hair that keeps making it pop up in my mind. And every girl worries about turning into her mother. As I've said before, I'm more likely to turn into Aunt Mary. I just don't look anything like her. My sister on the other hand...

On the topic of that hair, dubbed Marcella in honor of my Grammy, I had not been able to find it for some time. Now it's cropping up again. Apparently the last time I had my cut, the stylist just cut it out entirely. Now my little friend is growing back.

This photo falls all too much in line with recent concerns over product safety from China. An entire section of road just kind of tilted? That's some fine engineering and quality control. I'm astounded. Though, the funnier thing is that no one died. Just a couple of injuries. Maybe the cars are safer than the highways. Of course, these two things could be related.

I feel like this turns out funnier than it has any right to be.

I finally ordered a bed. Maybe my body will begin to forgive me soon for the way I've been mistreating it.

In the meantime...Monkey Day anyone?

I make a point of loving the Metro. Coming from a land of piss-poor public transit, I appreciate what I have. However, I'd like to highlight three things Metro has done to piss me off recently:

1. They make it as hard as possible to fix problems with fare cards. My Metrochex were demagnetized when I got them. First, this meant the usual patronizing speech about not leaving paper fare cards near credit cards and cell phones, then it became clear that I would have to go to Metro Center during business hours to exchange them. Clearly no one that rides Metro regularly or receives Metrochex from their employer has any place better to be between 9:00 a.m and 5:00 p.m. on a weekday...
2. I had a conductor the other day that decided to stop at Farragut West, but not actually open the doors. Good thing that's not a popular stop. Wait a minute...
3. This morning my conductor announce McPherson Square as Farragut West. I didn't realize the mistake until it hit me that the escalators looked different.

That's my rant. I'm ok now.

Proof that I've been abusing my body for the past year or more? I just took my first ever yoga class and lost all feeling in my arms. It got better as we went through, but my fingertips are still kind of tingly. Odd.

In case any of us were in question about the fact that I'm very much a girl, let's recap some highlights from my birthday.

Gifts I received:

• Fondue pot
• Chocolates
• Orchids
• Spa Day

What I did to prepare:

• Mani/pedi
• Dress Shopping

Memorable points from birthday happy hour:

• Cosmos
• Cleavage
• Chocolates
• Attempting to order Guinness and champagne
• Lots and lots of photos

It was a great night, and I'm reminded that I love my friends. I think we've all become less fun recently, but things might be turning around. All-in-all, I'm happy. The whole thing was just delightful.

Now that September is almost over, I've just discovered that the Governator has pronounced the past three Septembers "California Wine Month." Here in DC, we'll refer to it as "California Wino Month" in honor of my birthday. This validates the opinion that I should spend tonight ingesting rancid grapes. Woo.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to me.

The first rule of keeping a blog is to not talk about work. We all know that. I'm going to break that rule for one moment to say something that's been weighing on me: I'm satisfied with my job. I'm one of very few people I know that actually say that, and I end up feeling guilty about it. Most of my friends are underpaid, underutilized, or otherwise unhappy with their situations. Personally, I'm doing pretty well.

Of course, I'm about due for my review, which has my stomach turning in knots. We'll see how that goes.

Thank you Shiri. I think you know exactly how much this pleases me.

My parents are notoriously bad at gift giving. They mean well, but just don't know how to do it. Well, this year for my birthday, they were smart enough to heed some advice. There were no knick-knacks or Disney movies. The only bad habit they fell into was the inclusion of chocolate. However, it was a chocolate that was guaranteed to make me happy. I came home today to three pounds of See's candies in a cooler box on my doorstep. When my parents asked the aunt and sister what to get me, this time they actually listened. A little taste of home. Well, not little. It's more chocolate than I'll ever eat on my own. Yay.

Last night I went to a fund raiser to humor the boy, and came away with a piece of comedy gold. Mya performed. Of course the sound system was terrible and I couldn't name anything she's done solo, but she's adorable, so we'll let that slide. What we won't let slide was her crowd pumping question, "We got any ghetto superstars in here?" Yes, we were in NE DC, so there were maaaaaaaaaaany ghetto superstars in the immediate vicinity, but at a campaign fund raiser, the most ghetto person there probably lived in Cap Hill group house. We were all young, educated, white, and professional. And that's exactly how we danced. Ghetto superstars indeed.

Some of you will know exactly why this makes me happy.

DCist made me quite happy today. Between hearing about Butterstick's new rival, and the fact that the arena where the Beatles played their first U.S. show was turned into a "trash transfer station", the site's kept me giggling.

I'll get around to posting about the topics below around the same time I clear the backlog in my inbox and post photos from Sonali's wedding. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a little comedy gold with all of you. It makes me wish that I still had friends at the Center on Budget or had kept contact with a certain ex. Those of you with the time and energy, please feel free to organize an opposition contingent.

I've actually had a fair amount to blog about since getting home from Thailand, but zero time in which to so. Here are some highlights. Hopefully I'll get around to them this weekend:

-two stories with elephants
-the wedding
-my impressions of Bangkok
-flight home and the best layover ever
-flooded apartment
-becoming an internally displaced person
-my growing fondness for the D1 bus
-photo posting
-jetlag, and the napping Meg

I feel that Bryce is about to yell at me again for the lack of posts, so I thought I'd just drop a little update. I've been busy and relatively happy. May not have two jobs for very much longer. Had a lovely beach trip with boy, and came back bright red. I feel that once the burn fades I might be somewhat closer to my pre-DC pallor, which is clearly just that little bit less blinding. The past week has been absorbed with cockroach hunting. We got some that were huge and could fly. I might have screamed like a little girl and run away. It appears that we have them kind of under control now. Next week will be all about Thailand. Yes, the trip is almost upon us. This is mainly big because the number of things that have been put off until "after Thailand" is growing quite large.

On the Harry Potter front, a prediction I made as a joke to Bryce came true within the first 30 pages of the book. Kind of funny. I'll probably read it about a year or so from now when all of the plot twists have been properly ruined for me and the German version has become available at a more reasonable price.

If anyone needs furniture or has a queen sized box spring, let me know. Also, Rilo Kiley's going to be in DC on my birthday. Care to join me?

This story makes my soul happy.