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Rollin’ with the homies

Into the woods. Here are a few pictures from our little reunion picnic on November 9, high in the hills of San Jose. Ah, good times. From left, that’s Sandro, Jeff, Rebecca, Subarna, and Adrienne. (Click for the full frame.)

And here are pics of me, and Adrienne with her birthday cake.

Why yesterday rocked. (1) This week’s issue of The Economist arrived at my doorstep. On Friday mornings it usually gets delivered, newspaper-like, on the ground-floor stoop of my apartment building, and I wake up at an insanely early hour to go down and retrieve it. But yesterday, I got up (really late), opened my door, and right there was my magazine. Some kind soul (probably the cleaning crew) brought it up with them, and left it at the door to my apartment. It was like having the newspaper delivered to one’s hotel room. Yay. Maybe I should wake up late more often. (2) I went out with some co-workers to the Hard Times Cafe for some chili. I had nachos with the Cincinnati chili. Mmm, good. I needed a nap after that. (3) After work I went to Linens N Things, and bought a wooden folding chair. So now I have additional seating (not that I entertain that much). The chair is kind of plain, but the finish matches my bookshelves, and I put one of my red velvet Pottery Barn cushions on it, and voila, it’s très chic.

Rollin’ with the homies. Brr, it’s cold. Today is brisk, but clear as a bell. I decide finally to go to the gym. I don’t mind so much the actual exercise; it’s the uphill walk to the gym that’s irksome. Ironic, no? I get over it, and once I’m on my way, it’s not so bad. Stopping to smell the roses and what not. Anyway, it’s been months since I’ve been to the gym, and so the fact that they’ve switched the men’s and women’s locker rooms for some maintenance issue throws me for a loop. I enter what previously was the women’s room, half expecting it all to be a practical joke. No, it’s all on the up and up.

I spend about forty-five minutes on the StairMaster, all the while flipping between Clueless (still a great movie) and The Osbournes on the mini-TV. Afterwards, I’m all energized and ready to take on the world.

But rather, I take on my room. It’s long due for a cleaning. I don’t have any plans tonight, so I’m at home sorting papers and throwing out old bills, statements, and receipts. Why do I keep these? I think in addition to a kind of paranoia — as if any day now I’ll be called upon to account for every purchase I’ve made — there’s also a layer of emotional attachment that prevents me from throwing them away, especially the receipts I accumulate on vacation. Just like photographs, they’re a snapshot of places I’ve been. But frankly, I’m not about to frame them or put them into an album, so into the trash they go.

I move on and file all my magazines. I definitely can’t part with my issues of The Atlantic and The New Yorker (from November 2000, and May 6, 2002, respectively), so if they’re going to take up a continually growing amount of space anyway, they might as well be neat and chronologically ordered. Some quixotic part of my brain thinks I’m going to go back and read every unread article. Hey, it could happen.

My reward for today’s work: a slice of pecan pie and a tall glass of milk. Good night.

(Oh, and Stanford lost the Big Game today. Boo.)

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