phthalombrage | (no subject)

Today at work was a time for filing. Which meant it was also a time for thinking, and then forgetting the thoughts I didn't write down, which was all of them.

I had an errand to pick up something at the UTDC, but it wasn't there in the morning, so I had to go back just before I was supposed to leave. The blonde girl who normally works there was replaced by this guy I found kind of attractive and have been unsuccessfully trying to identify for the past n minutes.

Even though work was kind of dead until 11:30, I was then hit by a tidal wave of things to do and ended up staying a half hour late, foiling my plans to collect my parcel before kgb. Instead I acquired an obnoxious melon-colored tuxedo shirt and loafed in the cluster.

KGB was full of questionable racism. Rigel is back! but I had to leave at fitty-past to catch a bus to the North Side.

I had obtained hand schedules for various buses in the UC basement this afternoon, so it was a really relaxing ride, despite the inner marqueeing light-bar's being broken or deactivated and all. Seeing downtown made me feel like I lived in an entirely different city. Ornate stone facades, tall, tall buildings with far too many windows, the tiny retarded subway... I have only just begun to know you, Pittsburgh. Your airwaves buzz with chatter about the Penguins and where to find cheap booze. Anyway, the bus ride was straightforward, and I made it to UPS and back just in the nick of time to catch the next bus back for an hour. Sweet! This bus had a rambling, slack-lipped man drinking iced tea from a carton for a while, which glued my eyes to faraway things out the window. One of the more bizarre things I saw was the elaborate First Presbyterian Church somewhere on Fifth, I think? with spires and gothic arches and all kinds of fancy gingerbread stuff stretching weakly heavenward, dwarfed by an enormous clunky concrete slab of a neighbor building. (My dad told me that when people start quoting the Bible at me, I should tell them, "No, stop! I haven't read the book yet!" like they're going to spoil the ending for me.) And there's a parking garage somewhere downtown, across from one of the cinemas, that I really like. Floating purple and bluish rectangles...

Got home, cracked open the package to find SEVEN vegetarian cookbooks, and Jim had told me another's in the mail (gambling to see if I get it; at least another two mailpieces I am expecting have yet to arrive). They're not particularly gigantic, but SEVEN is still a lot. The explanatory notes, on his special stationery, said it's not even a birthday present, they had been "in my bookcase, gathering dust -- bought chiefly because you turned to the Dark Side of (shudder) Vegetarianism!" Anyway, most of them have color photos, and all have all kinds of delicious recipes. One of them even has 250 vegetarian french regional recipes, which pleases me, because those damn french love their meats and fish and I like trying to remember what specialties of various regions are so I can pretend to have culture. Now I have no excuse for the easy mac and frozen veggie burgers cooking style, apart from sheer laziness.

Kneaded erasers are lots of fun; remind me to scan what I have of exec sometime.