Ok, so last weekend, I had dinner at Trattoria Aroma with some people from work. And then my friend was going to meet me there for a drink. But he was totally late, and I was sitting at the bar, alone, for quite a while. (and then he went on to be a jerk anyway).

But so while I was waiting for him, I was checking out this guy at the end of the bar... he was pretty cute, clean cut, preppy- my kind of guy, sitting there with a friend having dinner and wine. They were conveniently sitting right under the TV, so I could check him out while pretending to watch hockey.

Later on I figured 'what the hell' and put a 'missed connection' message on Craigslist. I never expect these things to work, but figured what the hell. I wrote something about how he was there with a friend in a green sweater.

And then today, a week later, I get this message- Granted, it could be totally fake- I have no way to know he's not some random guy answering a random ad (I guess I should make him give me some identifying info, shouldn't I?)-

But in any case, the fact that I got a reply at all just blows my mind. And it's a pretty funny one at that-

We were, in fact, at Trattoria Aroma having dinner at the end of the bar that night. Here is the problem: My friend and I cannot figure out what we were wearing that night and are at each other's throats claiming the other was wearing the green sweater. I think he's full of shit. Either way, we have to meet, and considering you went through the trouble of initiating a misconnect, please suggest a situation that is most comfortable to you.

Sweet! I mean I don't know that I actually want to meet him or anything- I'm just amused that I got an answer.

and (e:mike), I'm with you. drama=fun. Some of the time, at least.

1: woohoo, my computer is fixed!

2: the gave me an estimate on my car- they're saying $150. No, I did not forget a zero. I would love it if they're right, but somehow I doubt it.

3: Cutest puppies ever! And I love that there's one named Wally.


4: I can't believe they fired Imus. Yes, what he said was wrong, but really. I think that's ridiculous.

Will try to keep this quick, b/c my food coma is about to knock me out- just had some yum italian at Trattoria Aroma.

But maybe my luck is changing a bit- I took my computer in to the Genius Bar at the Apple store in the Galleria today, and I was speeding as always, and got pulled over. Cop asked why I was in such a rush, and I said I had an appt (just didn't tell him how non-essential it was). But then he noticed my ECMC parking sticker, and asked if I work in the ER at all, and when I said yes, he just told me to "slow it down" and let me go. Woohoo! Then the apple store told me my hard drive is fucked, which is almost a relief b/c now they actually have to fix something, but (the best news of all)- it seems they'll be able to recover the data. Moral of the story: BACKUP, people! (and thanks for the superduper link, I'll check it out. Have been using the LaCie utility... SilverKeeper I think.)

But to end- my dad just sent me this essay my cousin wrote for a writing class she's taking, and it's about my sister's wedding. I thought the wedding was marvelous, but couldn't have written a whole essay about it. But somehow this brought tears to my eyes. I think it's well written, and thought I'd share.:

You began the evening in a church so breathtaking that you snuck back in after the ceremony to take pictures. Hundreds of years old, the grey stone chapel seemed to breath cool air and whisper "hush." The stained glass window scenes in colors so bold that the memory of them knocks you backward - blues plucked from the sky and sea, yellows plied from the sun itself, greens peeled from somewhere in a forest never touched by man and reds borrowed from the very blood they depicted. You feel as if you are stealing by taking pictures of beauty that, once taken from their proper context, will seem diluted and small. Still, you cannot stop yourself.


The wedding reception takes place in a club where moneyed members take great pride in its seclusion, its proximity to the ocean that supplies the majority of its menu night to night. The main hall, with its cavernous, wooden beamed ceiling, slate floors and gorgeous, linen draped tables twinkles from the combined effect of hundreds of tealights snugged into small round crystal goblets and strings of thousands of tiny white lights hung from the rafters. Guests spill out onto the lawn, a bluff overlooking the churning Atlantic. Salt spray from crashing waves coats your lips, and you taste the brine as you sip your wine. You stand near your husband, quiet and at peace as he drinks his scotch and looks out at the water. You are celebrating your tenth anniversary witnessing the union of a young cousin and her longtime boyfriend.


You don't know them well. You hope they are wise beyond their youth and know that they will need to love each other with faith and forgiveness and fervor. You hope they know that this evening is a rare and beautiful gift, but that the most memorable times will likely be much less elegant. You remember your own wedding, but much more clearly remember your own young husband running down a hospital hallway late at night, screaming for help because the blood and the baby started to come quickly and with terrifying ferocity. You vaguely remember repeating vows "for better or for worse," but remember with crystal clarity looking into his eyes, searching for understanding, when you learned of your mother's death. You remember that it was THEN that you knew you would be with him forever, that his sad blue eyes would be the ones you looked into for decades to come.


You dance after dinner. Your dress, made of navy blue silk so heavy and fine that its cool folds feel like water as they swish around your legs, fits you beautifully. You dance with abandon, wine coursing through you and the freedom of 2,000 miles distance from responsibility of caring for the children and the house leaving you giddy. You dance to the band as they play songs with thick,plonking base artfully woven in with the delicate pluck of guitar and warm, deep thrum of piano. You dance near cousins who taught you the art of skinny dipping in Lake Pocotopaug when you were 6. You yell above the din them that you want to go skinny dipping again, tonight, in the cold ocean with them. It has been 30 years and you want to play naked in the water more than anything tonight.


You and your husband leave the reception with your cousins and both of their husbands and drive to a beach. It is after midnight and fog has rolled in thick and wet. The three men seem incredulous and embarrassed that these three tipsy women cousins are so adamantly, energetically racing toward the water. You are yards from the water when you three stop and look at each other and then at the foreboding black water. Shaking, you giggle as you unzip your dresses and slip out of them. You all race to the water, slowing down only a bit as you wade into the frothy cold. You wade further until you lose your footing and you all three float. Sobered, your voices shake with chill and adrenalin. Your conversation turns oddly practical - how long will we stay in? What are the guys talking about? You decide to breaststroke back after a few minutes.


You emerge from the sea, three women, nude and empowered by your comfort and familiarity with the cold salty water. On land now, you feel awkward and acutely aware of the fact that your naked body, the body that felt so elegant in silk and so graceful in water is now going to be seen by men you barely know. You each scoop up your dresses and walk through the fog to the men. Each husband walks to his wife and stands at an angle to perhaps keep her from being seen by the other men. Your husband seems the most uncomfortable and a cousin rescues you both by offering his jacket to wrap up in. You are annoyed that your husband did not think to do it himself. The dreaminess of the evening is beginning to fade.


You drive to your hotel and shower, hoping that a good dry cleaning will take the salt stains from your silk dress. In the morning, your aunt calls to make sure no one was arrested, you all have a laugh at the impetuous late night stunt.


Later that day, you board a flight home and replay the whole evening in your head. It was glorious in its perfection and imperfection alike.


You wonder if the young couple will remember their wedding night with the same clarity and passion that you remember it with.

So ever since I became a tivo convert, a good five years ago, I can't really stand to watch tv "the regular way". Which may make me a snob, but it's probably a good thing. I never just turn the tv on "for background noise" nor do I just flip channels and start watching. Which is good, because if I DO do that, I get sucked in. All of the sudden I've watched 4 hours of TLC/Discovery/Animal Planet/stupid game shows and I don't even know it.

But this morning I got home from work, and went to watch The Riches, which I tivo'd last night, but right as I turned it on, 'Rumor has it...' was coming on HBO, and, of course, I got sucked in. It's an ok romantic comedy based on the premise that The Graduate was a true story- and features Kevin Costner as Dustin Hoffman, who sleeps with grandmother/mother/daughter of the same family. It did have a cute daddy-daughter moment that made me cry, too.

But my take home messages:

1: I think Jennifer Aniston is just about the hottest thing ever.

2: Shiny black old-school convertible mercedes' with old tan leather interior are damn sexy cars.

That is all.
Time for me to do something more productive with my afternoon.
As you were. :)

So I started the home stretch of this work-year yesterday - I'm at Suburban until the end of June.

And much to my dismay, I have no cell reception in about 99% of the hospital. And the internet is super restricted. I can't check my mail or anything.
Ack! I think I'm going into withdrawal. This could suck.

But so I'm sorry I missed your call imk. Would've loved to get drunk with you but I was working.

And uncut- you and everyone else are free to talk about me as much as you want. Yvonne was pretty much right- I just hate feeling like I hurt people, so I keep apologizing. I'm just assuming that people are way sick of hearing about it by now so I'm trying to shut up- but that doesn't mean anyone else has to.

Now it's time for a nap...
Then to try to fix my car, and now my computer. Again. 1 month old, and the hard drive seems fried again. Except this time it has more than 2 days worth of data on it, and sadly I hadn't backed up yet [was on my to-do list, some good that does me...], and I really can't afford to lose everything (again), but I'm afraid I'm going to. Last time I was nice. This time I am going to march up to Apple and make a stink. I shouldn't have the HD on a new computer fail twice in a month or two.

Grr.

Dearest peeps-
I would like for this to all just be over, but I feel the need to respond, hopefully for the last time.

Ok, yes, I was harsh and deserve some of what I got, and I accept that. But I hope it is apparent that I was just pissed about the weather, and venting, in MY JOURNAL. And I KNOW I am not the only one who has had those feelings now and again. I was exaggerating and overreacting, sure. Of course I do not HATE Buffalo. I think where you live, and your happiness there, is largely what you make of it, and is largely determined by the people you surround yourself with. And I have met a lot of great people here, largely in part to this site. And I think our hometown will always hold a special place in our hearts, no matter what others think.

Yes, Buffalo has a lot of good things about it. But it is not perfect- nowhere is. And I still maintain that the demographic does not really favor the young professional. And the length of the winter stinks. Even if it doesn't snow every day for seven months, the fact that you have to reasonably expect it might, is a bit hard to handle at times.

To respond to the comment roundup- no, I did not have a gun to my head when I signed on the dotted line. However it was the only option available to me to continue my career. Sure, I could have abandoned medicine altogether and not moved.

"Your statement implies that the only reason ANYONE would love Buffalo is because he or she is a stupid ignorant hick who has never lived in a "real" city or even knows what one is."

I am sorry if you inferred that from my statement- that is not what I was trying to imply. I am not calling people hicks for liking Buffalo. I apologize for my statement and can see why people were offended.
I won't define what I think makes a "real" city- but I think we can all agree that Buffalo is not NYC, or LA, or Chicago. Nor is it backwoods redneck-land.

And finally, is an emotional outburst about not being happy about where I live as bad as this personal attack: "you expressed a certain level of ignorance and stupidity that would make you virtually indistinguishable from the Long Island morons"? I may be a lot of things, but I do not thing ignorant, stupid, or moron are on that list.

Josh I did not take personal offense at your comment since I know what you were getting at- but my point is just that responding to my bitching with personal insults is not such a great thing to do either.

I overreacted for sure- but maybe everyone else did too?

In any case, this has turned into far too big a deal and I'm sick of worrying about it, and I hope it can just be over, as I'm sure you all do too. I am still the person you know (or don't) and love (or don't)- nothing has changed. The sun is coming (I know it is, it has to be!), and I think it will make us ALL feel better. :)

All my love, friends,
-J

P.S. Bonus points to (e:metalpeter)- yes that was Tony singing. It was his old band, Molotov Cocktail, Inc. I, for one, am quite impressed. Almost a little Blues Travelerish at the beginning, I think.

I'm too tired to get into it, but- how many times do I have to apologize?! I AM SORRY! ok? :'(

Ok ok I take it back, I freaking LOVE buffalo, and all the snow! Am I forgiven? Can we all be friends again? :) Seriously, didn't mean to hit such a nerve... sorry about that.

So a friend of mine has been trying to arrange a not-too-obvious meeting between me and some cute guy she knows. Doesn't want to be too high school about it, and is trying to make it look like I just 'happened' to show up while he was there. But it's turning into a wild goose chase. The other night I got a message at like 11:30 "come to mother's! now! quick! he's here!" and then five minutes later "nevermind, he left." Good thing, b/c I was in bed anyway.

But so this saga continued last night, with the added complication that I was on call, and knew I'd have to go back in, just didn't know when. But so I met them at Stillwater (but he wasn't there), and as soon as I arrived, "the group" had decided to go to dinner at the Viking Lobster Company. Kind of a hole in the wall, with a 1-page xerox menu- fish fry, steak, or lobster, or a combo thereof. Of course, as soon as I ordered, I got called back for some utter bullshit at the hospital, and I had to go. Eventually made it back as everyone else was almost done and my food was cold, but nonetheless it was pretty damn good. Though I feel a little guilty that I keep getting these free dinners from my friend's BF. But he won't take my money, so I guess I should just enjoy it.

And her BF is a pretty cool guy. And, since Buffalo is a one degree of separation kind of place, I shouldn't be surprised that he knows people i know. And even knows cool stuff about people I know.

To the point that I have a pop quiz for you peeps-

Listen to this song and tell me if you can guess who's singing. Hint: we all know and love him.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

apparently there's a video that goes with it, but I couldn't find it online.

So that was the cool part of the night. The shitty part- that in my rush to get to/from the hospital and not miss all of dinner, I made a mess.

I got there, and went to park in the last spot. It was at the end of a row, there was plenty of room. See diagram.



There was a car to my left, but nothing to the right. Tons of space. But there was a dumb street lamp at the end of the line marking the space. As I walked in, I thought 'i have to remember to be careful when I leave to back straight out so I don't hit that thing."

Well then work was annoying and I was mad, so when I left I was cranky, and what did I do? forget about the stupid light, and turn as I backed out.

I just heard this sickening CRUNCH as the right front end scraped against the light. I thought 'well I wasn't going fast, I stopped right away, how bad can it be?" I was hoping I just scuffed the fender...

Well no. The whole bumper was practically on the ground. turn signal and fog light all mashed up. God dammit.

And i don't want to drive around all ghetto with my bumper held on with string, but I can't take it in til at least tuesday...

It's still driveable, it's not MAJOR damage as far as I can tell, but I'm sure they'll have to order all sorts of parts. Anyone want to wager on the cost? I'm guessing $1000, but I sure hope I'm wrong.

UGH!

So anyway... happy saturday peeps. I think I'll go do laundry.

Oh and my buddy Fantastic Kyle (see previous post) is IMing me again-

2:17 PM
Hi there
How have you been?
2:20 PM
Are you there?
2:30 PM
I hope I haven't upset you
3:15 PM
Are you ignoring me?

Gee dude, what do you think????

Pardon this rant, but this weather is pushing my anti-Buffalo sentiments over the edge.

I mean WHAT THE FUCK. Why does anyone live in a place that snows from halloween to easter? That's SEVEN MONTHS of the year. We have snow for more than 50% of the year. It's ridiculous.

Everyone around here loves to go on and on about how amazing Buffalo is. All I can think is 'if you think this is awesome, you have obviously never lived in a 'real' city, and I feel badly for you.'
It's crap. The only good thing I have here are some friends. woohoo, we have some pro sports teams. That doesn't do it for me. In fact I'd probably like Buffalo better if we had no sports. I am sick of hearing nothing but "sabres sabres sabres bills sabres bills."

Ugh. I can't wait to leave.

I mean I can handle winter. I can handle cold, and I can handle snow. But not SEVEN MONTHS of snow.

Thank god I have vacation in a couple weeks. Maybe that will lift this crappy mood of mine. Too bad I have no one to travel with, and will probably end up spending it sitting on my ass in Buffalo. In the snow probably. In May.

bleh....

Did you all see the guy on the news yesterday- the prisoner who went to the hospital, then beat up two guards, held a nurse hostage, stole a gun, escaped from the hospital, stole a car in the parking lot, robbed two banks, busted into a CPA's office, and held two more women hostage?

On top of his 46 year sentence for theft/assault/drugs?

what a fucking winner. It was all over crappy fox news yesterday. I kept seeing a loop over and over of a chick jumping out the window of the office he was in.

And two clues that this guy is a loser:
-one, his name is Billy Jack. Really. How do you name your kid Billy Jack and expect him to add up to much? I know that's bitchy, but it's true.
-two, he's a member of the Aryan Nation.

Apparently they got his mom on the phone, and she said not to shoot him. Oh, gee, ok.

And I'm also so fucking sick of hearing about anna nicole smith. It makes me a little sad that we as americans care so much about this. And fucking Sanjaya.

This is why I don't watch the news. Work was slow today so I spent half the morning doing the crossword puzzle and sudoku in the paper and watching horrid fox news b/c I couldn't reach the tv to change the channel/turn it off.

A friend told me the other day that he read my journal (which I didn't think he did, so that was weird/embarrassing), and he said "I can't believe some of the stuff you write. Do your parents read it?"
Oy. I hope not!

My ex continued to text-flirt with me again yesterday. How strange. And I think then his GF calls or he goes home from work or something b/c all of the sudden it just STOPS, mid-sentence.

And today I told a friend "I had a dream last night that you moved to Europe." (I really did). And he replied "Feels nice to be the man of your dreams". hehe, I thought that was kinda cute.

And he's some rockin' news.
So every year we have to get a "physical" at work. Which consists of checking 'no no no no no no' on a list of "have you had.... in the past year", then telling them your weight (they don't even weigh you), having your blood pressure checked, and then the key- the TB test.

Now, it's fairly common (some would say inevitable) for people in health care to "convert"- i.e. have a positive TB test eventually. And I spent time in New Orleans, aka the third world. So... this year it happened.

For the record, that just means I have been exposed. I do not HAVE TB. I am not contagious or anything like that. But once you test positive, you have about a 5% chance of developing active TB (which I think is the number one killer disease, worldwide). TB can be treated, but it's a long course of like 5 antibiotics. So once you convert, they recommend you take prophylactic antibiotics. Of course you don't HAVE to, but it's the responsible thing to do, public-health-wise. And it takes your risk down to like 0.001%, and apparently gives you 20 years of protection.

So I had my required chest xray (negative), and made my appointment at the Erie County Infectious Disease Clinic at ECMC (what a lovely experience.) And she said there are basically 3 options: take the risk and don't take abx. Take INH for 9 months. Take rifampin for 4 months.

The catch with INH is that it (can be) liver-toxic, so people freak out and are like "if you have a sip of alcohol while you're on it you will die." That is not true. (believe me, I asked.) It's more like "if you are an alcoholic, we will have to check your liver function tests every month". B/c yeah, I can go without drinking. But 9 months is a pretty long time to not even be able to have one sip of champagne. At a wedding. That I am IN.

So the alternative is rifampin. Makes you more sick to your stomach, apparently, and has this lovely side effect- it turns ALL of your body fluids orange. You pee orange. You sweat orange. You cry orange. They said it stains your contacts orange. How freaky.

So, I guess I'll be a good little girl and take the stupid INH. the perk- I never have to have another TB test again.

Ok, I guess that's about it.

Later peeps!

-rambly J