every christmas at my work in my department we raise money to sponser a family. being the only girl i usually get shoved into running these types of fundraisers. i am ok with this. i actually kind of enjoy it. this year we are running a chinese raffle. this has sent waves of excitment through every geek in the department. the networking guys were shaking with anticapation to see what would be put in as prizes. the powers that be actually let us clear out the storage rooms and take all the old equipment as giveaways. this mean wireless equipment and production boxes are far as the eye can see. software galore. most of it i have no idea what the hell it is. there has been a huge response. i am so happy - some of these geeks have spent like $200 in tickets! considering that most of them will take the equipment and sell it on ebay for 5 times that it isn't too bad. it is about 5:30 now and we have made almost $1000. that will make for a really really nice christmas for this family.

tonite is john w's 30th birthday. he is old. we are apparently goin to prespa to celebrate. i havnt been there in soo long. i always think of the story of how harrington stole the bathroom mirror last year. i have to behave somewhat though - apparently my nana is dropping by at 9am to give me something. what this something is i am not sure - i think i should be scared.

about a year and a half ago i worked at this warehouse down elmwood behind the home depot plaza. it was a electronic recycling plant. my job was to take the pc's they piled for me with a forklift and rip them apart. then i was to put together units that worked out of the random bits and pieces laying about. by 'worked' i mean they were able to boot windows 98 once. there was no running water - they would use these huge barrells, fill them up with water from the lake and then hang them over the toilets and run a house down. no joke. everyone used to chain smoke on the floor. which brings me to my point. kinda. in the november 21 issue of The Nation there is an articled entitled Toxic Recycling. it pretty much hit the nail on the head. it talks about prisons doing the same kind of work i was and how dangerous it was. so not only did i have to pee in lake water, withstand the threat of being blown up daily, get sexually harassed on a minutely basis, and harbor felons - i was breathing in lead, cadmium, mercury, and all other kinds of crap. the worst part is, even though the prisons don't have to be prepared for unscheduled OSHA visits, it seems as they got more then us. i did not see OSHA come through there once the entire time i worked there. nor heard of prior visits. okay i am going on a tangent. i don't know where this came from.

anyways.
as every wednesday i was at hardware last nite. i was really into that jazz band there for the last few weeks until i picked up on a pattern. they seem to play the same stuff in the same order every week. for some reason this got to me. also - does anyone notice how much the art completely sucks there? i am sorry if it belongs to anyone that happens to be reading this. but it is not my taste.

last nite was drama central. (surprize surprize) i swear i am not this much of a drama queen in real life. i don't know what is going on with me lately. the boys were wasted and ridiculous - and that led to nothing but bad bad things.

another wierd thing that happened. chris introduced me to this chick he was with - this girl i never met before. as i said hello to her she asked right away if i went to St. Marks school. i attended St Marks K-2 grades. left after that (because the principal beat me - another story for another day.) how wierd is that. who recognizes someone like 15 years later. she seems cool though - real sweet. maybe we will rekindle out kindergarten friendship.

before i went out i agreed to let doug film me for his project. i knew this was a bad idea from the beginning - especially b/c i was so pissed at him still. and part of that anger was b/c of his apparent tendency to film girls naked for these projects - with out my knowledge. it was almost comical the way all his equipment and the 2 of us were crammed in my tiny bathroom filming me put on my makeup. we were seething mad at eachother and i was putting on my lipstick so voilently it broke.

crucial has bad hold music.

tuesday brings be back to buffalo. and reality. i am back in the cubicle trying to recall the events of the past couple days. here are the main points:

-settled on rochester wednesday nite. good decision. hung out with mostly buffalo people and got ridiculous. it is wierd to see your high school friends, their husbands and your buffalo friends all together. i got super drunk and made out with this guy that beared a striking resemblence to mr. clean. oops. (be a grown-up, jessica, grown-up!)

-thanksgiving. somewhere amongst the appetizers i got food posioning. i spent dinner being violently ill. i am thinking this is bad karma for one of two things -
a.) being a vegetarian on thanksgiving
*or*
b.) succombing to complete gluttony in vegas and eating 3 buffets a day.
(speaking of vegas the pictures are up. below is a sampling.)

-friday again went out in rochester with the husbands/high school/buffalo crowd. this time was much more amusing because we went to more of a sit down pub first - the old toad. sitting around this table with my wasted friends and my uptight proper high school crowd was hilarious. at one end i had katie doing flaming shots of god knows what and dyan and marla stoned out of their minds. and at the other end i had beth, her husband and lucy drinking hot tea and diet cokes, talking about their grad programs at columbia and their upcoming kenya trips. blah blah blah. at 10:30 - when it was past their bedtimes- we switched bars and got serious at barfly and monty's corner

- saturday i drove to philly. it was a quick drive. went a lot faster then i thought. i think i want to move there. it is like a bigger buffalo. rachel's house is sweet - her neighborhood is like a very hilly elmwood with row houses instead.

- sunday we went to mcfaddens of philly and watched the game. then i ran drunk up the rocky stairs.

yesterday after a brief philly shopping excursion i drove home. i stopped in weedsport to pee. seriously that is the wierdest place ever.

okay this is boring. i will stop. i tried to write more drama-free for jason.

going to hit up that wal mart movie tonite. more later



agh i wanna do it again

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>

i need to get a snow brush.
last nite after the sabres game (which we are not talking about) we made that awful walk to pearl street. there was a good crowd out. including two lovely gentlemen ( that were apparently narcotics officers) that bought me and my sister drinks.
after this week having handsome older men buy me drinks was welcome. i talked to my 'mr. big' monday nite on the phone. upon referring to him as my 'big' to rachel she replied that she was sick of all these girls saying they have a 'mr. big' and that it was a cop out. there is no such thing as having a 'big' - it is called being weak. and she is right. i am weak. i have been re-run central this week- between my big, my work bf, evan etc. i am attributing this to being vulnerable after the doug disaster - and being stupid enough to hang around with all these guys still. oh yea - and i am weak. i need to move far far far away.
i am still wavering back and forth on where to go out this evening. i could stay in buffalo tonite with the boys and have ridiculous fun (with the inevitability of drama though), or i could go home to rochester (like mom wants me too) and have a chill nite with the crowd there - drama free. i lead a sad existence when this is the most painstaking decision of my week. but i think getting out of this town for the next few days will be a good thing.

i sent a speeding ticket in about 2 weeks late today. can they revoke my license for that? especially considering i was going 22 over?

dyan the redhead comes into town tonite. around midnite. drinks will be had. i am sure this means hardware - since 'going out for drinks' and 'hardware' have become synomous over the years. just like 'getting fucked up tonite' mean 'see you at pink at 3:30am.'