back in the day, when i lived in dorms, i was never suprised by the fire alarm going off, never thought it was a serious event. even when there was an actual fire in my friends' room in another building, i still didn't take alarms seriously. i would put on my slippers and shuffle out into the night like everyone else, without a worry that my things might be destroyed.

now i'm in a similar situation, in a large building where you have no clue what's going on in other apartments. tonight was the 2nd time i've heard the alarm go off since living here -- not bad for a one year period. mostly it's a hassle, but now i have this worry that there might really be a fire and i should leave as if i won't be able to come back.

still, i waited a while after the alarm first started to actual put myself in action. before, the first time, the alarm stopped just as i was about to leave my rooms. i was hoping for a similar situation tonight, and just kept putting off actually leaving and facing a gathering of my neighbors. when i heard the sirens of the fire trucks, i decided it was time to go.

then there's the "what do i take" question. everyone knows that the answer is "nothing," that you should just get out as soon as possible. but i'd already dallied quite a while, so i felt i had time. i grabbed my purse (containing wallet and cell phone), my computer and my portable hard drive, then threw in a pair of clean undies for good measure.

what does this say about me? i did consider taking photo albums, but my bag was already full. i figured that most family pics have doubles with my mom or someone, and i don't really look at photos of old friends any more, so i left them all. my computer/work and clean underwear. hmmm.

when i joined neighbors on the lawn, most people had nothing, some women had purses, i saw one guy with a six pack. there was a low probability of fire, but what if the building was burning? am i crazy and materialistic?

what would you take?

i went down to niagra square with soyeon and zoey to see ani difranco play. but then it started to rain as soon as we arrived. we bumped into another UB DMS person and his friend (a former UB DMS person) and chatted with them. we listened to the end of the opening guy -- he wasn't too good. then during setup for ani, heavens opened and nobody really wanted to stay. i wouldn't have minded getting completely soaked, but since my fellow concert-goers wanted to go away, i brought them back to my place. we had some drinks, played some tetris (i kicked their asses w/ 150 lines), and chatted a lot. zoey invited us to go to a party co-hosted by her parents at their studio. on the way out, we checked out the early fireworks from my roof. met up with even more UB DMS people, and some other folks up there. i even met some of my neighbors (always good to know who lives in your building). fireworks from the roof of the ambassador were cool because we could see them exploding all over town, but mostly far away and not as enjoyable as sitting right underneath a display. eventually went to the studio party over on niagra. there (another roof set-up), lots of local illegal fireworks made the show much more exciting -- but it's still better to be underneath fireworks than parallel or above. then the heavens opened one more time and we lined up to take the ladder down to the studio. we hung out there for a little while, then on to the pink to meet some other UB DMS folks. the DMS folks did not show, but some art ones did. then all the rock stars flooded the place and it was crazy. they all had the look, the attitude, the candy. i'm not a rock star and i don't think soyeon is either, so we gathered up zoey (who could be a rock star) and home we went. that was my fourth of july. god bless america.

in the fashion of (e:maidencateyes), this is me. it's a picture from february -- today i most likely won't be wearing a turtleneck! if you see me, say howdy.



(e:soyeon) and i are heading down maybe around 3:30 although (e:ajay) says she goes on around 6pm, so maybe later as i don't like to hang out in crowds very much.

hopefully i'll see some of you there....

who's going down tomorrow to see ani? i'm looking for some company.

Robin, you have the worst luck ever. I'm glad you're okay, but it still sucks.

Soyeon and Paul, congratulations on not smoking! keep it up. if you want to see any pictures of diseased lungs and mouths, babies dying of second hand smoke, or a middle aged man with an oxygen mask, i've still got some canadian duty free cigarettes with all their propoganda still intact.