quoted: "you go to the gym. i'll eat 3 medium pizzas" -mandahouse

quoted: "we're going to have a boy moment" -two guys, leaving the kitchen at katie's birthday party

the time capsule party was great fun. many thanks to the hosts. my outfit went over well, particularly with americans, but polyester and i just don't work together. natural fibers, darling. i think katie was also disappointed that i didn't recognize the final four video montage song. i really only care about gonzaga basketball, though, and they haven't made it there yet. ybarra will be mad at me. i heart georgetown basketball, too, just not as much as my zags.

i buzzed all my hair off yesterday. while real drunk last night, i realized that people without hair need to use slightly different facial expressions than people with hair. the eyes are much more important to communicating meaning, i've decided, when hair isn't involved. perhaps that doesn't make sense, but it's true!

i'm going to tea with christine at the old parsonage this afternoon. that should be very nice, and then hopefully an early evening and a DVD with jack. or just more work maybe. it is possible that there will be no update tomorrow. i apologise in advance.

quoted: "twenty-three hours to go" -woman walking in sloane square

the interviews yesterday went really well. the california people seemed to like me, as did my potential future boss. but i spent way too much money on food yeterday. especially on a not-worth-£8 quiche at peter jones. oh well.

has anyone else noticed how much more joyous an experience cooking is when one has good knives? i mean really good knives. so much better. i'm just saying. but don't forget: it's bad luck to give a knife as a gift.

i had too many carbs for breakfast, which means that in about an hour, i'll REALLY want a nap. and you know what? i'm gonna take one. because if i get a job, i won't be able to indulge indulge indulge.

quoted: "you're dating your dad and i'm dating my mom" -jack

quoted: "do i scream 'bottom'?" -westferry circus

free cone day! get your butt to ben & jerry's!
quoted: "experience the authentic flavour of kurdistan" -restaurant sign on the cowley road

quoted: "these rolls are like crack" -aunt marguerite

we love our carbs in my family; that's about all i can say about that. my biggest problem with flying long distances isn't so much the jet lag (although i did manage to sleep until 9.30 today, which is later than i slept the entire month i was in the US) as it is that i lose an entire day of my life. so wednesday totally disappeared into a series of airports and airplanes. 19 hours door-to-door this time. which really isn't that bad considering that it was always 8 or 9 hours door-to-door to get to georgetown.

on the second leg of my flight i sat next to a very interesting woman from the (american) foreign service, who said she often gets free upgrades to first class because people think she's useful near the cockpit if anything goes wrong. which made me wonder whether they sat her next to me because they thought i was a security risk. if they did, though, i proved them wrong by falling asleep before takeoff, sleeping through dinner and two rounds of drink carts, and waking up in time to watch nanny mcphee (AWFUL!), eat breakfast, and land. so not a bad flight. i'm still a bit confused, though.

the job interview got moved to monday at 11.30. so everyone cross your fingers for me then.

i'm headed to london now for to hang out with jack until said interview. update again tuesday. later, skaters.

ps - there's a new flatmate, who seems to have appropriated all of my cupboard space, eaten most of my food, and left the kitchen a bloody mess. i was so happy when it was just me and ileana. sad day.

quoted: "history is like an amusement park, only instead of rides there are dates to memorize" -marge simpson

today is my last day in spokane. flying out early tomorrow, through chicago, and getting into london WAY early on thursday. so depending on how i sleep on the plane, i might update on thursday. if i sleep poorly, though, i might not update until next monday.

so the vice-president was in town yesterday, as i mentioned. that's fine. he's kinda a jerk, but so are a lot of people. i can deal with that. what i can't deal with is the fact that my taxes go to pay for his ridiculous protection level when he's out campaigning. it seems to me that it should be up to the candidate (aka his donors). or, god forbid, the party. if he/they want VPOTUS to come help raise money, they should be willing to foot the bill for flying in his armoured cars, his secret service detail, and the local police overtime necessary to protect him. or even just the marginal cost over that of the vice president's keeping put in DC. that's not unreasonable, is it?

yesterday i created a paradigm against which assess the claims of independence made by residents of the areas i study. that probably doesn't make any sense. basicly, i study precincts that had specific rights exempting them from the authority of nearby jurisdictions. for the past three or four centuries, antiquarians/scholars/historians have treated them as centres of anarchy. in reality, there was a very specific set of criteria which determined whether residents would assert their privilieges. exactly.

ok. i'm hungry. breakfast. catch you on the flip side.

quoted: "she thinks she knows me, so we're kissing friends already" -grandma k.

the vice president is in spokane today raising money for mike mcgavick, the least inspiring senate candidate ever. here's hoping he remains uninspiring for the next six and a half months.

that was really, really a great easter. brunch at the country club was much better than i had expected. who knew that lobster tacquitos could be so delicious? then weez and i used too much butter to make crescent rolls, but they ended up the better for it. i bought mean girls on dvd (hurrah!) and then we went to dinner at my godparents' house, where we had the smallest family party ever: just 10 of us, and no one younger than amanda's 23 years.

but a mere ten made it possible to involve everyone in conversations, and i'll miss them when i head back to england. but there are other things on my mind: job job job. edit edit edit. and uncle steve has agreed to read my thesis when i have a full draft done. let's hope that's by the end of may.

happy Easter!
Happy 1st anniversary to Brandon and Laura!
quoted: "my butt is too sore for that" -allison d.

happy easter, everyone! i had a dream last night that all my friends from home and several of my cousins decided to come do grad school at oxford after i graduated. at first, i was bummed, but then i remembered that oxford and london really aren't that far apart. maybe it was motivation to get a job?

what other news...i'm heading back to the UK early early wednesday. so if anyone in spokane wants to hang out, your time is running low. today we're doing brunch at the country club and dinner at uncle mike and aunt marguerite's house. we didn't get to go out for fancy cocktails last night because mass was secretly at 8, and my mom had to go to work at 4 today so that she could leave early for brunch.

i've been watching way too many shows on the TLC. last night i totally had an inappropriate dream that had WAY too many elements from trading spaces. but that's nowhere near as funny as the effects of my mother's over-sudoku-ing. amanda called friday night after going out with allison d and grant to say that she'd be staying at allison's. my mother's response: "where are you supposed to go?" hurrah for being woken up and being totally incoherent.

quoted: "most of the great "No"s in life come from mothers and wives" -history channel

quoted: "i don't eat japanese food, and if i did it would be panda express" -america's next top model

just one quick observation today: why is it that so many people who are drawn to a minimalist aesthetic seem to have trouble carrying it through to their personal effects. i thought this on sunday at seatac, as i saw a meticulously dressed woman getting two huge wheeled bags and one GINORMOUS purse out of the overhead bin on arrival. since then, i've noticed a lot of overstuffed backbacks, purses, and briefcases. nothing in JVC was chic enough to be properly minimalist, but we did try to achieve what we called simplicity. no one ever said explicitly that it was about not overpacking, but it seems in the spirit nonetheless.

i'm off to cataldo for the good friday service. and then trying to edit as much of my minories chapter as possible. later, gator.

oh. it's also the anniversary of abraham lincoln's assassination.

quoted: "bo keeps asking emily if he left his beer in her vagina" -becky's party

quoted: "well, i'll just take the small hat. i mean, if we were driving to the maldives, i'd take my big hat" -mrs mcgee

well well well. i did a little bit o' shopping yesterday. got two shirts. one marked down from $70 to $40 and the other marked down from $60 to $7. not too bad. i keep having brilliant observations in the afternoons, but forgetting them by morning. maybe i'll start taking notes.

perhaps no update tomorrow. i'm home alone and i don't like it one bit. jack called me from qatar last night. that was fun. did you know that qatar is only 2 hours ahead of london (during BST...3 hours the rest of the year). still, it hardly seems fair.

quoted: "i don't iron my jeans; my maid does" -jack, but in jest

speaking of which, safe travels to jack and his family, who are leaving for their easter holiday. and safe travels to my parents, who have just left for my dad's 25th dental school anniversary in portland. i'm totally jealous that i'm not going with them. i haven't been to pdx since my JV year ended in august 2003. that's scary. it's been almost 4 years since i met all my mac housemates. oh how lucky i am to have such wonderful friends.

other news: still no word from the washington state supreme court on gay marriage. they heard oral arguments on the case 13 months ago, now. new decisions are released every thursday. you know i wait by my email inbox thursdays to see if the decision has been announced. but nothing.

today, with the house all to myself, i'll go about my divinely-ordained project of eating all the leftovers here. we went out for steak last night. i had a peppercorn-encrusted ribeye. medium rare. simple flavours, and delicious. later today, i'm picking up my 93-year-old gramma and her septuagenarian friends and taking them to the country club for lunch. my gramma, btw, is the coolest person ever. after getting her masters degree during the great depression, she decided she wanted to live on her own, so she moved from seattle to LA to become a librarian. she has great stories.

apparently bird flu has reached the UK. and everyone in spokane is talking about west nile again. i'm still mostly afraid of being run over by a bus.

quoted: "why am i sticky and naked? did i miss something fun?" -futurama

quoted: "diet coke!" -jon jon

so becky and bobbo's godchild--the cutest baby in the entire world--is two now, i think. and he has a lot more words than he had at christmas. he didn't actually say diet coke, though. he said "dad, it's hot!" but he can't really be bothered to say final consonants. michelle and phil's 8-month-old son carter was absolutely adorable as well, chewing on a mini football and pushing around a fire truck.

meanwhile, the megaflood show on the discovery channel last night was supercool. it showed what would happen in london if a huge storm surge coincided with a spring tide and torrential rainfall. in essence: the surge would overtop the thames barrier and, you know, make london look a lot like new orleans last september. my mom and becky have agreed that i should leave london whenever it rains.

work work working today. and maybe digging this sliver out of my thumb. ouch. i don't want to do it, but it hurts.

quoted: "don't worry, something will go wrong soon" -mass last night

i am so grumpy at the organizers of this year's boat race. coverage changed from BBC to ITV last year, you may remember. lame, but not catastrophic. well, apparently it was. BBC used to webcast a (poor quality) live video feed of the race. not so much ITV. and they didn't even find an american television sponsor. this despite 4 of the 16 blues rowers being american AND lord knows what proportion of oxbridge graduates living here. theoretically, there was a radio webcast, but i tried that on 3 different computers to no avail. so along with my hearty congratulations to my next door neighbor jamie and the rest of the oxford crew on their victory over cambridge, i must also send a huge BOO to the organizers. get your act together!

in other news, allison D and i popped about a million of her tires yesterday on our bike ride of the bloomsday course. and yet we survived. i'm hongry.

quoted: "i had nothing to do with it" -gramma, in response to being congratulated on being a great grandmother once more over.