quoted: "let's see how much of me you can fit in your mouth" -robin

quoted: "i'm hungry for your sister" -boris

i think we can all agree i've been pretty bad about updating this month. i don't have a particularly good excuse, other than my short attention span. i do have good intentions, though, which hopefully i'll be better about executing in the near future.

so when i was moving old bed on tuesday and building new bed, i discovered the world's largest dust pile. it's still a little too early to tell whether its removal from the flat will reduce the amount of dust in the flat as a whole, but early indications point to yes.

i had a total "office space" moment at work yesterday when we were threatened with... training. and they talked about training for a long time before telling us what it was for. they spoke of very general goals: to progress our careers, to increase our effeciency, etc. then at the very end we were shown the titles of the 90 minute training sessions. they were things like "writing attention-grabbing emails" and "meetings that matter" and, of course, "working with others". i threw up a little in my mouth.

quoted: "keats, there are so many girls here" -mikes (at the box)
"that's a guy" -keats

i really did write an update on monday (see below), but then i forgot to post it. so it's not just a moveable type issue. the new bed got delivered yesterday. it was pretty exciting, and not that difficult to build. the under-bed drawers were another matter entirely, but even they were a challenge i was up for after a pretty good trip to the gym.

i'm really missing the deportee. and i'm extremely frustrated with the home office for being constantly and perpetually unhelpful slash unreasonable slash awful. sigh.

quoted: "oh. you're THE anthony" -dolf

what a pleasant weekend. other than keats being shipped off to south africa looming over our heads, i couldn't have had a better time. drinks with mikes and tom, keats, pete and carl on friday night at various locales, ending with the ironically named box bar and a house party hosted by a stranger but full of people i kinda knew already.

you know how sometimes you have good banter days and sometimes you have bad banter days? i was doing well thursday and friday. maybe even saturday. but yesterday i hit a wall. it's not that i was hung over. or particularly tired. but all of a sudden i found myself profoundly uninteresting. not even duck seemed to help. but then i got a good night's sleep, and now i'm feeling a bit more human.

i bought that bed during my lunch break friday, which is why i didn't update. i've challenged brennan to race it back to my flat. we'll see who wins. sigh squared.

quoted: "if my job was to be naked all the time, i'd probably look better." -james r

quoted: "i'm not a bad driver. i just need to get my glasses." -girl on sidewalk in san francisco

quoted: "he can wank all over my food" -robin

the ho off better start redeeming itself soon. that's alls i have to say about that. for now.

i had really good intentions of showing my commitment to work by staying late yesterday. but that fell through the floor rather quickly, and, per usual, i only got 10 hours in. is that what they call work ethic? i'm not sure.

a small band of loyal AYCE-ers will be introducing a few newbies to the wonders of hi tonight.

in other news, i had a great workout last night, which helped me sleep like a log, interrupted only by a wonderful 2.30 am phone call. hurrah!

quoted: "if my dad was a dentist, i wouldn't let him do me" -rhys

what a stunning weekend. james's party friday night was spectacular (keats, i think, had an even better time than i), with much dance and drink to finish off a stressful friday. tamson and tess stayed over that night, which forced me to leave the party at the humane time of 00.45. i managed to chat with the deportee for a bit over an hour before dozing off. in the morning, t&t took me out for breakfast at ballan's.

after a trip to the gym, my best intentions to spend a relaxed evening at home were thwarted by an invite from james and kat to join them for a play in north london (a neighbourhood called dalston i'd never heard of until we arrived). the play was called mojo mickybo, and it was BRILLIANT. saturday was its last night before moving to the west end, so i really encourage you all to go see it. it was much better than the rose tattoo, which wasted 3 hours of my life on wednesday evening at the national. sigh (sigh squared?).

a very important question for my readers, whom i trust to be much brighter than i am: why in english do we say "a 15 minute delay" or "a three muffin limit" rather than saying "a 15 minutes delay" slash "a three muffins limit"? i bet the internets know, but i'm going ask metafilter style on this one, with my loyal readers.

yesterday i did a bit more shopping (needed sunglasses and some white linen shirts) after mass, and then tracked down dottie and poppy on clapham common with the invaluable assistance of elis and boris, whom i ran into in my wanderings to find the ladies. two hours of pimms and sunshine were enough to drive me to james's flat, where his roof terrace offered more pimms with the welcome addition of some shade.

now it's back to the grind...it's only my second full week of work since the end of february. and now i'm back into 5-dayers...well, no. that's not quite true.

ayce sushi tomorrow. ca 8 pm. register interest now or risk being left hungry.

quoted: "I reckon it's all about finding the competitions no-one enters: stealth winning" -roisin

quoted: "dolphins are gay sharks" -2nd easter dinner

a lot has happened since the last update. i'll probably forget a lot, so i'm going to start with the most important thing: thank yous. thanks to brennan for a great time in san francisco. thanks to wandon for a great pre boat race party friday night and to dottie for sneaking me in to the oriel boat race party at the rutland arms. thanks to oubc and the staff at the hurlingham for the ball on saturday night. thanks to dottie for easter lunch number 1, all my friends for a cornucopia of inappropriate quotes (watch this space). thanks to mikes and his friend for easter lunch number 2. thanks to the two jameses for easter lunch number 3 and to keats and carl for rounding out my weekend with an amazing AYCE sushi run.

ok, yes, so that pretty much sums up my weekend. i've had wonderful alternating jet lag: friday i didn't sleep at all. saturday i slept for 9 hours. sunday i didn't sleep at all, and last night i slept for 9 hours again. last night i also had a very strange experience last night. at 10 i went to bed. flossed and brushed. so far so good. at 3 in the morning, though, i woke up in my bed fully dressed, shoes on and everything. how about that? so i undressed and went back to sleep without further incident.

i will update you all tomorrow on whether this disturbing behavior repeats itself.

quoted: "mine is moderately soiled. use it." -anne

well, we missed anne last night--she got in to SFO at 11, and everyone involved was totally exhausted. how sad is it that i'm REALLY looking forward to a solid night's sleep tonight...on my flight back to london. sigh sigh sigh. but my shelves are ready to be picked up tomorrow at habitat, and saturday i get the new dressers. and then i can clean my flat and do my laundry and get underway with a CRAZY week next week.

i have had the best time in the US these past 8 days. it was wonderful to meet my colleagues at HQ. it was great to see old friends and meet new ones. it was great to stay in an absurdly posh hotel free. it was less optimal that i ate immense amounts of food with no pretence of exercising. sigh.

speaking of sighs, i don't even want to talk about it. yeah. that. sigh.

quoted: "it's good to be pimped out. it's fun" -james (of the S variety, methinks)

quoted: "you love me with your eyes" -marcus. "unfortunately" -robin.