have you been? have you? then you know. if you haven't, well, let's just say...ack. but i had backup and i was ready to deal. and surprisingly the overall experience was fairly pleasant when i managed to successfully block out the whizz and whir of everyone else in the store, besides my gilligan hat wearing sales associate, by extending my personal bubble world like a force field by sheer alcohol-induced force of will. i'm sure they have a cutesy name for people who work there like "cast member" or something, but i'd reallly rather not know. and the whole bubble thing totally works. just behave as if no one else in the world exists. seems like most other new yorkers have no problem with this little trick. maybe it's a soho thing.

so, now i've gone wireless and told those verizon freaks, with whom my dsl has been spotty for weeks and with whom i have not had a dial tone on my home phone for over 10 weeks (yes, repair has come and come and not come and they still couldn't sort it out), to go fuck themselves. so, if you try to dial my home phone, you'll get a disconnect message. nothing has ever sounded so musical to me. since we got the world wide web from the cable, anyways. ok.

and now i have to start studying for the good ol' gre in earnest. now that i've got the ol' laptop to practice my written sections since you gots to word process them these days. the whole damn test in on the poot-poot, which is a tad disconcerting, since the last standardized test i took was the lsat. in 1992.

it is gorgeous out again today. we've only had one truly unbearable day so far all summer. i've been counting those blessing, i can tell you. i ordered some teeny-weeny air conditioners for our bedrooms though yesterday, just to be on the safe side. all the weather goodness is motivating me. one to get some sun, which i did for exactly one half hour on each side yesterday. enhancing the remnants of tan hanging around still from the dominican republic. and that was in february. yes, i've had a tan line since then. strange. two to get myself to the gym, gym, gym. where my trainer is putting me through the paces. which i am starting, after three weeks, to notice a smidge of a difference.

now, i'm reading fight club. do you ever find it difficult to purchase a copy of particular book because you hate the cover? the worst of course are books turned into movies, right? i just couldn't stand the idea of brad pitt staring out at me from the cover of my newest read. so i passed and passed and passed, even though, palahniuk is one of my hands-down favorites. but someone just issued a new edition, with an amusing new preface by the author himself. so, i snatched it up. along with copies of james' washington square, coupland's hey nostradamus and cunningham's a home at the end of the world. i know, it's been made into a "major motion picture" as well, but the cover doesn't reflect that. yet. guess i'm set in the summer read category for awhile. i had been trudging my way through tess of the d'urbervilles and though i adore hardy, tess ain't exactly light. oh, and speaking of film adaptations, i;ve been jonesing for the notebook. i know, treacle. but i gotta get my bridges of madison county-esque slop on now and again. at least, i'm not reading the five people you meet in heaven. yet.

there's more, of course. but not for now.