ok, my computer is bizarre. all yesterday and most of today, the internet worked on this machine, but only specific sites. or i should say that certain sites wouldn't work. namely, my email, blogger, google, yahoo ... this resulted in some difficulties. i have to call higher ground tomorrow morning to find out what the deal is with my tickets for tomorrow night's show ... i went through the online ordering process and received neither confirmation of my ticket request nor any notice saying it didn't process ... hmm. not a fan.

nevertheless. i was feeling particularly writer-y last night and since blogger wasn't available, i wrote the following, which i figured i would copy and paste into a post whenever it worked - so here we are ...

and now for something completely different …

a smorgasboard of scintillating surveys scribed to satisfy:

first the favorite, the friendly feroicious friday five:
1. what time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
this really depends on the sitauation. as i am currently doing a whole lot of nothing for a living – and getting paid for it, to boot – i have no set time i need to wake up. generally, i shoot for around 10, but it depends on what i need to do. for instance, tomorrow i need to be awake around 7 so i can run some early morning errands (i have something that needs to be mailed out ASAP, as an example). generally, though, it’ll be between 9 and 10. on my DC schedule, monday, wednesday and friday i would wake up around 6:15 a.m., while tuesdays and thursdays had a 5:15 wakeup.

2. do you sleep in on the weekends? how late?
also depends. right now, in many respects, i feel as if i am living a perpetual pattern of weekend days, so see question 1 for my response. if i’m in a situation in which i have partied like a rock star the night before, i am more prone to sleeping in the next day – although i must say that while i didn’t turn in saturday night until around 3:30 a.m., i couldn’t sleep and wound up waking up around 8, so that’s been known to happen as well.

3. aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
lately, coax myself into moving – primarily stretching my back, which has, for whatever reason, been exceptionally sore when i wake up. i must be sleeping incorrectly – but there’s no other way for me to sleep where i actually, well, fall asleep … i also try to get my body moving so i feel energized for the day – while my enthusiasm and sense of ambition has waned as of late, i generally either do my baseball swings or a kickboxing tape.

4. how long does it take to get ready for your day?
when i was in DC, probably about an hour from waking up to relaxing in front of the television with my bagel and coffee. now – depends on what i consider getting ready that particular day, to be honest. sometimes i do the whole get gussied up thing (relatively speaking, obviously), other times it’s wake up, hop in the shower, throw on clothes and i’m good to go.

5. when possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
i’ve really never been a big breakfast girl. i only started eating breakfast regularly after moving to DC – other than that, breakfast foods were meant for lunch or dinner and sleep was the objective during breakfast times. the only times i got psyched for breakfast stuff in the a.m. would be when i had a meal plan and we’d go to weekend brunch in alliot – when the omelet man was working. You SMC types know what i’m talking about. other than that, the highlight would be dunkies for a bagel sandwich and a coolatta. now, i tend to do the at home breakfast thing – although there is something wonderful about having a nice warm panera bagel to go with, depending on the temperature outside, either a hot or iced coffee. and a special can’t-think-of-it-too-much-as-there-isn’t-one-here nod to honeydew. ;-)

and in other news …
the typical, i-remember-this-from-back-in-the-day august heat sank upon my little niche of vermont at some point this afternoon. the air, thick and heavy with moisture, was no longer able to support itself and collapsed onto the sticky shoulders and backs of tired people trying to start their weeks off on a good foot. unable to decide if it was going to rain or shine, the sky decided to show its skitsophrenic side, casting chilly (and very welcome) droplets of condensation onto the ground while the sun shone in an otherwise sparkly blue sky. it was one of those days where you squinted into the sunshine as you drove home and adjusted the speed of your wiper blades. you’d be more than content with either direction the weather chose to take, but the uncertainty of trying to hold the middle ground was just ridiculous. the only benefit to weather like today’s is the inevitable rainbow that glitters against the dark clouds – but today there was no rainbow, no glittering. only a bipolar weather pattern that left me unable to figure out whether to keep my car windows up or down.

nevertheless, certainly a good day. then again, anything could be considered better than the hours upon hours upon HOURS crammed into the back of my saturn sedan during the great family road trip back to vermont from DC. my car is adorable, cute, cuddy and cozy while i’m in the driver’s seat, legs stretched out, arm resting comfortably on the window, wind blowing back my hair. when i am crammed into the seat behind the driver’s, long legs wedged in among CD cases, bags, my books and pillows for the naps that never materialize, arms tugging at my seatbelt, wind from the front window blowing straight in my face and whipping the pages of the book i am reading, it is a bloody ridiculous clown car made of plastic that pisses me off. ;-) particularly when we are preparing to leave my apartment building and we discover we have a flat tire. um … yeah.

but we made it back – flat tire, traffic, tolls, weather and all. the books i picked up at border’s yesterday morning – How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People – were godsends, as they kept my wit sharp and laughter warming the back of my throat. my CDs were thoroughly enjoyed during my music time – particularly the Holy Grail of live recordings bestowed upon me the night before by His Wonderfulness, paul (bloody amazing show – incredible sound quality!!!) and, while i couldn’t sleep, i managed to find a quasi-comfortable position for about an hour and a half before my left leg cramped up. it’s all about the silver lining, my friends.

the weekend, however, made up for some discomfort here and there. after heading out thursday afternoon, we stopped in jersey friday night to stay at a hotel, arriving in DC late friday morning. after relaxing for a bit, it was time to hit up camden for the orioles/sox game. the sox were obviously still on texas time but i was determined to make up for last time (my first trip to camden, back in april, involved me huddled up, miserable, finally finding solace and a bit of comfort at the bottom of a steaming coffee cup in the bottom of the sixth inning) and had a blast – whooping it up, laughing and enjoying the weather, which changed from the drizzle at our arrival to a misty warm summer evening. my father and i assumed that our third game of the season would end with a third win – after all, it was also the third time we were there when burkett started on the mound – but not even johnny damon’s rally-cap inspired home run in the top of the 9th was able to lift my beloved team over the blasted orange and black. c’est la vie – they knew who was really in charge – after all, there were more sox caps than o’s caps visible and orioles were getting booed in their home stadium. need i say more?

on saturday, my family made the famed walk from woodley park to adams morgan to see by day the area i haunt by night. they also experienced a bit more of dupont than ever before – hell, they actually saw the circle of dupont circle! hallelujia … i was able to fit in the epicurial cravings i’ve had since being back up north – panera, wrapworks and, of course, chipotle. (i always feel like i should spoof the wizard of oz – “and you, chipotle! oh you i’ll miss most of all!!!”) before heading out with chloe, betsy, serena and paul (!!!!!) to adams morgan for some nightlife. on this particular evening, millie & al’s was passed over – that’s what lack of air circulation will do, folks – for air conditioning and available seating at the blue room, which wound up being a lot of fun. it felt nice to have a bar to be at – i’m not one for going out all the time, but it was nice to be someone like that for the first time in awhile! – and i’m sure the drinks purchased for me helped such warm feelings along. conversation with a british bloke that prepared me for my eventual visit to the “nation of perverts – but fun perverts” and the opportunity to make someone’s night with birthday wishes, as well as the obviously enjoyable opportunities to catch up with my favorite DC people, made the night.

now, as i sit here, at the end of a long journey over a short span of time, i can smile and say i had fun while thanking those who contributed – my saturday night crew, my family, the orioles, the red sox, the seven others who joined my father, brother and i in our rally-cap efforts and the dutiful, quasi-friendly employees of the various starbucks along the way who kept me wired and happy with my iced coffees. bless you, each and every one. ;-)

speaking of journeys, i managed to take a fanciful journey through the land of hair color over the course of the past five days or so. or should i say a rapid-paced rampage of a romp through the realm of hair color? i decided, primarly because of boredom, partially out of curiousity and the urge to play with a new frame of mind, that life as a blonde would be interrupted by a foray into brunettedom. caribbean caramel, to be precise. however, the color decided to skip by caramel and jump straight into espresso. i was shocked and somewhat less than amused, but i went with it and had a ton of fun as a brunette – not to mention that i loved seeing people’s faces when they realized it was me. haha – sorry, gang!

but this morning i realized that my brunette exterior was only hiding the blondeness in me dying to burst through, so i reverted to my golden ways – well, kind of. it’s a bit of a work in progress, hopefully to be completed tomorrow and hopefully not completely wreaking havoc on my hair. photographs of the various stages have been taken in order to illustrate my journey. this morning, i was demi moore dark, this afternoon i was bette midler brass, and now i am more along the lines of tara ried – it’ll be a normal, pretty blonde tomorrow. hurrah!!!!

hair tomorrow, musical revelry wednesday, hopeful career bartering thursday – let the games begin!