t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


thus concludes the month of november, by tomorrow it'll be december.

what happened this month? the project that gave me those 100 hour weeks didn't go out, and won't go out until next month. saw a million open houses, still haven't found a place yet, but i have my pre-approval letter and now i'm just waiting for that "this is it" property to land in my lap. yankees lost the world series. bought some winter running stuff. i finally found my holy grail the red pants, but it wasn't exactly what i thought it'd be. i grew a hand, than ungrew it back to small size. i witnessed the leonid meteor shower yet again, the biggest one i've seen so far. i thought about buying a giant millipede but didn't because they poop too much. elias and julie both got digital cameras, so now when we go out we triple our photo intake automatically, much to the chagrin of our other less fortunate friends who don't yet own digital cameras. a bunch of people celebrated birthdays, including katrinka, david cronin, laurie, and my friend in tokyo claudio kato. i raked leaves, became one with autumn. i finally scored a dvd copy of blame it on rio. i celebrated thanksgiving. i shaved off my goatee. i planted bulbs in the backyard for late spring/early summer blooming. john miller is getting married. by this weekend, joel will have moved back to boston. and finally, i've rediscovered the joys of sleeping.

today i was scheduled to have lunch in chinatown with laurie and her ex-bf john. amanda was invited as well, and she actually talked with laurie earlier today, but she told laurie that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to go or not. but afterwards amanda told me that she would come and join us after all. at noon i went downstairs to hand in my timesheet and to pass amanda a note asking, "are you coming to lunch?" when she didn't respond, i took that as a sign for no and went off to lunch without her as laurie's car pulled into the parking lot. but if truth be known, i didn't want amanda to come. it's hard to explain my motives, but when i saw she wasn't ready to leave, i felt she shouldn't come if she didn't really want to. i was in a foul mood this morning and didn't feel like partaking in my usual banter to coax her to come out.

i noticed we were missing one passenger in the car. "where's your ex-bf?" i asked laurie. "my what?" she said. "your ex-boyfriend...john" he was meeting us at the restaurant, and in a perfect example of speaking of the devil, he called on her cellphone to ask for directions on how to get to suishiya. laurie asked where amanda was, and i told her that she was busy, even though the real reason was i sort of didn't invite her. i scared laurie a couple of times in the car with my shrieking everytime we narrowly avoided getting into a car accident, so she banned me from screaming in her car ever again.

suishiya was crowded but we managed to get a seat when the waitress asked these two ladies to relocate to a smaller table so we could have the larger one. john and i both had the spicy pork bulgoki box lunch special while laurie had the beef bulgoki. i think they raised the price on these box lunch specials. i could've sworn it use to be $7, but now it's $9. they also seem to be skimpy on some of the things they use to include, like melon balls and a piece of shrimp tempura and it use to be 4 pieces of sushi instead of 2. nevertheless, a good meal, and i hope for john and laurie, both first time box lunch specialists, that they thought it was a good meal as well. afterwards, laurie drove me back to the office.

oh, i almost forgot! members of the screen house organization came to suishiya as well! actually, they thought i'd be joining them for lunch and had actually tried to get a hold of me in the office but i had already left. i think they were surprise to see me already at suishiya, and even more surprised when they saw me with other people.

after work came the much hyped drinking/celebration. it was somewhat of a letdown, the venue where it was held, the character in kendall square, was packed with people for a private biogen party. amanda, amanda's bf, and alex were there first (some people just can't wait to drink) and when john and i arrived, alex was already leaving. scott and anuj where there as well, but anuj and john left when it appeared that we wouldn't be able to get in. we were finally able to talk our way into the place, with eliza and paula, followed by rebecca and amy. amy didn't stay long, and when she left, lisa stopped by briefly before she left as well. i think amanda spent most of the time making fun of me, which i think is now her favorite hobby. i played her in a game of 9-ball foosball and lost 4-5. it's been a long time, she said i cheated because i spun the poles, i said she cheated because two of her balls when straight into my goal on the first hit and she wouldn't let me change the rules. despite the fact that i lost (i like to think on purpose), it felt good to get my hands on those foosball handles. felt like home. my total liquid intake for the evening: two root beers. rebecca told us stories from her semester at sea and the crowd was especially delighted by her turkish bathing house molestation anecdote. amanda had her own molestation story of when she went to foxboro stadium recently and was groped by drunken patriots fans on her way to the bathroom. rebecca and paula traded wedding tips with one another. scott revealed more of his past, and the evening start out with a spirited conversation on cow tipping and cowpie tossing in the midwest. that half of the table also talked about the best way to give yourself an affordable haircut, whether it's cut by a significant other, an electric clipper, or the flowbee. the conversation wouldn't be complete without another headscratching discussion on why i don't drink. eliza and i showed each other the content of our bags and i discovered that she actually belongs to a book club and their current book of the month is the name of the rose by umberto eco. i also learned that eliza wasn't the only one, but a lot of people downstairs belonged to book clubs (although rebecca recently quit hers, good for her!). i never felt more stupider in my life!

it's 65 degrees outside on a wet and foggy night on this final day of november. it's pretty out of the ordinary, feels like a summer's night. last week when it was cold, i didn't see them, but now all the moths are back, camping out next to the front door light. where do they hide when the air is too cold to fly? and when thw weather gets warm on a fluke evening like tonight, why do they even bother coming out and congregating?