out of town

sorry i haven't written in a while. i've been out of town the past two weekends and i've been insanely busy the rest of the time as a result. hopefully my life will calm down a little for the next few weeks.

it's kind of nice to get out of the city occasionally, though. i took the train down to DC/maryland, and it's so lovely to see sky, and trees with fall colors, and grass, and water... the weather down there was perfect and autumnal as well - a little warmer away from the biting winds of the city, but still brisk. it just smelled like fall, and halloween, and nostalgia. (well, that's probably mostly 'cause i grew up there.)

miracle healer

my everlasting thanks go out to yesterday's anonymous commenter who suggested that i keep my burned finger in a bowl of ice water for the entire evening. i did as recommended and this morning the raised, white blister from last night is nowhere to be seen - all that's left in its place is a ghostly shiny spot. it doesn't hurt in the slightest anymore, either.

it's like i've been touched by jesus, or that spooky kid from Carnivale.

baby doe

powered by ODEO

you can thank my sister for this.

burn

i just burned the HELL out of my finger. literally just - i'm running my one hand under cold water at the sink & typing with the other.

this is what comes of trying to pretend a kitchen towel is just as good as an oven mitt. newsflash: it's not. it has gaps. your hand will touch the metal of the rack and it will hurt like hell.

it already has a blister. :(

any burn treatment tips?

11.75 hours billed

i was in the office for 12.25 hours today, and billed 11.75. i am a freaking maniac.

okay, i'm really going to stop writing about how many hours i work. it's basically the most tedious topic i can imagine. (unless i hit a new record or something, like "wow! i just worked 45 hours without even a bathroom break!")

but i'm publishing this last one anyway, (a) to demonstrate how low i have sunk, that this is the most interesting thing my fevered brain can come up with to write about, and (b) to offer some modicum of explanation to the hordes of angry ex-friends wondering why i am so lame and anti-social.

oscar mayer hard salami

makes a good substitute to satisfy those salt cravings when bacon is unavailable.



i bought it last night after wandering the city streets for hours looking for a grocery store that was open past nine. you'd think in the city that never sleeps, the grocery stores wouldn't either. in every other city in this country there are 24-hour safeways, but not around here. thank goodness for food emporium (open til midnight!).

17 hours

okay, now i am really, undeniably, a lawyer. yesterday i was in the office for SEVENTEEN HOURS (and billed fifteen of 'em).

i have to confess, it was kind of fun. it's nice to feel like you're part of something exciting and urgent and making an important contribution (even if it's just cite-checking a brief) (but you know how passionate i can be about proofreading). my normal bedtime is 11:00 sharp, but i never even really got tired. when i finally stumbled home around 3:30 a.m., my brain was still stuck in that alert, urgent, working mode, so i wasn't able to fall asleep for another hour or so.

but now i'm feeling very, very tired, to make up for it.

celebrity obsession

i admit it - i have an unhealthy obsession with celebrity gossip. it's not like i watch Entertainment Tonight on a regular basis, or subscribe to People, but i do pick up a copy of In Touch or US Weekly when a particularly juicy caption catches my eye - maybe once a month. and for more DIY gossip reporting, i like to tune in to websites like go fug yourself and the superficial.

right now i'm watching an hour-long VH1 special on the 20 Skinniest Celebs. is this rock bottom? i hope so. yet i can't tear my eyes away.

i don't think it's just me, though. i think this is just part of the cultural zeitgeist right now. i love the tag line of The Superficial: "because you're ugly." it's true. we are.

flea market

after two days of searching, i found the dresser of my dreams. yay!

i got it at the hell's kitchen flea market. at first i had been thinking that i wanted to shop at new-furniture stores, but i quickly realized that i in fact hate all new dressers (except possibly some of the really cute designs at ikea), and also that new dressers are all insanely expensive (like, $800-900, minimum). so vintage/used was the way to go. the hell's kitchen flea market was great - lots of furniture, much of it interesting and attractive as well as relatively inexpensive. my dresser was $275 plus $50 for delivery.

getting it delivered was a bit of a nightmare. i waited around my new apartment for the two-hour window they gave me (five to seven), and then waited some more before they finally showed up around 8:45. i was super pissed off, because their lateness made me miss a birthday dinner at 8:00 in manhattan that i was supposed to attend. oh well. at least i have a place to put my clothes.

furniture stores in NY

i need to buy a dresser this weekend. any suggestions for where i should look? i know ikea would be relatively cheap and have cute stuff, but i'd be a little worried about the quality (especially for something with drawers).

also, how long does it usually take for stores to deliver a big piece of furniture?

this car-less city really takes some getting used to.

free reign

i have a new favorite website: the "eggcorn" database.

recently at work i've been amusing myself by emailing a friend of mine - a fellow linguistics nerd - every time i come across a particularly outrageous misuse of english in a court decision or other important document. "free reign", "wreck havoc", "basic tenants of democracy" - that kind of thing.

so finally he got sick of my whining and alerted me to the fact that there is a WHOLE WEBSITE devoted to collecting and, even better, analyzing examples of this kind of error.

reading the analysis of the origins of these non-standard substitutions has reminded me that i shouldn't feel so smug when i come across such "mistakes". after all, every good linguist knows that today's errors are tomorrow's standard english.

i am in nerd heaven.

okay, back to watching america's next top model.

what kind of name is ilona?

i like to keep apprised of the google (and other search engine) searches that lead web surfers to ilonathepest.com. one that i saw today was a search using the phrase "what kind of name is Ilona?" my blog came up near the top of the list, which is funny because i've never addressed that particular issue here. (although it's a question i get asked in real life, oh, once a week.)

the saddest thing was that none of the results (at least, in the top 20 or so) seemed to address the question, either. tragic!

so here you go: ilona is a hungarian name. it's the hungarian equivalent of "helen". it's an old-fashioned name, kind of like "ethel" or "ruth". it's mostly popular among old ladies in hungary. i've never met a single young person with my name.

here's an amusing website i found with more details about the origin and meaning of the name.