Sick day(s)

I took the day off work today since I've been sick since Friday with whatever misery has been going around our office lately. Yuck. It's made it difficult to sleep or do anything but lie in bed or on the sofa. I've spent my time doing the following:

Mostly I watched a lot of TV. And I do mean a lot. On Saturday I had a Newsradio and QI marathon. Sunday I watched several Cary Grant movies (he was the star of the day on TCM). Today I watched a bunch of Top Gear.

The past few days would have been pretty ideal, to be quite honest, if I hadn't been sick!

Lately

I tend to ask a lot of hypothetical questions to friends/acquaintances/co-workers. Probably much to everyone's chagrin. I recently asked my co-workers what they would think if they found out I was a wizard. (Don't ask how I come up with these things.) One of them said she wouldn't be surprised, since I'm pretty secretive and always disappear from work and then reappear a while later. And what if I turned out to be an evil wizard? She said, no, I wouldn't be an evil wizard. But probably not a good wizard either. Just an amoral wizard.

I also made everyone play Desert Island Discs at lunch. Except no one wanted to choose their 8 favorite tracks. But they all shared their books and luxury item. I did it properly and even posted my list by my desk.


A vintage Beatles sweatshirt I bought myself as a birthday present. Although, to be honest, I've referred to all recent purchases as birthday presents. Including the new guitar I bought online and that was stolen from my porch before I got home from work. Some people just have to ruin things for everyone else. This is why we can't have nice things!

Is there anything better than getting things in the mail? (pt. 2)

Can I just take a moment to say I have the most awesome friends ever? Last week, after what had seemed like the longest work week ever, I came home to find this postcard signed by a bunch of my friends in Berlin. I was close to tears reading it. I've been so bogged down with things lately that I feel like I've neglected my relationships with many of my friends. I immediately hung it up on my wall as a reminder that I need to be better at keeping in touch with people that are important to me.

And while I'm on the topic of reminiscing (which seems to be a pretty frequent theme of this blog), it's been sort of humid here lately, and the air has had that sweet summery smell to it, which always reminds me of Berlin. I often find myself closing my eyes and drinking the fragrance in, which has led me to miss the green light at crosswalks on more than one occasion. Oops. But it just takes me back to walks through my old neighborhood on hazy summer afternoons just before school let out for the summer. Was there ever a better feeling than the anticipation at the end of the school year? I still get excited about summer, even though it no longer means vacations and lazing around. But then again, I still refer to evenings during the work week and school nights.

Tired

I haven't been sleeping very well lately. And apparently I like to document my moods in sketches of myself. I've also gotten too lazy to use my scanner, so I just took a picture of my sketchbook. This was the last page in my old sketchbook, which I had become quite attached to, but it was given to me as a gift and I can't find another one like it. I'm not a huge fan of change, so it's taking me a while to get used to my new one.

Important Information

I have this little notebook within close reach at all times. Like I always do, I've given it a useful label: "ideas". It should be titled "important information" instead. It has little drawings (of birds, people, buttons, sewing patterns I'm looking for), random observations I've jotted down, newspaper clippings I've pasted inside, a Morse code cheat-sheet, humorous quotes, and addresses and phone numbers (some of which I don't recognize and even my old German cell phone number).

New glasses and A.P.C. sweatshirt that people love to mock.

It also includes a lot of lists. As I believe I've mentioned before (although maybe I haven't), I like to make lists. This notebook contains lists of books I'm planning on reading (I have a different notebook for books I've finished), typewriters I own and their ribbon sizes, favourite foods, and a useful list entitled "Things I Like". I also have several lists entitled "Favourite Songs". Every month or so, I create a new list of current favourite songs. My top two always remain the same, but I generally like to add another six songs (I like even numbers) that I can't stop listening to at the time.

Here's the list for June:
This Boy (Anthology I Version) - The Beatles
You're So Great - Blur
Livin' - Graham Coxon
Caramel - Blur
Here - Pavement
Cornerstone - Arctic Monkeys
Green Fields - [The Good, the Bad, and the Queen - the name of the record, not the band]
High and Dry - Radiohead

(Again, my taste in music is rather obsessive.) I also have a list of my favourite parts of songs. But I'll save that for another time!

Walk, Don't Run

Walk, Don't Run is one of my favourite movies. It takes place in Tokyo in 1964, where there's a shortage of housing because of the Olympics. Three people end up sharing a small flat and various complications ensue.
It stars Cary Grant in his final screen appearance and, in addition to being quite funny, I love the decor of the apartment they share and mid-sixties styles are a perennial favourite. When I watch movies I tend to pay a lot of attention to the sets and the costumes of people in the backgrounds of the shots. And this one has a lot of quality stuff going on costume-wise: trench coats, plaids, peter pan collars, crewneck sweaters, boxy jackets, scalloped hems, bangs and topknots. Excellent!