I haven't done a book review in forever - not because I'm not reading, but because I used to use my journal as a place to keep track of everything I read, and now I have Goodreads for that (feel free to friend me there, btw!).

The book I'm reading now, however, sort of begs to be talked about, because it's all about making friends. MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, by Rachel Bertsche, is a chronicle of the author's efforts to make friends after leaving her BFFs behind in New York and moving to Chicago with her husband. (There's also a website, and if nothing else, I recommend reading the initial articles that kicked off the whole project.) In order to expand her circle of friends, Rachel decides to go on one new "friend-date" a week for a year. Out of those 52 potential new friends, she's hoping to find a BFF whom she can count on to be there in a pinch (whether it's a ride to the airport or a last-minute pedicure), someone who shares her interests and calls just to say hi, and above all, someone who understands the importance of girl talk.

So let's talk.

( Read more... )

My parents were here this weekend - my mom took some time off from work and came down Thursday afternoon, so on Friday we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. We went particularly to see the Normal Rockwell exhibit, but the whole place is pretty awesome. We ended up spending about five hours there. My dad arrived on Saturday, and we all went to Abbey Road on the River, which is a big Beatles tribute festival at the National Harbor. We got to see quite a few cover bands, but of course the best ones are always the ones who dress up in the Sgt. Pepper costumes. :)

Since it was a holiday weekend, my parents stayed until Monday. I have to confess to feeling somewhat overwhelmed, and like I don't have nearly enough time for myself. I was in New York Friday through Sunday, had one day to recover, and then classes started again, which meant not getting home until 9:30 pm Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Thursday my mother showed up, and I've been occupied ever since. I have class again tonight and tomorrow, and it feels like it takes so much effort to just keep going. It's immensely frustrating that work and school and homework demand so much of my time, and I have zero motivation to do anything about it, which doesn't bode well for my GPA.

Other than catching Mad Men (since my mother wanted to watch it, too, and I am very excited that she's so into it - finally, after me telling her to watch it about three times), I haven't had time to watch any TV, not the shows that are currently on or my Netflix project. I did manage to finish Dexter season 4 after my parents left last night, but who knows when I'll have time to write up a reaction post. Plus I still have reviews for A Little Night Music and In the Heights to post. I just want to watch TV and write blog posts, is that so much to ask?

I think that part of my frustration/anger/listlessness lately is a medication issue - which, incidentally, raises a new complication with this DW set-up. I'd like to talk about that kind of stuff here, but I want to be able to restrict access like I did on LJ. It's easy enough to create a personal filter on DW, and I'm pretty sure I can add OpenIDs to it (maybe stormwreath can help me experiment with that?). However, I know that a lot of people are reading my posts via RSS feed, which means that only my public posts will show up. So how will you know there's a personal post you can read if you can't see it? I suppose I could make a public post saying, "Hey, personal filter post ahoy," so you know to come to my journal and look for it, but that seems... awkward, not least of which because I'd be telling people who are not on the filter that there are posts I don't want them to read.

Any suggestions?

So, I was chugging along at a good clip there, posting everyday for almost a week... and then went two whole weeks without posting anything. Whoops?

I hope everyone who celebrates it had a good Thanksgiving. We had dinner at my parents' house this year (determined by whose house was closest to the hospital where my cousin - an OR nurse - was on call). Considering that I'm still on a pretty strict diet and the medicine I'm taking hasn't seemed to have any effect yet, it went about as well as could be expected for a holiday dedicated entirely to food and overeating. At least it was only my mom's side of the family, since we haven't actually told anyone on my dad's side that I've been sick. For those who like menus, we had: butternut squash soup, salad, turkey (of course), stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, corn and peas, cranberry sauce, corn bread, cranberry orange bread, chocolate cheesecake, pumpkin mousse pie, carrot cake, and cookies. (Bonus points if you can guess how many of those things I actually ate.)

My parents went out shopping for Black Friday (my dad is usually up at 4am anyway). I opted to sleep. My parents came back empty-handed (the stores had already sold out of the stuff they wanted), while I went out at 11:30, shopped for less than an hour, and managed to get two Christmas presents. We also put up our Christmas tree while I was home, but I didn't really help much because I was laying on the sofa, supposed to be doing my homework, but mostly just being in pain.

Speaking of the health issues, ( because apparently we are STILL ON THIS )

So, that's me. How's your week?

Yesterday, I posted an "ask me questions" type meme and promised to make posts on the suggested topics. clawofcat asked me, "If you could change any given thing about each of your parents, what would it be?"

This ended up being super-long, so I put it behind a cut.


So... this sounds more like a therapy session than a journal entry, but it's something different to talk about. Thanks to clawofcat for the question, and if you want to suggest a topic for me to talk about, the post is here.