Heinz

It's been a while. Please accept my profuse apologies and deepest shame. Let's catch up.

Employment status: Who even knows at this point.

Application status: Yup, still have a bunch of those out there.

Reading status: Four books completed! After Jonathan Franzen I read Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon (the author of Wonder Boys, which is an amazing book that I highly recommend) and Little Women. I somehow went 22 years of my life without reading Little Women, and I'm glad it was finally remedied. The disadvantage was that I could only picture Winona Ryder as Jo, which I was definitely not okay with. This morning I started The Kite Runner and am more than halfway through. I think I will run out of space on my chalkboard.

Rule status: I am not allowing myself to read Pride and Prejudice (which I have read roughly seven billion times) or Sense and Sensibility (which I have read roughly six and a half billion times) this year. It's time to take a break. In a year I'll be able to appreciate them with fresh eyes. I am also trying not to read any books I've read before, but I give myself more leeway with this rule. It's only two weeks in; I may need to be flexible later on.

Pittsburgh status: I can officially drive to the giant commercial shopping mecca, The Waterfront, without my GPS. I have also been able to drive back from random places without looking at my GPS. However, I still have no idea where I'm going half the time. But, in exciting news, Keri used some of her Xmas money to purchase a museum membership for us, so we can go to 4 museums whenever we want for free! We've used it twice this week.

Reliving college status: The boyfriend was in town for a bit, and Keri and I dragged him to trivia, which was an honored and joyful tradition during our senior year. It was a very different venue, and there were roughly twice as many teams as we were used to playing, but the familiarity was comforting. We also failed miserably, so if anyone is in the Pittsburgh area and knows a lot about a lot of random crap, please get in touch. Sports are the weak part of our game. (Although the two questions that were sort of my area of expertise I still got wrong... I brought shame to myself and to the memory of the Dirty Washingtons. I'm so sorry.)

Computer status: Guess whose hard drive failed? Poor Pemberley. (Yes, I named my computer Pemberley. I don't care how lame that is.) Thank goodness for warranties and free repairs from Apple. However, I felt completely dirty and commercial in the store. The employees were very polite and made a big point of calling each customer by name. Personally, I hate it when companies try to mask the impersonal corporate structure with gimmicks like that. At least in an impersonal situation the customer can be anonymous if desired. I hate the patronizingly soothing tone of someone two years younger than me explaining, "Okay, Allison, now we're going to do a system check and see if..." Perhaps some of my discomfort stemmed from another employee asking me if I was back at school.

Me: No, I graduated last spring.
Him: Congratulations! How's life?
Me: (not as convincingly as I would like) Good!
Him: (awkward pause) Good. So Allison, the system check is showing...

That being said, I still love you, Mac. I hope Pemberley and I have a long and happy life together, even if it does mean I need to trade forced pleasantries with disenchanted Apple employees every so often.

So that's life. You have no idea how much I wish there were more thrilling adventures to report. I feel like I'm finally starting to hit my stride in terms of Pittsburgh adaptation (conveniently this happens days after the boyfriend visits and I fail at showing him around), so maybe sometime soon I can regale you with stories about the South Side or casually throw a "yinz" into the blog.

Okay, if I start saying "yinz," you have my permission to stop reading.