gym, graduation, and cells

Wow. Hell has finally frozen over. I have joined a gym. I will be . . . ex . . . excer. . . exercising.

It's a Curves-esque kind of circuit gym (only women) that you do for about 40 minutes a day and change stations every 40 seconds. I have come to the realization that I can't do much more with my diet, and I've noticed that I have absolutley NO physical activity since college and since quitting RL in the summer. For over two years now I've sat at a desk for 8 hours, then go home and lay on the couch or sit in front of my computer - Holy inactivity, Batman! I really really really hope I stick with it - I know how prone I am to laziness, unmotivation, and procrastination, but since I'm now paying for this, I want to make sure I'm getting my money's (and body's) worth.

Speaking of things I'm proud of, yesterday was the bf's (second) college graduation at LHU. I'm so glad it's over with because of the toll it was taking on both of us. In other news, Christmas is fast approaching and I'm very nearly done with the shopping (for other people, anyway). However, I did splurge a teeny tiny bit and got a new cell phone (and one for Wes). Phone #'s the same even though I switched to Cingular. Even though my old LG is over two years old, I think he has more features on it than this new one. Oh well. I don't think I use my cell enough to care.

long time, no blog

It's so crazy - as much as I love reading other people's blogs, I hardly ever post in mine. Not that I belive anyone reads this anyway, but I hate to be a never-updating blog owner.

True story: Last week, I go with the work crew to this local dive. It's actually a double-wide trailer, so needless to say, my expectations were sky-high. When we are ordering drinks, I'm the last to go. The bartender says, "And what can I get for you, young lady?" I crane my head to see what kind of beer they have on tap. My eyes fasten on a familiar logo. I look the bartender straight in the eye for a few seconds and calmy announce, "I'll have The Beast." Everyone kind of looks at me for a second, and even the bartender falters for a second before grabbing an empty bar mug. "You really want that stuff??" Yes, ladies and gentleman, this fabulous establishment sells Milwaukee's Best. On tap. What can be better than that? My friend was so amazed he text'd eight of his friends to tell them about this wondrous find. One of his friends writes back, "Are you sure you're not at a frat house?"

blah

I wish I had something cool to blog about, but life is pretty normal. During the week I work (if you can call it that. . . it feels like a second home to me now) and the weekends are pretty chill. Every Satuday morning I wake up early (can't sleep in anymore) and go to the mall. I like to think of it as my only exercise ritual, but I've been noticing that I'm just a shopaholic. Every Wednesday we have our RPA Inc. night out which is pretty cool. This week's activities included dinner and drinks at The Mountaineer in South Side and a trip over the mountain to Playtime Boutique. Woohoo.

The boy and I are doing fine. I can't believe we've been dating for two years and that we've been living together for one. I'm content with the level of relationship, but with all the new engagements and weddings of my peers, it's hard not to be envious of all that. But I kinda like where I'm at right now, so I'm not too worried.

Last Saturday I went out to celebrate my big sister's birthday. It was great to party with my ex-RL friends (and my sister, of course). The funniest part of the night was us toting around Heather's obscene birthday cake. I'm continually amazed at the level of debuachery my RL peeps display. Good times.

the suckitude of AOL

To attempt to make a long story semi-readable, I will share my story of trying to cancel my AOL service. Last month I called to cancel, but the rep told me that the monies were already processed from my credit card and I'd have to call next month if I still wanted to cancel. She, of course, did her little AOL sales pitch: "I'm sorry to hear you'd like to cancel, BUT, did you know AOL has Spyware, SpamBlocker, Virus protection, yadda yadda yadda. . . " Ok, I was upset because at this time I was paying for two ISPs (PeoplePC and AOL) - Since I'm budgeting I'm choosing to drop the less expensive of the two.

So I remember to call yesterday to cancel. I get a rep named Justin. Very friendly. Gives me the same spiel as the first girl. He says, "As a courtesy we'll give you a month to think about it for free" and then attempts to close the conversation! "Thank you for calling AOL. . . " Me: "Excuse me???!" Mind you, I had never agreed to what he was offering me. Now I'm getting irate. I was willing to sit through the sales pitch as long as they cancelled my service. Now not only did I have to sit through the AOL Attributes Lecture and Why AOL Rules Speech, they're gonna rush me off the phone and not listen to me??! Great customer service. I said, "I want to cancel my AOL TODAY. This is already my 2nd call to cancel. I don't want to call a third time. I've already uninstalled the program from my computer and have another ISP." He then puts me on hold (assumably to check with an assist. supervisor if he can credit back my last month's payment that I didn't want them to take).

At this point, I'm just getting irate. And I HATE to be the irate subscriber because I know what it's like to be the guy on the other end. He's supposed to keep people with AOL as much as he can, but I soo wanted to tell him that I wasn't unhappy with AOL until I called to cancel it, b/c it's a freakin' nightmare! He then comes back on the line and tells me they're going to pay me back last month's bill and give me another month free to "think about how much AOL has to offer that another service can't." (Whatever.) He then proceeds to rush me off the phone again. And I just give up like a loser. I can't fight anymore. I'll have to make another call next month. This time I may ask for a super (even though I hate when people did that) but I can't get anywhere with these reps. They will not ALLOW you to cancel their f'ing service. What do I have to do???! Anybody have any advice or similar personal experience?

I Heart NYC

On Friday night, I met Leslie and Brian at The Lodge. Out of nowhere, Les says, "Do you want to go to New York tomorrow?" And not being the spontaneous type, I agreed to my own surprise. I've been wanting to go to NYC forever, but never had the guts to do it. Saturday around 1:00 p.m. we drove into the City. We mostly spent our day walking around the theatre district, Times Square, Rockerfeller Center and Fifth Ave. We stayed until it became dark - then I got a little scared. Especially when a stranger approached us and asked us if we could get him some food. He obviously was not hungry - it was one of the situations where you just know they're looking for some drug money. Thank God we escaped him. I got my classic I Heart NY tee - and for only$3! Can't beat that! I chickened out on buying a fake designer bag. You literally couldn't swing an arm without hitting a fake bag makeshift "stand."

Kat rode the train in from Connecticut and met us in the city. We even kidnapped her and took her back to Williamsport so she could drive to Philly with her parents the next day. Then we all went to the Pub. What a long, but awesome day! I'm so glad I actually went. I can't wait to go back and see more of the city. I don't care that I felt like a tourist - I ended up getting some pretty good shots of Times Square, etc.

Although I don't know if I could live there, it's definitley an interesting place to spend the day.

No more long weekend - time to go back to work!

settling

I'm now 2 1/2 weeks into my new job and all is well. The only complaint I have right now is money. I'm doing a job that is beneath my qualifications and quite boring for me and I took a paycut, but I'm finally doing something in my field and I believe there is strong opportunity for growth - the last two people hired before me have already been promoted. We'll see.

Items of interest: got my brakes fixed Friday (over $300!), went shopping in Wilkes-Barre Saturday, Carrie is home for awhile, the bf and I are doing well, got my glasses last week, tried cooking . . . with real meat. Okay, boring week. It's apparently been a time of settling in to my new atmosphere. . . and stressing about my career. Carrie keeps telling me not to stress, but as I told her, I need something to worry about because everything else in my life is just. . . fine.

Sweet. . . just remembered "The O.C" Season 2 DVD came out today. I'll probably wait a few weeks before buying it seeing as how I had to blow so much mula on brakes and then shopping. Hey, a girl needs fall clothes, dammit! In fact, I need some more. I don't think buying four tanks and a skirt really counts toward the fall clothes count.

You would think with all my pop culture awareness and whatnot, I'd have better taste in television, movies and music. Sometimes I ask myself why my entertainment center is cluttered with such classics as Here on Earth, A Walk to Remember, First Daughter, A Cinderella Story, Sleepover, Drive Me Crazy, and The Prince & Me and DVD sets of "Dawson's Creek," "The O.C." and "Laguna Beach?" Why is my car filled with the musical stylings of Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff, *Nsynch, Mandy Moore, Ashlee Simpson, and Britney Spears? Is Wes (and all of my friends) right? Do I really have the same tastes as a 12-year-old? I wonder if I'll still be listening/watching teenybopper stuff well into my 30s. . . .

I don't hate Mondays anymore

Strange how you can spend the past two years of your life abhoring Mondays with a passion of a thousand fiery suns and then. . . not care too much about it either way. As much as I can't stand the fact I took a paycut when I changed careers, there are times when I'm at my job and I'm thinking, "They pay me too much." I never thought I would actually have a job where I can finally utilize my excellent web researching skills, so finely tuned from working on "research" papers at school (read: finding essays to plagarize). I spend my day cleaning up our database of over 50,000 higher ed and non-profit professionals, with half of my time spent on Google. Eventually I'll be getting into the ever-so-difficult task of "mail merging."


I actually went out drinking three nights this week. . . utter craziness for this now uttterly lame girl. Wednesday night was the Crosscutters game with RPA folk, then Thursday night was spent with the UCCI peeps at The Old Corner and MacNamees (formerly Carl's). Wish I could have stayed longer, but sleep was beckoning. I must have been exhausted, as I fell asleep Friday night at 7:30. Saturday night, Terri took us out the the Allegheny House, the weirdest dive I've seen in a while.