My new roommate
I got a new roommate today. He was already dead, so I wrapped him up in three paper towels and put him in the trash.
No, I did not kill Dan. I found a cockroach belly up in my hallway this morning. Apparently while I was out of town, I missed more than the blackout. Brooke saw a cockroach and a mouse in one night. She had the super call an exterminator, and they sprayed my apartment this Monday. I'm glad I only had to see the dead one. It was still gross.

Theft
I'm pretty sure the cleaning lady steals my pens if I leave them out on my desk. I only sort of suspected before and had been making an effort to leave my pens in my drawer just in case. Then today I was about the leave but decided to make a trip to the bathroom before I left. When I came back, the cleaning lady was in my cube. After she left, my pen was nowhere to be seen. It was not on my desk or in my drawer, and I hadn't left it over by the fax machine. In fact I didn't have any pens left. I have been at work three and a half weeks and have lost three pens. This is upsetting because they were nice pens I splurged on at Staples (and by splurged I mean a four-pack of those Uniball gel pens instead of my usual cheap-o Bics) and I really liked the way they write. I still have one pen left, and that's because it's still here at my apartment. I guess that's where I should keep it. The more satisfying writing (journals, letters, etc.) happens here any way. Perhaps it's just a sign that I shouldn't waste the good pens on post-it notes and phone messages.

Unsightly
In the 86th Street subway stations tonight I saw a middle-aged woman in the most frightening outfit. She was wearing a gray tank top body suit. How could I tell it was a body suit, you ask? She was also wearing billowy white linen pants that tied in front and were slit up to the knee and completely see-through. I seriously hope she was on her way to a yoga class or something of the sort.

An adult weekend
And by adult, I mean boring. I defrosted my freezer so I could pry out and throw away the ravioli and frozen vegetables trapped in an inch of ice by the blackout. I went shopping for a dish strainer, a trash can, pot holders and multi-purpose cleaner. I did laundry. I went to bed at 10 last night.

On the more exciting side, I saw American Splendor. I recommend it. The way it mixes the real Harvey Pekar and the guy playing Harvey Pekar is a little weird at first, though. Harvey draws a lot of stick figures, which reminded me of Clark. Harvey also reminded me a little of Paul. I think they own some of the same striped polo shirts.

Words to live by
Here are lyrics to two songs getting a lot of play in my CD player recently (and not just because my apartment is kind of lonely without music).

"I know the world's a bitch, don't get me wrong. You gotta give the world the finger. You gotta sing a happy song." -Rhett Miller, "Your Nervous Heart"

"Vinegar tears, salt in my wounds, and ketchup like my poor, bleedin' heart." -The Saw Doctors, "Chips"

Sorry to disappoint
I was not in New York City during the blackout. So I don't have any cool blackout stories about getting trapped in an elevator or walking several hours home. I was in Wisconsin and watched it on the news like the rest of you. The only sign of the power outage when I got back to my apartment was the inch-thick layer of ice on the bottom of my freezer.

I think a temp was running air traffic control at LaGuardia last week
I rushed out of work at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to get to LaGuardia for my 8 p.m. flight. If I'd known how things were going to go, I would have stopped and had a really nice dinner. Instead I crammed myself and my bulky backpack onto a crowded 4 train. Even at rush hour, trains usually thin out at Grand Central. No such luck. Apparently everyone else was going to the Bronx, and I had to fight my way out at 125th Street. Then I spent an hour on a bus moving at a crawl through rush hour traffic. I was between a screaming baby and a man with these really frightening metal attachments on his luggage.

I got to the airport at 6:45. Plenty of time to go through self check-in, eat a slice of pizza and get on my plane. When I checked in, I found out my flight had been delayed half an hour. I wasn't concerned. I could still make the 10 o'clock bus to Rockford if I rushed, and if not there was an 11 o'clock too. But then a little before 8:30 my flight was delayed until 8:45. Then at 8:45, it was delayed until 9:30. The problem was that there was a plane at the gate that they couldn't get pushed away. They finally got that solved, but it still to a long time for our plane to get to the gate.

At 9:35 we finally started to board the plane. Hooray! But after they'd boarded half the plane, the man working at the desk answered the phone, put his hand to his forehead and shook his head. All I could make out was "stop boarding." We all exchanged he-better-mean-temporarily looks. He went onto the plane, came back and announced that our plane had been put out of service after it landed (40 minutes ago!) but they were going to find us another plane. Five minutes later he told us to switch to gate D6. (Earlier in this mess we'd been switched from D4 to D8.) The people working the desk at D6 looked confused when we all herded over. They actually asked us what flight we were there for. Isn't it their job to know these things? Ten minutes later they sent us back to D8. I spent the next hour waiting for a plane to arrive at the gate. Our flight kept disappearing off the departures board. It's unsettling to look up and see the next flight to Chicago at 6 am. By this time there was no way I would make the 11 o'clock bus to Rockford so I had to call my parents and ask them to drive to O'Hare. I promised to call once we really boarded a plane so they would know when to leave. We finally started boarding a plane at 10:45. The man at the desk started rushing us and telling us to take our seats immediately because our crew went illegal at 11 so we had to be off the ground before that. I wasn't quite sure what this meant, but by this point I just had to laugh at it all. We weren't off the ground by 11, but luckily our crew was rebellous and took off anyway. I finally arrived in Belvidere at 1:30 in the morning, central time.

Going to the chapel
1. I'm in love with a bridal shop owner and her seamstress. First thing Thursday morning I had to go in for an emergency alteration appointment. My dress was super big on me for several reasons. 1) A debacle involving David's Bridal and having to reorder different dresses from another store six weeks before the wedding. It's hard to go in for a fitting when you're a thousand miles away. 2) I have a weird body shape and was in between three sizes (how is that possible?), and they had to go with my waist size even though it meant everything else would be too big. 3) My living-a-mile-from-the-subway-on-the-fifth-floor-of-a-building-with-no-elevator weight loss plan. The shop owner let me try on the floor sample dress, which was several sizes smaller, and it fit almost perfectly so she just let me trade dresses. Then all the seamstress had to do was a little tailoring and the hem. Even better she finished it in two and a half hours so I could take it with me when I left for Milwaukee (technically, Brookfield) instead of having my parents deliver it the morning of the wedding. Hooray!
2. We broke some rules with the bachelorette/bachelor parties. I'm pretty sure the groom, his brother and the two best men aren't supposed to be at the bachelorette party. But it made Lizz happy and ended up being a really good time. (Plus the boys paid for some of our drinks.)
3. I tied lots and lots of bows on Friday. Why do weddings involve so much ribbon?
4. We had our hair done bright and early at Harry Nick and Friends Salon. A salon with a very unfortunate name, where coincidentally, our very own Brookfield superstar has gotten his hair cut.
5. Apparently being "train bitch" is somewhere in the maid of honor job description. I spent a lot of Saturday morning following Lizz around the botanical gardens and carrying the back of her dress and then arranging it artfully for photos.
6. After pictures, our limo stopped at McDonalds for cheeseburgers on the way to the church.

Things that suck
1. Being the single maid of honor and having the bride and groom try to set you up with the single best man.
2. Having the entire bridal party in on it too.
3. Actually hitting it off with said best man and proving your friends right.
4. Knowing he lives in Kansas. Kansas.
5. Puking all over yourself while sitting next to him in a car. (Last I checked, so not sexy.)

More trouble with LaGuardia, and it wasn't even because of the blackout
My trip back to New York sucked. We boarded the plane on time but then had to sit at the gate for half an hour while the ground crew fixed a door they'd bent loading the luggage. We taxied out to the runway, but then the pilot made an announcement. "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that we're all here on the plane together." When that's the good news, you know you're in trouble. All flights to New York had been grounded because of a thunderstorm there, so we sat on the runway for an hour. They tried to make up for the wait with an extra glass of water and a few re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond. We finally took off and made it to LaGuardia by 11:30, but then we had to sit on the runway there because of all the traffic backed up at the gate. I finally got home at 1 a.m. and had to wake up for work at 7. Ugh, sometimes I hate being an "adult."

Empty
My apartment's almost completely empty at the moment. It's kind of creepy. My roommate moved out Tuesday morning, my new roommate doesn't move in until Labor Day, and my parents aren't bringing the rest of my furniture until the week after that. So right now it's just me, my bed, a futon my roommate didn't want and a small bookshelf. I don't even have any dishes. It looks vaguely like I've been robbed.

Random Work News
1. Our British publisher became a Lord about a month ago. They sent him the official scroll in one of those poster tubes. From now on I will refer to him as Lord Phil. I really wish I could call him that in person.
2. Our new reporter was this summer's Justin Marciniak at the AdWeek group.
3. Our editor-in-chief took the two new girls and our director bosses out to lunch on Tuesday. The restaurant gave us free caviar from some mysterious reason.
4. I went out for drinks with some other staffers last night after work and didn't get home until 11 p.m. One swanky bar with a good happy hour and a dive bar across the street with cheap beer make for a quality evening.

One Week Later ...
I finished my first week at work. It was a pretty good week. The second day, I was getting to edit a list for the next issue and make the changes in Quark. I also got to take a trip to the mailroom all by myself. Ohh. My main job responsibility is compiling the various lists, rankings and directories we puts out. I spent the rest of the week sending out reminders to companies who hadn't returned surveys, imputing new surveys into databases, creating the next survey to be sent out. So, yeah, the actual job part of my job isn't so much what you would call exciting. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's only a stepping stone.

Gross
One morning on my way out to work, I almost puked. A large pile of maroon-colored vomit was covering the bottom of the stairs in my building. I had to step over it. The poorly ventilated hallway was suddenly much too long.

A Bizarre Commute
I was crammed onto the 4 train during the morning commute when a man at the opposite end of the car started having a seizure. The people around him didn't just stare. They helped him lie down slowly so he didn't fall and hurt himself. They called the conductor to tell him someone was having a seizure. He said there would be medical help at 42nd Street. (We'd just left 86th on an express.) Before we got to 59th Street (the next stop), the man who had the seizure was perfectly fine, and someone gave him their seat. The conductor came to check on him, and the man waved him away. At 42nd Street four men carrying walkie-talkies and wearing MTA uniforms, goggles and orange vests came rushing into the car to help the man having a seizure. He insisted he was fine, so they left and he continued on his was downtown. Only in New York, people.

Going to the chapel ...
I fly home Wednesday to be in a wedding in Milwaukee. Details TK.

Being the new girl is weird
Today was my first day. It felt sort of like being the kid who switches schools in the middle of the year, except I didn't bring cookies. The day was overwhelming and crazy but good. As soon as I arrived, I started packing up books to switch cubicles. It's hard to pack up all of your belongings when you don't know what any of it is or what's important. I filled out paper work in HR and got my picture taken for this nifty computerized card item that activates elevators and opens door.

Everyone was really nice (and young for the most part). Two other editors, a guy from advertising and the art guy (I already know that he's the office gossip) took me to "The Deli" to get lunch. The deli has a name, but everyone just calls it The Deli because it's the only one people from my magazine go to. I had a pretty quality sandwich, but I won't break our executive editor's heart by telling him that it wasn't much different from the sandwiches I got at the deli near Family Circle last summer.

Oh, and our publisher is a dashing middle-aged British man. I don't think I'll see much of him, but I thoroughly enjoy his accent.

We're getting a new assistant editor next Monday and a new art assistant the week after that, so I won't be the newest new girl for too much longer.

Jigga-huh? (or Graydon didn't like it)
I went to see Shakespeare in the Park on Wednesday. It was Henry V, and I had a great seat, fourth row center. Liev Schreiber* played Henry. He was fabulous (and hot). Unfortunately, the rest of the play wasn't as good as Liev. Many parts just left me baffled. Why did Bronson Pinchot (Pistol) have an Elvis hair-do, a unibrow and a Jersey accent? Why was there a gratuitous shower scene with the French princess?** Why were some actors playing horses and carrying the French soldiers about the stage? More importantly, why were these "horses" only wearing quilted chaps, shiny man-kinis and stirrups?

I happened to be sitting across the aisle from Graydon Carter.*** I wouldn't have noticed him except the woman behind me pointed him out to the European guy with her and then had to explain what Vanity Fair is. Graydon and his lady friend did not return after intermission. I took this as a comment on the play.

Footnotes
*He's a really well-respected stage actor. Personally, I recognized him as the freaky ex-boyfriend in Kate and Leopold. I am so uncultured.

**My favorite part of this scene was the sign they had to have outside the theatre. "This production of Henry V includes strobe lights, gun fire and brief nudity." How often can you say that about Shakespeare?

***Graydon was wearing a navy blazer, orange (or perhaps coral) pants and cowboy boots. If magazine editing taught me anything, it's that the editor of Vanity Fair gets a clothing allowance. So, Graydon, darling, what were you doing in such hideous pants?

Confession
I have a crush on a meatosexual. His name is Pete. He's a waiter. On TV. NBC's The Restaurant, to be specific. He wears a belt buckle that says "Stallion." He keeps his shirt partially unbuttoned to show off what appears to be a beater. (He doesn't wear any sort of chain, though, so he might still be trustworthy.) He wears a lot of goop in his hair. During the first episode, he announced that he does not wear underwear. During the second episode, he said, "Woah, are those the Coors Light twins?" (They were.) He got separated from another waiter because they goofed off too much. He trekked around Manhattan to buy wine for a table after the restaurant ran out of red wine (or at least he thought they had). But he's hilarious, and I'm smitten.

In other news
-Thursday night I went to see Rhett Miller (of the Olde 97s) at Bowry Ballroom (think the Blue Note, only less sketchy).
-Saturday night I went to see a really good and really depressing movie, The Magdalene Sisters. It's about the Magdalene laundaries in 1960s Ireland. Girls who had babies out of wedlock, got raped or even just flirted too much were sent there to work off their "sins" with hard labor. Lesson: flims condemned by the Catholic Church are worth seeing.
-I finally got a New York cell phone number.
-I start work tomorrow. How weird.