It may sound like a joke, but it is utterly the truth that I am covered in paper cuts. I spent 1.5 hours photocopying manuscripts today, and I have the wounds to prove it.

The mysterious boy on the train continues to make standing on a station platform a completely uncomfortable experience. He hasn't tried to talk to me again; he just hovers. I stare at the ground. No eye-contact for him.

Oh, reader! Oh, dudes! How could I have forgotten? I saw Rilo Kiley on Saturday night!

Joe, you were so right: it was a huge dance party. And her guitar strap said 'Jenny' in silver glitter, and Blake wore a bowtie, and there were huge beach ball-sized balloons filled with confetti, and they played so many awesome older songs--Ripchord, Wires and Waves, Paint's Peeling (!), I Never, Portions for Foxes, Spectacular Views--and they bloody covered Rise Up with Fists!!!, and Jenny wore a silvery, hot-pants-jumpsuit, and we all sang Happy Birthday to Blake, and then he blew out a candle in a donut hole, and Jonathan Rice fucking rocked (something I never expected to say), and he sang a duet with J.L. that was utterly lovely, and Jenny and Blake sang With Arms Outstreched and the whole entire crowd, completely everyone, sang along. I had just about mostly lost my voice by the end.

Gold star.

Today I wished I was back at school.

A huge monarch butterfly flew by my 17th floor window yesterday. And again today. It looks about as substantial as a paper airplane. I know they migrate, but seriously. How high can those things go?

Tonight on the train a mysterious boy handed me a note that said, "Hi. I've seen you at the station in the morning. What's your name? I'd like to get to know you." And dunderhead me, I thought I had dropped the piece of paper, so I was all, "Oh, thanks!" and then opened it up and was like, ? And so I said hi, my name is Liz, and he said hi. And I said, do you live in New Providence? And he said, yeah, do you? And I said yeah, I grew up there, and he said, ---

And so I said, do you like it so far? And he said, yeah. ---

And so I looked out the window, and he looked straight ahead, and then he got up and walked to the door just before our stop.

It was out of a flipping Miranda July movie. All that was missing were some pink stickers and wonky background music.

Occupation

Yo, dear reader. I wish I could tell you that I've been occupied with utterly fabulous things this past week, but I've mostly been primarily occupied with being completely knackered. No wonder adults seem dull. They work!

Har, har.

The job is good, and my building is wacky (they're redoing the lobbies and elevators, so some of the elevators are lined with cardboard to protect the mirrored walls--someone wrote 'graffitti' and someone else corrected it with the accurate copy-editing mark--amazing), and I've spent most of the last week on trains, ironing shirts, memorizing book contracts and reading thriller novels that, ordinarily, I would not touch with a latex-gloved hand. But it's a jaerb, and I can wear jeans, and there's free coffee, and some cute editors who actually keep pencils behind their ears.

Now every time I see a book I might want to read, I check the spine to see who published it. I hope this is not one of those 'too much of a good thing' things. Utterly unthinkable.

And now I'm tired again.

Today was my first day of work.

Oy, am I tired.

There isn't much to tell you yet, except my desk looks out a window on the 17th floor and I have the perfect view of a huge clock tower. It's the best clock I've ever had. Makes me miss Big Ben, though.

Goodnight.

Power Lunch

I am plowing through my lunch. Last day of toil in Chinatown and finished my note-taking early, so am utterly jumping on the next train home to start the weekend early. Tomorrow is going to be a super Saturday--Art on the Green, a craft fair in my old town, with the Dad, maybe Mum too (I am absolutely making them drive by my old elementary school, which, Amy pointed out, looks like Crunchem Hall.); and then I'm going to a matinee of 'The Nanny Diaries' with the thirteen year-old I "baby-sit." Oh my god, and then we're gonna like, get our nails done, and go to Abercrombie, and like, stuff ourself with french fries at the diner.

NOT.

Speaking of thirteen year-olds, I reread 'Walk Two Moons' yesterday/today. I loved it (OHMYGOD) in seventh grade, but hadn't read it since, so when Kate (she's 9) and I were at the library last week, I stumbled upon it and checked it out (along with 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'Horseradish and Other Bitter Truths,' and 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar...' I've been reading a lot of juvenile fiction lately). I gulped it down on the train, and during lunch yesterday, and after dinner, and finished it on the train this morning. I don't remember it being so utterly, heartbreakingly sad, but I knew it wasn't exactly lollipops. I told myself this morning, Maybe don't bring this on the train. You don't want anyone to see you cry like a sissy. But I brought it anyway, and I cried, sissy that I am, but I'm sure no one saw. I was completely vigilant.

Upon reflection, a few things I've learned from this job:

1. I am not cut out to be a personal assistant.

2. I need to buy more CDs.

3. I am utterly underread.

Also, but unrelated, I bought Stella perfume. (!)

To New Jersey!

Ear Plugs, Strangely

Yesterday, on my way to the train station after work, I passed a huge construction demolition conglomeration digging up the street. The homeless man, who always sits on the same steps holding the same cardboard sign, was wearing neon green ear plugs, just like all the construction workers. It made me strangely happy.

God, rush hour home is utterly the absolute worst. I enjoy the train ride in--everyone's sleepy and moves slower, no one's in a real rush to get to work, the train smells like coffee and newspaper--but on the way home, everyone's sweaty and irritable and probably hungry, and the train is filled with obnoxious people on their cell phones. I wear ear plugs. Seriously.

For my new job, I'll only have to take the train to Hoboken (which always makes me think 'Chicken Emergency!') and then the PATH. No more Penn Station, no more subways. Praise be.

It's my second-to-last day here at SW & Co., but it doesn't feel like it. I'll miss this matchbox of an office, covered with maps of the 50 States and, coincidentally, Venice. And being able to blast music, and endless supplies of borrowable McSweeney's and CDs, and the market downstairs where you can buy 2 L of Fiji water for $1.50. Won't miss the fifth floor walk-up, though.

In Britain, They Call It Autumn.

Living at home has me in a high school state of mind. Things pop into my head that I'd completely not thought about for ages. I'll be able to hear the marching band practicing in the evenings. I'll have to rake leaves. I'll peel apples and sleep with my window open and wake up shivering in the middle of the night. I'll maybe go to a football game, perhaps, and sit on the very end of the bleachers where hopefully none of my nosy-parker neighbors will spot/interrogate me. I might actually run the cross country course, if they ever smooth out those fields.

And there are other things. I'll baby-sit, and teach Julia to read. Right now she gets her th- sound and sh- sound mixed up, so when she reads 'that,' she says 'shat,' and I almost pee in my pants.

I'll keep taking yoga and get ultra bendy. I'll take out stacks of books from the library, and never have to pay a late fine. To be fair, I've been doing that all summer, but I've never done it in the fall before.

Dudes! I'll see Rilo Kiley with my pals! Never ever done that before, and probably never will again, if that utterly unsettling Spin article turns out to be true. (http://www.spin.com/features/magazine/covers/2007/08/0709_rilo_kiley/)*

I'll drink pumpkin spice beer, and drive through the Reservation when it's at its fall spiciest, but I won't do those things at the same time.

And I'll wait for you to visit me, which I've certainly never done.



*My link option isn't working.

When I got up this morning

I turned on my light, and the light bulb went pop! and blew out. My whole day has kind of been like that.