What a great day! I don't think I've ever enjoyed spending so much time in my kitchen (injunction against all anti-feminist jokes starts now...) actually, I guess it all started last night when I got home from doing homework and stayed up for an hour and a half grating mozarella cheese. I didn't really feel like going to bed, but I flipped on the tv, and sex & the city was on. And then Firends. And then Will & Grace. So I just sat there, watching the regular gamut of sitcoms and...you know...making cheese dust. I guess I didn't anticipate doing any of this...but, well... we have one cheese grater that's probably 1''x 6'', and I had maybe a 2 pound block of cheese. Mmmm...

But the suffering was worth it! I got up early this morning and made my very first lasagna all by myself! And boy howdy, let me tell you...that lasagna was GOOD. Mmmm...

More importantly, however, I didn't have to eat my good lasagna all by myself...because my cohort came over!! Or, well, most of it anyway...and we all brought food and had a huge feast on my living room floor and then we baked cookies for a bunch of people in the department and... well, I feel all warm and fuzzy now. There's billions of cookies wrapped up in my fridge with bows and tissue paper and everything just waiting to be delivered on Monday morning. I think it was a great way to get the holidays off to a good start.

Plus, I don't think I'll have to eat anything for the next 2 or 3 weeks...because holy crap we had lots of food. I think I've eaten more chocolate today than the last quarter combined. And that's saying something. I'll either be on such a sugar rush that I can't go to bed until tomorrow, or I'll crash so hard from sugar lethargy that I don't wake up until Tuesday morning...mmmm

Oh yes!

And one thing that's been irking me: this new cafe that I've been going to. I keep trying to promise myself that I won't go there for just one night...or maybe even two in a row. It's weird...it has definite advantages. It's in walking distance from my apartment. There's always a table free. The coffee isn't too expensive, and it's not too bad, either. It has a huge selection of deserts which, alothough I almost never buy, are really fun to look at. (Haha, and other cafe goers like to people watch...I sit there like "hmm....wow, yeah...if I were hungry at all, or had an absurdly high metabolism, I would totally eat that one. And then the one next to it would be for breakfast tomorrow...oh, yeah...)

but!

It's just not...homey. At Au Coquelet, they knew me. I'd get a nice "how's it going?" every once in a while from the girl with dreadlocks behind the counter. And the other customers were interesting (sometimes...*too* interesting...and sometimes...they completely belonged in Berkeley and nowhere else...) But here, even though I go there 5-6 times a week, they don't seem to ever recognize me- one guy yesterday, who takes my order most of the time, told me, in all seriousness, where the milk and sugar counter was as he handed me my cup. Or, what's worse, if they do, I feel like they're being judgemental. You know, "oooh, it's that dorky girl again with her...books and her...blazer...here to get her drink and sit in the corner like every other night because she has no friends to hang out with. That's probably not even real work that she's doing, she probably just has no other way to have contact with other humans because she's so, so nerdy. Eww." Seriously, where IS the nerd love?

And I *totally* have friends!
And it IS real work!

And I AM nerdy...that's just...not as...cool here...:::sigh:::