(no subject)

We've been in Arlington since July, and I really like it here. It was definitely time for a change for me--I'd lived in Charlottesville for 7 or 8 years! I like our apartment, and working from home. I like that I can make tea whenever I want to take over to my desk, and that I don't have to see anyone at work if I'm having one of those days where I just feel like I look weird. I also like traveling to Charlottesville for work and staying in a hotel. I feel like a wife who is on the lam from her husband and kids, like in the yaya sisterhood. I like to order martinis from room service and eat the olives while sitting in the middle of the king size bed. It has made me realize that we need to save up for a king size bed, because it's like sitting on an island.

I've always loved hotels, that's why I called my thesis what I did, that's why I wrote all those hotel poems, but I think I love going to them by myself even more, because I can do all my hotel things as much as I want to. I seriously sit there planning: okay, I will order the following things in the morning, and then I will go to the gym, and maybe the jacuzzi. Okay no the jacuzzi I will save for tomorrow. It's really nice.

I need to try to join a club in Arlington, though, since I don't have a new job here to meet people at. I think I may join the dc ski club, because they take lots of neat outdoor trips and you get great discounts, plus they do other happy hours and such. I hope it's not like CYP where there are only old people in it. I just don't have a lot in common with people that have three kids in middle school right now, I'm sure they're delightful and hilarious people, but I just feel like I should have kid stories too, only I only have cats. I also have a plan to join a muay thai gym, I found one that has a lady instructor, which I think I would like best. It's in Alexandria, but I can't figure out from the web site if I can go to a couple classes to try it out or if I have to just join the gym.

Here are other things I thought of to make more friends:

-Join a climbing gym (even though I think sport rock is pretty expensive). I really miss climbing!
-Join a soccer team, but with only ladies. I hate playing soccer seriously with boys.
-Read at the open mic night at this cafe called Busboys and Poets. I'm worried that it might be all slam poetry and then me, but I guess that's cool, I'd like to have slam poetry friends.
-Bother the people I know that live near Leesburg.
-Take a cooking class or a spanish class (I could get my job to pay for the spanish class) at one of the nearby schools.

Okay that's all I have so far, but I also met some cool people in my apartment building, including a girl who has a tiny boston terrier puppy named Ollie who I have a secret plot to babysit. The puppy, not the girl. Also we've been hanging out with Risto's brother & his wife Rose, who is Cuban and beautiful and really driven about work like I am. We went camping over labor day which was really fun, so maybe I could do girl stuff with her sometimes.

Today I finally found a good hairdresser in my area, and I also got my eyebrows done the other day. I even got a facial that day (in old town alexandria) at this nice spa, which I'd never had before. They did all sorts of mysterious things to my face, and I think there was cheesecloth over it at one point, but it mostly felt nice. I think next time I will get the aromatherapy one. I have to say, my face has looked more glowy since then. Maybe I'll treat myself every once in a while.

Probably the best thing about my immediate area is that the library has a bigger circulation than the one in Charlottesville did, so they get requests for holds done really fast. Also, there is a lot of really good latin roast chicken! It is so cheap but really tasty and they give you so much food. Honestly, I've wanted to take a spanish class for a while now for work, but I want to even more now so that I can better understand about all the tasty food I'm ordering.