Catching up is hard to do

I'm sick. Who gets sick in August? It's vacation month! Come on!

The good news is I have two days off before starting my new job. Today I used my free time to achieve my dream of owning a Tempur-Pedic mattress. It has already been delivered and is sitting in my new room. Now I just need to find new sheets. Unfortunately, most of the kids' sheets I really like are not available in Queen size.

Emily has sadly already moved out (and in with her boyfriend) and I am taking over her room. The new room, while porch-less, promises more space, warmth and a greater distance from the sounds of banging doors and people running up and down the creaky steps. I'm most excited about having space for a desk, after being camped out at the dining room table for the last 2 years. With a desk I think I might more regularly direct attention to art projects and computer-centric endeavors such as this blog.

Emily took all the furniture with her and we've been left with nothing but a small kitchen table, an inflatable mattress and our life-size cardboard cut-out of Barack Obama. The new roommate, Aaron, is coming off a year of Green Corps and will surely bring a lot to the house, but probably not in the form of furniture, given that he's Canadian and has been living out of a suitcase for a year. We're hoping to score big on Sept. 1st, the day every lease in Boston turns over. We'll be cruising Beacon Hill in a ZipTruck, trash-picking with the best of 'em.

Other things:
- For many moons we've talked of launching Article Club and now that Emily's moved out and we need an excuse to see each other, it might actually happen. The idea is that it'll be a lazy/buzy man/woman's book club. Instead of reading an entire book, each member will only have to read and article or two, and can still enjoy the benefits of going to different friends' houses once a month to nosh on goodies and catch up on gossip. We're sending out at doodle poll tonight to pick a date. I can't wait to force my homemade pickles on the girls at our first gathering.

- This week is restaurant week in Boston and I was sad to see that there are no Jamaica Plain restaurants on the list. What, Vee Vee and Ten Tables aren't as good as every similar restaurant in the South End? It's probably just a space issue but still... disappointing.

- We recently had our last roomie outing at the Gallows in the South End. It's hard to know how good the food really was, given that we polished off two bottles of wine, but it seemed awesome at the time. Highlights included: the ploughman's platter, corn dogs, potato skin poutine and the best homemade ketchup I've ever had. Our waiter Ariel was really fun too, even if he clearly blew a lot of coke up his nose sometime before bringing us our second bottle of wine. In sum: good food, great service, neat decor, GO.

- My little brother is home from deployment. I tried calling him Saturday but he was too hungover to speak. I'm going to take that as a good sign.