It’s been a while since I last wrote, so this entry will be a doozy. Yes, I’ve been very busy lately!

Let’s see…I’ll try to start back and work my way forward, so here goes. Two weekends ago (the first weekend in May), I went to the Kennedy Center with my roommate and NY Librarian to see a Tchaichovsky concert. It was actually an excellent concert. They performed the Nutcracker Suite, which was the only piece I was familiar with, and his only violin concerto (the reason we went), and his Symphony Number 5. But getting to the Kennedy Center was quite an ordeal! It was a Saturday night, so we could park at the park and ride and take the metro in. Now, I have always just parked at Greenbelt – it’s the first park and ride that you come to on the Capital Beltway. But we went to New Carrollton because then we could just take the orange line and not have to change trains. What a mistake! What no one had realized is that they are double tracking the orange line, so we had to wait around an hour to get into D.C., which made us miss our reservations at Phil’s, a pub that was the inspiration for the classic song “Afternoon Delight.” So we ate at the somewhat pricy and extremely classy Kennedy Center cafeteria. And then going back took at least an extra hour or so.

Last week work went well. I had a program on Monday that went pretty well. A licensed career counselor came and talked about the Seven Steps to Career Success and it went over pretty well. So I was pretty happy.

And I got to go to the manager’s meeting at work. It was quite exciting. Well, as exciting as a meeting can be. But we seemed to get a lot of stuff discussed, which apparently does not always happen.

<>This past weekend was kind of insanely busy. I went to see 42^nd St. at WisconsinGirl’s high school. They had minimalist sets – mostly because they apparently use the stage for everyday purposes. But the dancing was fantastic and the signing was pretty good too. My only real complaint was that the seats were not assigned and they were all flat. Not very good for actually seeing the stage. But the show was very entertaining – I’m very interested in seeing the movie version, even if it doesn’t include all of the musical numbers. And, as my roommate would say, it’s got Dick Powell!

Saturday I went to the HFStival with my boss, who I think shall get a new nickname because while he is my boss in the technical sense, he’s also a friend and I just feel weird saying, ‘Yeah, I went to the HFStival with my boss,’ even if it is true. So my boss has now been rechristened the Professor, after what one of the facilities people always calls him. And if you do know my boss, you’d probably agree that the Professor is a good nickname.

<>Anywho, we got the HFStival around 2 pm because I really wanted to see the Stereophonics. Unfortunately, they are not big enough here in the States to play the main stage and were relegated to the Street Stage. So they were out in the sun where we had to stand. They were totally awesome! The guitar player (Kelly Jones I think) and the bass player were both in total rock star mode – wearing their black leather jackets despite the fact that the temperature was in the eighties. They did quite a few songs off their new album and a few older ones – Vegas Two Times (one of my favorites!), Madame Helga, and one off their first album which I wasn’t familiar with. Sadly, they didn’t do Mr. Writer. But their set was pretty short – maybe forty minutes – but totally rockin’! <>Then we walked back into the stadium – the concert took place at the M&T Bank Stadium where the Ravens play – and sat around to listen to some music. Echo and the Bunnyman totally flaked out and started performing twice, but never actually did a set. I wasn’t familiar with them, so it wasn’t a total loss. So we saw Garbage, who were really rockin’, and then walked around to get some food and come back to listen to some other bands. Later in the evening, when we were listening to Billy Idol, who seriously had the best set of the whole night, at least when it came to showmanship, it started raining. Now, it had been hot and sunny earlier in the day, so I hadn’t bothered to bring a jacket with me. But it got cold and somewhat windy later in the evening. So when Coldplay was supposed to come on after Billy Idol, whose set must have gone on a bit longer than expected, they told us to get out of the bowl. So after waiting for about a half an hour it finally stopped lightening out and we got to go back in and watch Coldplay. Now, Coldplay is not really a band that I feel needs to be seen in concert. I mean, seriously, it’s not all that exciting and Chris Martin doesn’t really talk a lot in between their numbers. Not that that is bad, but it’s just kind of mellow and everything. So they did a short set due to the weather and hit most of their popular numbers – Yellow, Politik, Clocks – and a few of the new songs of their upcoming album. Overall, Coldplay pretty much underwhelmed.

And so then the Foo Fighters came on. They were in fine form and played so many numbers that I knew – One by One, Times Like These, Learning to Fly, My Hero, Stacked Actors, Monkey Wrench, and Everlong – along with one of their new songs, which I liked. Dave Grohl has a really awesome voice for a rock star, and he totally manages to pull it off. The moral of the story: go see the Foo Fighters by themselves. It would probably be an excellent show.

And then last night I finally did my resume program for the library. Seven people showed up, which shows that Monday nights are probably not the best night for a program. But overall, I thought it went well. There were some questions and in some places it felt more like a dialogue than a presentation by me. I also managed to talk for an entire hour (!!), which I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do. I am just very happy that I will not have to do another presentation like this until the fall. And now I’ve got one put together – I just have two more for the series of three to get off the ground.

What else have I been doing? I did manage to read a few more books – number 35: I’m Not the New Me by Wendy McClure, author of Pound. It was a very good memoir (?), and very much in the vein of her website. I had actually read most of it before because she seemed to take a lot of it from her website, but it was interesting. Yes, it’s a book about weight loss – or perhaps about the process of losing weight but by someone who is more real and definitely not perfect. It’s a book that I can relate to and would totally recommend to anyone to read. Plus Wendy has a really different way of looking at things that makes the book very interesting. And she’s from Chicago – midwestgirls all the way!

Number 36 – Take a Hint, Clint. Ah, another cheesy romance novel that I read in one evening. So fluffy!!

Number 37 – Prep. Totally excellent! Despite the fact that it is set at a boarding school, I felt like the author really captured the high school experience of feeling like you don’t fit and you are misunderstood and all that. I mean, I still feel that way sometimes. And reading this book only intensified that feeling and in some ways made me feel ridiculous that I feel that way. But it’s a good story – following Lee, the midwestgirl from Indiana who goes to boarding school outside of Boston. It is kind of like my blog – the collision of East Coast with the Midwest. Only I think Lee’s case is definitely more serious than mine. And also, Maryland – not really as East Coast-y as Boston.

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<>I have also started knitting again – I am making a messenger bag from Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Nation. It’s not quite as big as I thought it was going to be, but it’s very pretty and colorful and I get to felt it when I am done knitting it. Huzzah. That’ll be something new. Well, I should go. I need to go get my sister something for her graduation. Yes, there will be a present in the mail!!