I have asked Brianne (and Jamie, who can apparently only specifically remember plays), but I am throwing this out to the blogmass in general (and Tim, help?):

I have never read Agatha Christie. I feel I should. Where should I start? Brianne and Jamie both feel that I would prefer Miss Marple to Poirot. _

I just sort of hoped that typing "how to find studs" into Google wasn't going to get me on dating or dirty websites. Turns out, at least the first pages assumes you are hanging things on your walls. _

I went out this afternoon, to pick up vacuum cleaner bags and painting hanging supplies (which have bizarre instructions that probably  mean "make sure you put this in a stud") and some quick grocery shopping, and when I got on the T to go home, there were MBTA officials all over the station warning of a delay, and "where are you going? It's buses between Harvard and Park." And then, over the loudspeaker, came an announcement that someone had been hit by an oncoming train.

Why are they so specific? They announced it like five times while I stood there in the T station, and it was disturbing the first time. Why not call it a medical emergency, or an incident?

I'm very glad I wasn't at Central, where it happened. I hope there weren't kids there. That would be traumatic.

My roommate spent the weekend in DC, and the slow red line made her trip back from the airport take 2 hours. She was furious, and kept saying "why would you commit suicide, it made me so late?!" I wanted to smack her. She was trying for moral outrage, but really it was all "why would you commit suicide in such a way that it's right in front of people and will make everyone's commute take forever?" I might have told her to stop being so selfish and to just shut up. _

I always think the fake gloves might be real.
_

I was invited to a party this evening, and I was going to go and then I had a fit of the hermit. Also, it is cold. And I didn't quite feel comfortable going to a party where I only knew two people. _

The last two movies I've gotten from Netflix have both involved Jeremy Northam as a morally suspect goverenment official in WWII.

I should watch An Ideal Husband to fix that. Of course, there's a level of corruption to his character in that, too.

(I watched Enigma, about code breakers, which wanted to be a thriller, but in tone was more like an episode of Foyle's War, and then Glorious 39 which was, well, glorious.) _

I am having a pain on the back of my hand, around my thumb. It's sort of aching and sort of stabbing. Carpal tunnel's on the inside right? This is probably...something else. Right? _

Oh, Borders. Please continue to not go away.

I went in yesterday, to use up an old gift card. I asked for the next book club book for the non-kids lit book club (I have no idea where they keep memoirs) and a nice young man started looking it up for me. As we haeded over to where it might be one of his coworkers comes up to us waving it in the air. Awesome.

The checkout girl was under the impression that Chapter 11 means restructuring, and restructuring means that you don't close your profitable stores. And, therefore, that at least the one at Downtown Crossing won't close. Which would be nice. I like that it is right there. _

Aw, my roommate got me a butter dish. I mean, it's not the butter dish I would have picked out, but it was cheap at the grocery store. So now I can stop using a plate and bowl.

Maybe I should stop being iritated with him all the time. He also (finally) took the tool bench out of my living room and put it in the basement. He tried to move it into the dining room, and I was like "No, the point isn't just that it's sitting over a heating vent, it's that it's ugly and doesn't belong in the areas I am trying to make nice." So we took it downstairs. It's now in his living room, but I don't care. The only reason why it's still here at all and not in Vermont with my stepdad is that he wanted to keep it when the punk rocker moved out and left it behind. _

I feel so productive, even though I haven't actually done all that much. But I did wash all my clothes, and fold them and put them away (in a timely manner. Although, I also folded and put away last weekend's batches of clean laundry), and I washed my delicates, although I didn't go looking for my drying rack before I put them in, and it is missing (I think it might be in my roommate's room) and so I have clothes hanging over laundry baskets and over the back of my closet doors. I also straightened, some, and I was going to vacuum, but one of my roommates realized that the reason the vacuum wans't working was because the bag was full and took the bag out without getting a new one first. (It's worth noting that I said "I think it needs a new bag" while he was saying "let me take a look at it, I will see what I, technical manly man, can figure out." Me: "Look, it's really simple, we just get a vacuum bag, I think they sell them at the grocery store...No, all right, go ahead and ignore me." ((Rommate issues, moi?)))

And I mended the seems in my favorite black cardigan and a pair of work pants. Now I can wear them to work again. (Not that I actually need a sweater at my desk, since it is like 90 degrees at my desk, but the point is valid.) And I counted how many pairs of underwear I have, and it is an absurdly high number. And that is the end of what I will say about my underwear on my blog.

And I made experimental meringues, with turbindo sugar instead of white sugar. They are delicious. I wimped out on the second macaron experiment. I might also make whoopie pies. I am still debating. I will probably cut the recipe in half, and I might make them tomorrow anyway.

And now, I am going to make myself inari and miso soup for dinner. Yum. The rice should be cool now. _

I have tea. I have Sam. I have knitting. Hurrah for Saturdays.

Possibly I should do something semi-productive. I think I might also do laundry. And eliminate at least two sweet things from the list of things I want to make. _

The thing about living in my head is this. I have been musing that Mubarak is wondering if there's someone in Rome he could sleep with to stay in power. _

Having now sent reminder emails about both my book groups, I am now plotting food for the one that is meeting at my house. I think I will continue the macaron experiment that I failed at last month. _

My mom passed through Boston yesterday. I saw her briefly, we went grocery shopping together and then she brought me home. She had Nattie and Ellie with her, and she came in my house for a little bit, mostly to say hi to Sam and use my bathroom. Sam was beside himself with joy. It was so cute. He was flying about the house, leaping between us, with a squeeky toy in his mouth the entire time. He showed her everything. Being my mom and kind of nosy, she wanted to see how messy my room is (answer: for me, it's actually not that bad. I actually had all my dirty laundry in a hamper rather than the floor and had remembered to throw away all of my dirty tissues from the night before. By normal/clean person standards, my room is always messy) and he flew onto the bed to show off where he sleeps and to show off the three squeaky toys that were on the bed. _

There was a leak in my dining room last night. My dining room that has not one but two floors above it, and the room directly above it is dining room/living room and is not having a water problem (I checked). The window is a bay window thing, and the room above has a flat wall (so there is a tiny bit of roof). I suspect that is where the water has come from.

The landlord told us when we called him because one of the windows was dripping last night that he'd be here at 10 this morning. I was actually dressed at 10 on a Sunday morning (this is not typical) in anticipation of his arrival. He is still not here. When we realized that our carpet was damp and looked up and saw water spots on our ceiling, my roommate called him again, but he wasn't there.

Update: the landlord is here. Or, he came, he looked at the water spots on the roof and the water around our windows, swore, and went upstairs to shovel ice and snow off of our tiny roof. _

A day lounging about in bed has done wonders for my cold. I am coughing way less. (Of course, the inhaler could also be helping with that.)  My throat no longer quite feels like knives. Sam is bored out of his mind, but he will live. He has a squeaky rhino.

I have a TV show I got behind on in November that I'm getting caught up with on hulu. And my knitting. And ginger ale. _

I don't actually know what makes red miso paste different than white miso paste or yellow. I think those are the only three that I have seen. I suspect it has to do with how long the fermentation process took, and what it was stored in, and so on. But. White miso is tasty. My sister was trying to tell me I should get the seaweed stuff too, but... _

My new discover is white miso paste. It makes miso soup broth that tastes like the kind of miso soup you get at restaurants. Without the scallions and seaweed and slimy tofu bits (i.e. the parts I always push away anyway.)

Also, miso soup is like food in that it's nourishing and filling and tasty, and unlike food in that you don't chew it and therefore it doesn't hurt my throat.

Which is why the little thing of white miso paste I bought at Whole Foods two weeks ago is now living in my office fridge, and I bought a new tub of it from the health food store coop thing in Central on my way home yesterday.

(Also, I got a rice cooker for Christmas. So last night I had miso soup and rice for dinner, and it was all good. And a giant mug of lemon ginger tea with a heaping tablespoon of honey. I do realize that "heaping tablespoon" is not a measure usually associated with, well, liquids, but it is very cold in the lazy Susan where we keep the honey, apparently, because it has kind of solidified. Also, that is not normally the amount of honey I add to tea, but it is when my throat feels like I've swallowed glass.) _

Snow day. Woot. I was just lying here thinking I should call/email in sick. I don't think I can really talk. _

All the decision making people in our office are out of town at our board meeting. So. We are all in the office all day, despite the blizzard, and no one knows what is meant to happen tomorrow. _