Breaking news this morning: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/18/mit-police-officer-hit-gunfire-cambridge-police-dispatcher-says/4UeCClOVeLr8PHLvDa99zK/story.html

This feels like a movie, not real life.

I do not live in any of the areas that have been warned to stay home, but in the interest of full disclosure: I'm scared.

I'm completely stunned by the bombing at the Marathon yesterday. Seriously, what the fuck?

So, I don't live IN Boston. I live in Worcester, which is 40 miles west of Boston. It's an hour-ish drive and if you plan it correctly, isn't even that bad until you actually get into the city (it's mostly a highway drive, so you just have to watch out for traffic, which is not always predictable but usually is). I've never been to the actual marathon, but I'VE BEEN ON MANY OF THOSE STREETS BEFORE. I've spent entire days in Boston, from sunup to sundown. The city was my 2nd home for 3 years of grad school. I loved Boston before school, but I fell in love with it even more during grad school... and that was with limited exposure and pretty much only hanging around the school neighborhood.

You know what makes it so scary? I could have been there. Joe and I could have been there. Anybody and everybody I know could have been there yesterday, for any number of reasons. And, for the same number of reasons, we weren't. I just.. all those injured people could have been me or my friends and family. So scary, and the photos are only making things worse.

Obviously, this hits a lot closer to home for me than 9/11. I feel like I want to do something, but I don't know what. I don't have any skills to go and help people get better. I can figure out how to send care packages, but let's be honest: if you just lost both of your legs, are chocolate chip cookies really going to do anything for you? Negative. Maybe donate blood? That seems like a good thing to do.

Got home from the cardiologist about an hour ago. Being in the MRI tube is basically what it would be like to be in a coffin. It was a really long day with lots of people poking and prodding me, but the result is that I'm healthy. I should have the official results in a few weeks after the data from my exercise test is compiled, but the doctor was confident that I don't have any issues.

Now that I'm finally home, time to chill out.

I was going to post this last night, but after I got out of work, I came home, worked out, and started crying. Poor Joe. He did everything right, though - listened to me bitch about my day, hugged me, let me sob into his shoulder, accepted "I don't knowwwwwwwwwwww" as an answer when he asked what was really wrong after I'd been crying for oh, about 40 minutes.

I think that once I started, I just couldn't stop. My eyes are still puffy from last night and I am really not looking forward to work. I'm just going to bring lots of chocolate with me and hope I can make it through.

I don't really want to rehash the entire day, but basically, nothing I did was the correct thing to do: first John told me he was disappointed in me because I made a couple of mistakes on the first round of flyer updates, then he yelled at me for not working on the catalog (Jun doesn't drive in the snow and I was attempting to find all her login info for her computer). Next, he yelled at me for entering tracking on orders while he called everybody else into a meeting (he apologized for this one), then I got an annoyed look for not working on things fast enough (see previous). To clarify, I have worked in Quark a handful of times and have minimal experience. There's a lot of stuff I CAN do (and an equal amount about which I am clueless), but it takes me awhile to even do the things I know how to do. John checked on me after lunch, I explained that it was slow going, he said he understood and do the best I can and Jun will be in tomorrow. Evidently, I was complaining to myself a little too loudly, because then Jackie got her stupid self involved and yelled at me for doing what John had told me TO DO since the morning (editing prices and adding item numbers for all color options on items, ie: AC-123B for blue, AC-123W for white, etc). Then she bullied him and said I should NOT be doing that, even though I only had one more left that I needed help with from Jun anyways cause the box is too little to fit all the information into it. Basically, when he was talking to him and then relaying the message to me, she made me feel like I was fucking the whole thing up even though I know I'm not. She even said to me, "*I* don't even know how to use it". BITCH YOU ARE STUPID AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE UP ORDERS THAT YOU LOOK AT EVERY DAY.

Argh.

Today will be better. Today has to be better. I am charging my ipod now so I can tune people out today.

Just a spent a couple of hours designing some stuff for my blog, mostly editing fonts and designing my header photo. First I downloaded and installed a template that I tried to edit, then decided it would be way easier for me to just create it myself. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anything is helpful, I've been looking at this for too long!

Elfie's Edibles

Sidenote: Hoping to get my first post up tomorrow!

After much deliberation, I've decided to start a new blog for my baking. Please check it out and feel free to share it with anyone you think would be interested! There's not too much of substance there yet, but yesterday I commissioned my coworker's daughter to make me a logo so I'm trying to hold out until then.

Check it out: Elfie's Edibles

I will still post here about life and work and shit like that, but I thought it'd be nice to keep all my baking stuff in one spot.

Being the dork that I am, I'm keeping a running list of my vacation activities for the week. I'm sure I'll update with various things too but sometimes it's nice to look back and say "holy crap we did all that?"

Last night, I went and saw Magic Mike with my cousin. The storyline is very, very thin, but it's an entertaining movie. Plus, lots of guys without their shirts. For you wrestling fans out there, Kevin Nash is in it. As a stripper. I got to see him in a thong! Front view only. In the first 10 seconds of the movie, though, you see one girl's boobs and Channing Tatum's bum. IF you need a fun night out with your girlfriends, definitely go see it!

Nothing special happening. Work has been slow, slow, slow. Just need to make it to 5pm today so I can be on vacation. Tomorrow, Joe's working until about 1pm and then we're going to Elm Park for $5 all you can eat ice cream (fun fact: Elm Park is one of the oldest public parks in the country! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Park_%28Worcester,_Massachusetts%29).

We're both on vacation next week, so plans include the zoo, a local audubon society place (http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Broad_Meadow/index.php), Purgatory Chasm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory_Chasm_State_Reservation). There's also talk of hiking Mount Wachusett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wachusett), and I'm sure we'll so some mini golf and some other fun stuff.

I've seriously been ready for this vacation since May 20th. If you remember, graduation was on May 19. I was working SO HARD - both at work and at school - that I didn't realize how pooped I was until most of that was taken away. Now, I just want some ME time where I don't have to answer to anyone. Taking that day off a few weeks ago was a good idea but totally just a cock tease.

Facebook links to some pictures from the show the other night: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.685457650819.2091589.60803916&type=3&l=770ce995ae

The show last night was AMAZING! Alice Cooper's in his 50s, but his performance was amazing. He took a couple of like 15-30 second breaks in between songs to change his costume and then at another point took off about a minute or 2, but that's because in the performance, he'd just had his head chopped off. He literally went non-stop. I really want to him again as the headliner/only act. Joe and I were talking though and we're not sure he even does/still physically CAN do full tour like that.

Iron Maiden was also really good. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not a Maiden fan, but holy hell they put on a fantastic show!

Typical concert means that there were some douchebags in front of me who were too busy having a bromance. Everyone stood for the entire Maiden set, so even though we were sitting center-stage, I had to watch the screen for quite a bit because I couldn't see. Or any time I COULD see, they had to have a bro hug. The guy sitting a couple down from them made it totally worth it, though: long and luxurious, 80s metal band hair that went down to like, his waist. He was TOTALLY rocking out during Iron Maiden. I got a couple of awesome pictures of him. We walked past him on the way out and I wanted to tell him I got some good ones so I could give them to him, but I couldn't really think of how to say it without sounding like a creeper. Decided I'll just keep them for my own amusement instead.

Got some great pictures of Alice Cooper, too. Took a couple of short videos, but mostly because I was trying to figure out how to use the video camera option on my phone :P Recorded the whole performance of "Poison". As it turns out, I know most of the songs that he played. Most of them sounded familiar even though I didn't know the words/only knew the chorus (i.e., hey stoopid). For Maiden, got a few good pictures (again, hard to take pics when you can't effin see!). Recorded the entire intro into and through the first songs (Seven Seas? something like that I think). Joe also recorded Number of the Beast since that's one of his faves.

On the way in, we debated about whether to park in the free arena lot or pay 30 bucks for the easy out. Turns out I got in the wrong lane, so we ended up parking in the free lot. It's an hour drive from home so we figured it would be 2-3 hours until we got home, especially based on our last experience at the Patriots game. The show ended about 11pm, I was home and in bed by 1am. And yes, now I'm up, writing this and getting ready for work at 6:30am. I've actually been up since 5:45am, since I did manage to squeeze in a 30 minute workout, too.

All in all, last night was a blast! I still can't believe it was only our 2nd concert together, but it's difficult when we have widely different tastes in music. Plus, while I'm willing to go to/experience anything once, Joe is a little (a lot) harder to convince, even if I can promise him that he'll have a good time (see: Kenny Chesney).

That's all for now. Still need to eat breakfast and make coffee. Will probably get the pics off my phone tonight. Might post 'em up on here, too. We'll see.

quick post cause i really shoulda left for work a few minutes ago, but i forgot to post this the other day:

I FINALLY HAVE BUSINESS CARDS! WITH *MY* INFO ALREADY ON THEM! I DON'T HAVE TO USE SOMEONE ELSE'S AND WRITE MY STUFF ON THE BACK!!