I am hanging out at work. Someone is getting a massage in back, so I'm staying quiet and keeping myself busy. I get paid to read (and blog)! How wonderful.

I spent the past few days in New York. I decided to head up with my friend Lukas, who needed to catch a plane out of La Guardia yesterday morning. We stayed in the Stolen Sleeve Collective, which is always a wonderful thing to do. Those kids are great. I had some wonderful food and learned about men's style-- not fashion. "Fashion is about spending money; style is about looking good." That's almost straight from the lips of Jack Samuel. Anyway. I rode up on Wednesday with Lukas and said goodbye to him very early Saturday morning. I actually didn't go to sleep before saying goodbye to him, so I don't know whether to call it Saturday morning or Friday night. It was a very sleepy farewell. I hope he decides to come back to this coast for his winter break.

There are so many vegan restaurants in New York! It was rather novel to have that many options. I ended up deferring to others' judgment most of the time about where to eat, because I didn't know one from the other. Falafel, a burrito, a sloppy joe, and some incredible peanut butter fudge ice cream. And the ice cream wasn't even soy-based! Magical.

I've been tearing my way through The Lord of the Rings. I can't believe I didn't read it before now. I was about halfway through The Two Towers and expected to finish it on the bus back down. Unfortunately, I finished it while hanging out at Stolen Sleeves. Of course, I couldn't take a four or five hour bus trip without a book, so I borrowed one of Jack's. I thought that I'd see him this weekend, but it looks like I'll have to return it through Trey when he goes up for the Braddock meeting. I'm nearly 200 pages into On the Road. I feel like I'm cheating on Tolkien, but I can't stop now. I'll just have to get back to Frodo after my dalliance with Paradise.

Trey put my new bike together. I rode it to work today. How exciting! It's my first road bike, so that's something to get used to. My brakes are a bit stiff, so that's something too. I was a little shaky on my way this morning, but I'm getting the hang of it. I should be totally set in a couple days. This bike is so much lighter than my old one! It's so nice to feel that I'm not moving around much more than my body weight. And it's so small! It almost looks like a kid's bike, but I guess that's what I get for being shy of 5'3".

I have just been left in charge of the shop! Just now! She gave me the key! I'm in charge of the rest of the day. Wow. I feel so powerful.