The apartment has recently acquired a great many things, among them, a fish tank, six fish, a chair, and another TV.

But before I show you any of that, look at this squirrel:

He was pretty cool. The picture, alas, is not.

So here’s my massive module of desk/etc. now that my TV is in my bedroom:

And here’s the other corner:

And here’s the most exciting thing of all:

The fish probably weren’t too happy about my flash. My mom says black mollies get sick really easy and then Grace read that they are the most frequently mistreated fish (or maybe it was misunderstood… something like that) so she’s off to buy something else. I think.

Why are there so many Irish songs about young women dying? Did Irish women just die young all the time in those days? And did everyone have amazing life-changing love affairs with them before they did?

Sometimes when I’m listening to a sad song with great lyrics I wish I were in a fitting mood so that I could quote it somewhere. I’m not in this mood (I hope no one I know is), but I do love this song:

Life just kind of empties out
Less a deluge than a drought
Less a giant mushroom cloud
Than an unexploded shell
Inside a cell
Of the Lennox Hotel

I think it’s interesting that, for all the devastatingly depressing songs Aimee Mann writes, she has said you can’t write while depressed. I think it’s nice too that I’m realizing I can listen to this stuff without being depressed, too. Although, it is easier when she gives you a story to go along with it, so you feel less of that need to apply it to yourself, however abstractly.

It’s boring here. Everyone needs to come back. Or not work so much. Or I need to be given more hours. There are three options there. One of them should really be possible.

I’ve been learning a lot about myself in all this boredom. Like that I shouldn’t tell someone buying my bed that a check is okay when really I want cash and so that I have to tell them that later. And that I make really boring, small dinners.

Really I have no news because it’s so dull here.

Big news: There’s another E Fitzpatrick at Macalester.

This morning, my sole and lonely e-mail was from a woman at Facilities Management informing me that my work study had been placed there and that I had a mandatory orientation coming up. Now, I knew this was not true, because 1) I do not have work study and 2) I have a job at that vital organ of academia, the CDC. As clever as I am, I deduced the truth of the situation, and e-mailed the woman back explaining that she might want to e-mail someone she actually hired about this mandatory orientation.

Anyway, this is exciting. School hasn’t even started and I’m already getting this person’s e-mail!

I scared the girl upstairs today. She’s been playing her music in the mornings, at a volume (I don’t know how loud it actually is) that means I can hear it through the floor. So I wrote her a note and stuck it on her door this morning. It wasn’t a mean note. I got a note back this evening that was pitifully apologetic and then I felt bad. But later she started playing her music loud again so then I stopped pitying her. Only actually I do hope I didn’t really scare her. Oh well. She’s moving out soon anyway, so then I can accidentally terrify someone new.

Living alone is weird. I keep hearing tiny noises and wondering if someone’s in the apartment. I think I’m ready for my roomie. Then I can stop freaking out at every little noise that’s not me or the microwave.

Yo. Am back in St. Paul. I’m only scheduled to work twice this week so I don’t really know what I’ll be doing with the rest of my excessive amount of time. Perhaps I will start by getting a site tracker.

I got pink Ugg boots. There are two qualifications I’d like to give to that statement: 1) They were free. 2) They’re actually not the really popular pink color, they’re darker. I’m not sure how much better that is, but I’m going to wear them anyway. Don’t judge me!

My parents are busy playing with their new toys (an iPod and a Bose iPod sound system) so I have swiped the computer for a few minutes.

Yesterday was Jessica’s 21st birthday. This called for Grand Celebrations. In preparation for a lunch-time lunch, I got up at 11 yesterday. Alas, I did not then follow with the next few steps of that process and at 11:30 got a call from the birthday girl telling me she was going to come get me. I used my powers of persuasion to get her to postpone for 20 minutes (mostly by telling her I was in my pjs) and then we went to Panda Express with the lovely K.T.. I actually have a picture from that but I didn’t upload it. The spastic server offered to take a picture of us, which was nice, and quite a contrast to his spasticness, at which we spent several moments in wonder.

Then Katie went back to work. Jessica and I went shopping. I bought a wallet, since I’ve needed one since tenth grade when I spilled sunscreen on my old one, or since it started breaking a year or two ago. Then we went home and chatted with her mom. Eventually I went home.

At 9:00, we reconvened (in greater number) at Jessica’s to eat homemade cheesecake and marvel at her new laptop.

Here are Katie, Tracy, and Didi sitting charmingly at the table.

We stood up to take a picture, and…

chaos ensued, as a result of Jessica’s accosting Katie (not pictured and similarly never explained).

It continued.

Somehow Tracy got us all calmed down. She has that talent.

Then we went to Northgate. I never realized there were so many bars. At one, Bagel’s band was playing, so we ran into him, his little brother, and a few other people I thought had disappeared to an alternate universe.

Did you know they can make shots that taste like chocolate cake?

Today my mom, cousin, and I went and looked at puppies. That was fun too. We didn’t take any home with us. There was a girl, holding a puppy, standing around with a couple of friends, and thinking about adopting it, who turned to one of them and said, “Why don’t you love him?” I agreed. He was pretty cute. How could you not?

I go back to St. Paul tomorrow. Then we can bring the ruckus.

This morning my eyeballs were tested. They were poked, prodded, blown air at, dilated, measured, stared at with bright lights, and made to read things they couldn’t see. They passed the test. Well, as much as they ever do. In fact, for once she did ask me how many fingers she was holding up, and I said two. It was four. I love my eyes, but honestly, they could be a little less bad at seeing things. I was sitting in this office waiting for my eyes to dilate (and dilate they did, I looked really strange—somehow making irises into two large pupils really makes people look alien) thinking that maybe hearing aid technology would be way better if more people had shitty ears than have shitty eyes. I used to question how people in stories (think Twelfth Night) could so easily mix people up for other people, until my mom mentioned that people then didn’t have corrective lenses. Then it all made sense. Facial features disappear with bad vision. So do facial expressions. And somehow, when I take off my glasses, I automatically assume that the blindness is mutual, and make whatever faces I want to people’s comments before realizing that, yes, they can see me grimace and roll my eyes. It’s just me who can’t see them. The lesson to be learned from this: bad vision=worse social skills.

Anyway, I wore my glasses home, which turned out to be not the best idea because it meant I had to wear those weird aeronautic-looking eye shades instead of my regular sunglasses. I had to tuck them inside my glasses or they wouldn’t stay on my face. It was beautiful. Maybe I should’ve worn them out of the house and started a new fashion trend.

The result of all this is that no, I’m not getting exciting new Valentino glasses like my mom’s, but I am getting new contacts, simply because my old ones are “extremely coated” (says my eye doctor), which really means crapped-out dirty.

Some day I will have laser eye surgery. One eye at a time so I don’t accidentally go blind.

Well, that blew. In a stroke of — well, honestly I don’t know what, the Astros lost to the Pirates. This stunning loss involved letting them have a grand slam in the eighth inning and getting no runs at all themselves. I mean, come on, the Pirates suck. Hopefully, though, in the long run, this game will be a small spot on a record that would look good if the Cardinals weren’t beating everyone within sight.

But let’s be honest, I don’t care that much about baseball. I got a mug though, because I went and got myself a rootbeer float (during which time I missed runs 3 and 4 by the Pirates). And I could definitely use more cups. So, at the end of the day, here’s the real score:

Pirates: 8
Astros: 0
Eileen: 1 new cup

I think the winner here is clear. (Me.)