If the post title compels you to start singing that song by the Killers, by all means, do so. Yesterday was chockablock full of things to do. First, at 11 am, I helped a climbing friend move back onto her college campus; she recently had ankle surgery and is on crutches, so a helping hand was needed. I got sweaty very quickly; it was humid and we got everything moved out of the house, into cars, out of cars, and into the dorm in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Intense.

Then I went down to Princeton to meet up with my friend Sara to pick up something she was holding for me (technically, for my mother - but I was happy to play liaison) and then hang out for a bit. We wandered around the Princeton University campus for a while. It’s lovely. Quite lovely. Drew University in Madison, NJ, also has a lovely tree-filled campus, but Princeton kicks its ass with architecture (in some cases, Gothic - which is gorgeous) and sculptures on the grounds. See below for photographic evidence of the sculpture and the architecture:

"Big Figures" by Madgalena Abakanowicz

Alexander Hall at Princeton University

While in Princeton, I also had some delicious gelato - a scoop each of roasted cashew, Anjou pear and SWEET BASIL. They were all quite good - the flavors were amazing and unexpected (esp. sweet basil). The consistency, while good, didn’t quite measure up to the awesomeness of the gelato I had at the Capogiro Gelato Artisans locations in Philadelphia.

Around dinnertime, my brother joined us since he lives about 10 minutes outside of Princeton. So we went and had some Indian food for dinner, along with a fairly tasty Shiraz - Fools Bay Dusty’s Desire Shiraz from the university liquor store across the street. BYOB is nice.

We walked around a bit to make sure we were all OK to drive… stopped and had tea at a Starbucks… and then went on our merry ways. I got home around 10:30, so it was a fairly long day.

And today is all about cleaning. More purging of stuff. I’ve got two more boxes of books for Goodwill, as well as two bags of clothing… and possibly a whole pile of CDs. We shall see how inspired I am to simply throw shit out. I am quite a packrat, so I know the dangers of deliberating too much over whether or not to keep things. Most times, I just have to tell myself, “NO!” and chuck it.

In the long run, it will make it much easier for me to load a moving truck in the coming months (a search on Craigslist today yielded some decent results, so I just have to prepare myself for “comfortable financial readiness” so I can afford to buy any missing niceties and not screw myself by biting off more than I can chew - as I’ve done in the past).

Some of the beauty I observed at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Have you ever heard a name as fantastic as Coffin Colket? There was apparently a period of time in the not-so-distant past where the names Sarah, Emma, William and Coffin were plentiful. OK, well the last one was not AS plentiful as the others, but it’s interesting, no? I have seen it in pictures. Like this one:

Now that my non-migraine-but-still-horrible headache from last night is gone, I’d like to finish telling about my fun weekend in Philly. Sunday was cemetery day. Laurel Hill Cemetery, as a matter of fact. It was lovely. There was conversation about zombies and daylight and whatnot, but I’m truly not creeped out by cemeteries. Nor am I morbidly fascinated by them. Laurel Hill is a historic site full of amazingly beautiful (and yes, sometimes eerie) monuments and tombs and graves and headstones.

Some more info:

Today, Laurel Hill is… an estimated 78-acre tract of land that is divided into three sections—the North, Central and South portions of the Cemetery—that were each founded at different times in the site’s development. Laurel Hill is one of the only cemeteries in the nation to be honored with the designation of National Historic Landmark, a title received in 1998. Countless prominent people are buried at the Cemetery, including many of Philadelphia’s leading industrial magnates. Names such as Rittenhouse, Widener, Elkins and Strawbridge certainly pique local interests, but Laurel Hill also appeals to a national audience. General Meade and thirty-nine other Civil War-era generals reside here, in addition to six Titanic passengers.

So there. I’ll be posting more photos in the future. It’s just hard to choose  — and until I get my ass in gear and do something fun with Flickr or the like and get a slideshow embedded somewhere, I’m doing it the low-tech way, homez.

After walking around the cemetery, taking photos for a few hours, we were pretty damn hungry. I asked Sara where there was a place with many food choices that was open on a Sunday. She said something about Reading Market; the look on my face must’ve said something like, “What are you talking about?” or “Carry on… this name intrigues me…” because she was like, “Have you been?” and I was all like, “No!” and she was like, “OK… we’re going!” And we went to Reading Terminal Market. Since it was a Sunday, the Amish were not there selling fresh homemade ice cream and such.

I did manage, however, to have a delicious turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich. And buy some linden honey. And observe many many chemists eating lunch and milling about talking ’bout chemistry stuff as the American Chemical Society’s annual convention was taking place at the convention center across the street. In terms of convention food? They WIN. I’ve worked a fair share of conventions and trade shows in my day and the food selection at most convention centers (I include NY, Boston and DC in this grouping) is abysmal.

Once lunch was gotten, we… umm… went to get more gelato at Capogiro. And then walked more. Checked out the fountain and the LOVE sculpture at JFK Plaza. Sadly, I did not get any good photos of this as I left my camera in the car whilst we got lunch and didn’t return to get it between. I took one with my cell phone. Here’s what that produced:

A wee bit grainy. Oh, well.

And then, I basically got packed and went home. I still haven’t recounted the misery of the voyage there and back. It was a bit of a suckfest - BoltBus and Greyhound both. Another day perhaps. Another day.

was telling a friend at work about my weekend in Philly; she remarked (not at all unkindly), “you had quite the hipster weekend!”

I will recount the stories of my annoying travel at a later time; it’s over, I got there and back safely, with my head intact despite a voyage on a Greyhound bus. And a BoltBus. I did both and neither experience was particularly good. At all. ANYWAY.

After arriving in Philadelphia at 10pm on Friday night, that night was spent eating and talking with my friend Sara - and her cat Gus. Here is a small photo of Gus. He’s photo-worthy, despite his more than slightly cranky-whiny demeanor. He was also uncharacteristically friendly towards me this weekend; normally, he does a sort of bipolar thing where he’s all rubbing up on your leg, seeming to say, “PET ME!” - only to turn on you and hiss the moment you pet him. NOT SO, this weekend. I got to pet Fluffy McCrankyPants several times.

Saturday morning, Sara had a haircut at American Mortals. Their motto,”Mullets, not bullets” sort of says it all. Fun cool hipster hair styling. They’re a bumble & bumble salon, so extra points from me. While Sara got her hairs cut, I sat and observed two stylists figure out how to play rummy 500 or ‘Go Fish’, debate the finer points of cribbage (Ben Franklin’s favorite card game, FYI) and we also discussed knitting, childrens’ books (”Everyone Poops”, “The Gas We Pass”). It was good times.

Then, since we were in the area (that area being the Rittenhouse area of Philly, a well-known shopping area), we decided to do some shopping and get lunch somewhere along Walnut Street. A shop that caught my eye immediately was one called Ten Thousand Villages. They’ve a few locations, but we were at the Philly location. The idea behind this store is that it’s all fair trade goods made by village artisans. I’ll post photos tomorrow, but I found a lovely aqua shawl (to replace the sweatshirt I always put on at work when I’m feeling chilly - this is a far better choice professionally) and a chunky blue/turquoise necklace. Not real turquoise, but I’m OK with that.

We stopped at a few other shops including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and the farmer’s market at Rittenhouse Square. The Amish were out in full effect with beautiful flowers and produce and brown eggs. I wanted to take photos, but I was conflicted; I wasn’t going to buy any produce since we were going to be walking around for a few more hours and it would get gross and wilted. Knowing that I wouldn’t be buying anything, I felt that photographing their wares would be a bit like theft. Also, I’m just crazy.

After looking at tables and baskets and boxes of beautiful produce and flowers (white eggplant including one that looked like it had a nose, all manner of apples, daisies that looked as though they’d been splattered with red paint - but weren’t), we were pretty damn hungry. Sooo… we walked back down Walnut Street to a lunch spot that had captured our attention later - Maoz Vegetarian. Think of it as Chipotle or Qdoba, but instead of a burrito, it’s falafel on a pita. There’s a fixins’ bar where you can top off your falafel and pita with tasty veggie toppings like pickled baby eggplant, tabouli, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro sauce, hummus, tahini, etc. You get a side of Belgian fries (yes, served in the paper cone; yes, served with the large crunchy salt crystals; yes, covered over with foil). Delicious. I’m excited to see that they have locations in NYC.

We did some more walking and it was getting pretty hot. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen - or get some GELATO. In this case, gelato from artisans. That’s what the sign says, anyway. The artisans part. Not the kitchen part. Capogiro Gelato. They also have a location or two in NYC. They’ve got lovely flavors like fig, thai coconut milk, peach, blackberry, chocolate with caramelized hazelnuts, dulce de leche… incredible. I had the bolded flavors. Not all on Saturday. Nope. We went back for more on Sunday.

With our tummies full, we took the train back to Sara’s region of Philly. Here’s a shot of the Market East station. I love the color. Shellac-alicious red bench against the green tiles. Mmmmm.

That night, we went to Chestnut Hill, a slightly more yuppie shopping area in Philly. We walked around, but most of the shops were closed since it was after five. So we had dinner. Delicious dinner at a Persian restaurant—Shundeez Persian Restaurant, where I ordered Addas Polo, half of a Cornish game hen served with basmati rice, flavored with lentils, onion, raisins, dates, cinnamon and saffron. It was delicious. Absolutely delicious. Amazingly delicious. I will be working to recreate this dish using couscous. Tomorrow.

We also went to the Borders store there. Sara and I met and became friends when we were both working at a Borders store here in NJ (sigh, in our younger days). When walking out of the Borders, we started singing “Memory.” As in, “from the musical Cats“. As in, “immortalized by Miss Barbra Streisand.” We did it.

Thankfully, the streets were pretty empty and we didn’t end up with a string of alley cats following us back to the car. We went back to her apartment and talked to Gus, had some tea, and started watching Vidor’s Gilda (one of my favorite noir films and one about which I wrote a couple of papers in college film courses). But we were tired and I think Sara nodded off, and I soon thereafter. The next thing I knew, it was Sunday morning.

Speaking of Sunday, I’ll write about that tomorrow. This is a long-ass post and Sunday held magical wonders like the Reading Terminal Market and Laurel Hill Cemetery. And Target, but Target is a sort of everyday magical wonder.

I don’t want to be back (home, from visiting my friend Sara in Philly), really, but getting back was such a pain in the ass, I am relieved to be back.

More tomorrow when I will probably break it up into two posts: 1) to describe the comedy of errors and ineptitude that was using a bus to get to Philadelphia and 2) to talk about all the fun stuff we saw and did while there. I took many photos.

Here’s my current favorite of the batch - it’s a little bridge/trestle on the way to the Chestnut Hill area of Philly. We were just driving by and I stuck the camera out the window and tried to get as steady a shot as I could; I think it came out pretty well:

Cleaning is boring me. But I have a few more hours to do this before I join my mother and brother for dinner - and then attend an evening of Chinese music and dance at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, performed by Divine Performing Arts.

I’m also thinking that on Thursday night (the only night I’ll have free this week) I might do some blog redesign - because CHANGE IS GOOD.

Tomorrow is Monday and I’m already tired thinking about what I’ve got to do this week. I’ve got a conference Monday through Wednesday, and business dinners Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday night is rock-climbing, and Friday after work I’m leaving for Philly to visit my friend Sara. This week I will truly be working for the weekend.

Rather than driving to Philly and dealing with weekend traffic, expensive gas and scarce parking, I’m taking BoltBus down, so I’ll have to report back on that experience. It’s $26 round trip from NYC to Philly, which is about $10 less than what it would cost me in gas, but I’m saving myself some stress - I hope. My friend at work has used BoltBus before and said she liked them better than Vamoose; she’s taken both to D.C. - but only Bolt goes to Philly. It’s also got free wi-fi, but I don’t have a laptop. Ah, well. I’ll have to deal with being disconnected for a brief while. Or, I can update via email from my cell phone. There is a way. It’s magical.

Anyway - that’s what I’ve got heading my way. I’ll definitely be bringing my camera since there’s a beautiful old cemetery (Laurel Hill Cemetery) I want to photograph, as well as the Arboretum at the Barnes Foundation, and just the city of Philadelphia itself.

There, now. Thinking about that is making me feel a little less stressed. I’ll practice with my scripts for the conference when I get home tonight. I want to keep part of this weekend to myself.

Today, I drove down to Philadelphia: 270+ miles round trip. That’s about 3/4 of a tank of gas with my car’s nice fuel economy. Sweet!

My reason for going was that my friend Sara alerted me to the presence of the Art Star Craft Bazaar. So, my friend Theresa and I drove down, met up with Sara and went over to experience the crafty joys. And spend some money. I was actually there for work purposes, but I won’t write about those here (church vs. state, you know?)

It was held along the water at Penn’s Landing. Lots of tents filled with beautiful handmade, incredibly creative and unique pieces… clothing, jewelry, pottery, toys, stationery, prints, paintings, health and beauty products. Nice nice.

I picked up a few fun things - like this really cool alphabet print from The Small Object (# 107 of 300) which I will be framing as soon as I can spend more money on something like that. “L” is for lint. “U” is for underdog. It’s adorable.

I’ve been wanting smallish earrings, and these were inexpensive and lovely - those are small pictures of tree branches against a blue sky. As recent posts have shown, I’m having a tree thing lately. And I’m trying to remember the name of this shop, but I’m blanking right now. I’ll look through the business cards I collected and go from there.

My favorite, though, is this necklace. I saw several silver necklaces I really liked, but in the end, I chose this one since I thought it was the most “me.” It’s from 12linden, the company name for jewelry designer Eliza Mundy. I’ve admired her pieces on Etsy, but I was able to touch and see… and that made me buy it.

You can see a bit of the pink I developed from being out in the sun. Finally, I got this cute hair clip/bobby pin from Art School Dropout. The gray is a bit lighter, actually, but you get the idea.

I also purchased a handful of Mean Cards (when you get to the homepage, click on Mean Cards) - these very minimalist but hilarious greeting cards. There’s one they didn’t have in stock, but which I will most likely order online that says on the front, “Thank you for thanking me.” - inside, “You’re welcome.” One I did buy says “everything dies” - inside: “A friendly reminder.” Good times.

There were so many other things. I could’ve easily spent an entire months’ wages there. Thankfully, I did not. Nowhere close. I controlled myself. But this means the temptation factor on Etsy will be even higher since I’ve now SEEN these things in person. Goodness gracious.