Erin Writes

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

At the beginning of the week, I got an email from Jen about Artisan Day at the UB Farmer’s Market. They were looking for artists and crafters to set up…this Saturday, August 1.

After a brief moment of panic (this Saturday? holy crap!), I decided to do it…and so I’ve been busybusybusy all week. This is why I’ve not actually been in front of the computer all that much. I’ll post some photos later of what I’ve been working on.

So anyway, if you’re interested, I’ll be at the UB Farmer’s Market tomorrow from 9-1 (UB South Campus on the Main Street sidewalks across from Kenmore Avenue in Buffalo). Please stop by and say hi!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Text stolen from an email Rand sent his friends:

Sixteen years ago, Ookla the Mok performed their first live show at a bar in Buffalo called Broadway Joe’s. Ten years ago, Greg Klyma left the security of a day job and began the life of a professional touring musician. Ookla and Greg (along with friends Tom Bianchi and Sick) will celebrate these variant anniversaries by performing a show together at Broadway Joe’s on August 1.

This show will serve as CD release party for Greg’s new album, “Rust Belt Vagabond,” as well as a return for Ookla to the venue that started it all.

The Place: Broadway Joe’s
3051 Main Street (Buffalo)
http://bjoes. com/

The Date: Friday, August 1, 2008

The Time: Doors at 7:30, show at 8:00

The Price: Ten dollars at the door.

Please help us spread the word — let anyone you know who loves Greg Klyma or Ookla the Mok know about this show. While you’re at it, let anyone you know who you *think* might love Ookla the Mok or Greg Klyma know about the show as well.

And as always, thanks for the support!

Coming to Buffalo for, oh, I dunno...any special events? Near a Southwest hub? Still need to buy airline tickets? Then you might be interested in this:

Buffalo is Southwest Airlines' "featured destination" through June 9.

:)

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Forgive me for quoting a 15-year-old country song as my subject line.

I have to say, the weather sure didn’t help in making me want to crawl out from under the covers this morning. I’m not going to complain about the rain, because I know we need it, but ugh. Can’t we have some nice, moderate temperatures for a little while? Is that too much to ask?

The Friday night show at Nietzche’s was fun. I did take some photos, but they’re still on my camera. I’ll get around to posting them eventually. The rest of the weekend? Not much to speak about. Mostly trying to clean up/organize/pack…meanwhile, we wait for an official closing date. Apparently the seller got her lawyer out of a Cracker Jack box. (I can’t take credit for that; it was all Rand.)

Did a bit of shopping yesterday, but it was mostly a bust. Rand bought a pair of pants and a couple of t-shirts. I didn’t buy anything. I did come home and order a few things from Chadwick’s, though, for a very reasonable price. I got $25 off my order and $5 shipping. I hope it all fits! I love shopping online, but I hate having to send things back.

I’m a little more than halfway through Duma Key. I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and regret that I don’t have larger chunks of time to devote to reading. I should be *done* by now!

I’ve got some chicken marinading for dinner, and I should probably figure out what else we’re going to have with it. Hope you’re all having a happy Monday. Later!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Whenever I start writing “a little bit of…” I always start singing “Mambo #5″ in my head. Is it wrong for me to kind of like that song?

Ahem. Anyway, it’s been a busy week. Grading? Almost done…yeah, yeah, I’ve got class in an hour and a half. What’s your point? I’ve ventured out of the apartment to grade papers a couple of times this week. Yesterday, I walked down the street to Starbucks and got myself a sugar-free cinnamon dolce latte, sat with my shiny new iPod (which I did find a wee bit of time to play with this week–more on that later) and graded papers. It was most productive.

While I was at Starbucks, a random guy came up to me to tell me that he liked my hair!

“I love girls with short hair,” he said, “and I just had to tell you that yours is adorable.”

Aww. *Blush*

He also said that he noticed I had a ring and figured I was engaged. “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

“That figures,” he said. Then he told me to have a great day, and left. I feel for the guy…I’ve totally been there…but random compliments are never a bad thing!

Today, I spent some time grading at Caffe Aroma before meeting Rand for lunch. We went to Tru Teas on Elmwood, which is a really cute place. I’d love to go there for high tea sometime! (I’ve been to high tea exactly once–in Scotland) I had the ginger carrot soup and an order of hummus with flatbread. Yummy!

Today, I had my manicure and pedicure. While I was having my toes done, I spent some time rereading The House on Mango Street, which I’m going to start teaching next week. I have, so far, made zero progress on preparing lessons.

And, I think I can talk about this now publicly…Rand and I are going to be closing on a town house in approximately a month. Can we talk about how crazy I’m going to be for the next couple of months? Teaching? Moving? Planning a wedding? Ack! Good thing I’ve got yoga to keep me somewhat grounded and sane. (Being back in class this week was awesome, and I SO needed it.)

Okay, I have to run. These last few papers aren’t gonna grade themselves…

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Well, BufBloPoFo-08 comes to a close…can you believe it?

BufBloPoFo Topic for Day 14: Link to whatever you posted exactly one year ago (or whatever’s closest), and give your readers an update on that topic. If you haven’t been writing for a year, give us a list of three or four things that are going on in your life right now that you’ll want to update one year from now at the end of BufBloPoFo09.

Hrm. Well, what I blogged about one year ago today is hardly update-worthy. I reviewed Adam Selzer’s book How to Get Suspended and Influence People. 

A day earlier, I blogged about my weekend,  which involved watching movies, making brownies, and meeting with Jen and Samantha for our short-lived book club.

The next day, I blogged about discovering J. Wood’s Lost blog at Powell’s.

Two years ago, March 15 2006 (I didn’t post on the 14th), I mentioned having met my ex on the Ides of March.

And yeah, there are three or four things I might be blogging about next year. Like this, maybe. 

And hey, by the way, happy pi day!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

In response to today’s BufBloPoFo prompt:

BufBloPoFo Topic for Day 6: What kind of stuff (toys, books, TV shows) were you into when you were a kid? Do you think that had an effect on what kind of a person you are today?

Hmm…I had lots of the typical toys of a child of the 70s/80s. Hungry Hungry Hippos. Lite Brite. Viewmaster, Sit’n Spin, Etch-a-Sketch. I played with Barbies and Strawberry Shortcake dolls, My Little Pony, the Rubiks Cube, Cabbage Patch Kids (I had two). I enjoyed all that stuff, and I think that they serve as cultural markers–in some ways, we’re all identified by these things…the toys we played with, and the music we listened to, and the shows we watched on TV.

But of everything, I think the things that most influenced me were my books. I’ve always been a reader, ever since I can remember. I continue to tell people that my favorite book of all time was and continues to be A Wrinkle in Time. I loved the Chronicles of Narnia, particularly The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Another one of my favorites was the lesser-known The Girl with the Silver Eyes. I absolutely ate up anything magical, anything extraordinary, and I so desperately wanted it to be real. I wanted to open a door and emerge in a different world. I wanted to bend the rules of space and time. I wanted to be able to move things with my mind. I loved these books, and I read them over and over and over again. It was in those stories, I think, that my desire to be a writer first emerged. I wanted to be able to make other people feel the way I felt when I was reading.

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

For the first day of BufBloPoFo, the topic assigned was “tell us about your blog.” I answered this question back in June at this post, but here’s an excerpt:

When did you begin your first blog and what inspired you to do so?

I started my first blog (titled rather boringly “erin’s blog”) in late 2002 or early 2003. I was inspired by my good friend Eden of So Anyway, who had sung the praises of blogging and first sent me the link to Blogger to help me get started.

My blog sat mostly empty for quite some time. I posted now and then throughout early 2003, and when I began student teaching in the fall of 2003, I started a second blog-my online student teaching journal. (I don’t think that one’s online at this point…)

The thing that really got me blogging regularly was The Breakup in the fall of 2003. My long-term BF rather abruptly called it quits, and I began blogging regularly both as a way of dealing with my feelings and letting my friends know what was going on in my life without having to tell the same stories over and over and over again.

When I started dating again, I blogged about my experiences to entertain people, and soon I had a small but loyal readership!

Unfortunately, the vast majority of those early posts were lost in the Tragic Blog Incident. (I accidentally deleted my database. Don’t ask…)

Since those early days, I’ve changed urls a couple of times (the first one I chose was too close to the email address I had at the time, and I thought that was a mistake, given the topics I was blogging about. ) and moved from Blogger to hosting my own blog using a Wordpress format. I like it here.

This is the first post in existence on my current blog, from March of 2004, almost four years ago. A few of my older posts (from Blogger) are still floating around the net somewhere, but most are gone forever. Eh, what are ya gonna do…

I do believe my first real post (January 2003) was about Super Bowl commercials.

Almost exactly a year ago, I completed a meme asking for 5 reasons why I blog. It took me a while to find that so I could link to it, but there it is!

And how did I choose my blog name? I dunno…it just amused me.

I maintain several other blogs (some of which are more active than others…you can find the links either on that first post I linked to above or on the “about me” page. Also, there’s my recently formed wedding blog, with the boring name “Erin’s Wedding Blog.” I’ll take suggestions for a new name. )

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

This is where we used to live.

And this is what’s going up in its place.

It’s strange. Surreal, even. I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around it enough to get introspective, but you might want to read Jen’s post. 759 Lafayette was sort of our last hurrah as single girls, where we lived when we both met our respective mates and moved on to start a new chapter in our lives, and it’s hard to think of it being gone.

And powerlust posted a link to the Buffalo ReUse flickr set. I haven’t looked at them yet.

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Stay away from Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Kelly wrote an excellent post in response to Buffalo Geek’s post about his horrible customer service experience, and he suggested that we Buffalo bloggers pitch in to help. Since Kelly’s post was teh awesome, here it is in its entirety:

BuffaloGeek recently made a vehicle purchase at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, and the resulting transaction with Joe Cecconi Chrysler did not go well. It seems that the people at Joe Cecconi Chrysler consider customer service to have ended as soon as the vehicle is off the lot, and that any attempt by a customer to procure more service from Joe Cecconi Chrysler constitutes attempted theft of services or something similar. It appears that lying and refusing to talk to customers is the way things are done at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, which is a shame. It’s not like there are lots of other Chrysler dealerships in the region; why, Joe Cecconi Chrysler is just about the only place to by a Chrysler for a fifty-mile radius, so it’s not like the guys at Joe Cecconi Chrysler will miss out on commissions if word of the abysmal, combative, and downright rude customer service at Joe Cecconi Chrysler should get out.

So shop at Joe Cecconi Chrysler if you must, folks, but hold on to your wallets, and make sure you get all the service you think you’ll ever need before you sign the dotted line with the salespeople at Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Remember that name: Joe Cecconi Chrysler. That’s a name you can trust.

Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Do read the whole story if you haven’t already…