It’s all Chiara, all the time.

Well, first things first. Another friend of mine is getting married. This weekend, in fact. Another Anna and I were suite-mates in college for a while, and have had a bit of tumultuous history together. We’re very alike, except she’s…more so. We fell out of touch about two years ago and to be honest I…

Don’t you love it when journallers write an entry about how they have nothing to say? I’ve been doing that quite a bit in the last couple of days. I’m doing it today, but I guess “today of all days” or maybe “now more than ever” it’s especially ridiculous. There’s a lot of good writing…

I think this entry is supposed to be about drug use, right? If the movie is a clue? That’s the one where it’s the seventies and they paddle the freshmen and Parker Posey is skinny and scary and Ben Affleck has freakish sideburns and what’s-her-name that has the annoying voice and was in Chasing Amy…

Thanks to Jessamyn for showing me how to link with a picture! For some reason, I got to go to California for two weeks with my best friend the summer I graduated from high school. Just the two of us. Our parents paid for everything. Can you believe it? Man. Thanks, Mom! Thanks, Mr. and…

I’ve just been wanting to share this picture. That’s all. This entry is just an excuse to do that. I’ve spent most of my work day being ridiculous and making mistakes of such stupidity that my co-workers have been nice enough to just laugh at me instead of shoot me in the head. It feels…

Meh. 9:30 on a Sunday night and I’m updating. I don’t have a single thing to say. I can’t concentrate on anything. I just want to read a million online journals. I have a bunch of dishes in the sink. I got A Beautiful Mind to watch, mainly because I am interested in craziness and…

My Friend Manya emailed me to berate me for not choosing “Girl Talk Date Line” as my favorite board game in my last entry. Sorry, sorry. Okay. Girl Talk Date Line…it’s a board game. Did anyone else ever play this? I just Googled it, and not only is it no longer being made, but it’s…

All journallers have to do this. Here we go with the whole Hey, An Email Survey! thing. Ready? Living arrangement? Top half of a tiny blue duplex. What book are you reading now? Middlemarch, by George Eliot. What’s on your mouse pad? It’s orange and round, with concentric red circles on it. 50 cents at…

I weighed in at an online discussion about makeup today. Someone asked what makeup item folks couldn’t live without, and I said, “Uh, gee, none of them, I guess, because I don’t wear any.” Everyone else was talking about how they dye their eyelashes (!!) or love a certain lipstick or powder or whatever, and…

“Ah…lalalalalalalala. Ah…lalalalalalalala.” I can’t stop pretending to be Margaret Cho. I just can’t. Your nice-girl-goody-two-shoes friend Chiara has a secret, wordless love for this woman..the kind of secret, wordless love that causes you to proclaim in in a wordy, non-secret fashion in your online journal, apparently. Seeing her movie last night was like seeing her…

I’m feeling a little iffy about therapy lately. I don’t know exactly why. It’s a combination of the fact that I don’t get paid…and you all know how I love to get paid…and the fact that people keep cancelling their appointments. It’s not November and so no one’s seasonally affectively depressed, and so I sit…

Today is Carl’s birthday. He is twenty-seven today. Happy birthday Carl! We just got back from having dinner with his parents. Currently he’s in the other room sharpening his good knives and making me some carrot sticks for my lunch tomorrow. We’re going to my house as soon as he’s done (and I’m done typing)…

Hey there. Guess where I’m writing this from? My job! That’s right, I get the job back, and I am in at the office for something like an hour and a half now, and there’s no one else here, and so I don’t have a whole lot to do, so I’m writing a quick little…

I lost my job. Remember how my new friendly boss had said, go ahead and have a week with your mom? The reason she was able to do that was because she had to juggle her budget around and essentially create a new position for me. According to university policy, she had to post it.…

Here’s the good news: I had a great time with my mom this past week. She found a huge white lily just growing in the yard behind the mint plants, and brought it into the apartment, and that just set the tone for the rest of the week, somehow. We had a great time going…

Hey. Come over to my house right now. No, really. My house is soooooooooo clean, and I need you all to come over right this second and just look at it for me. Validation, please! As is required by law, I am cleaning my place intensively immediately preceding my mom’s visit in about 48 hours.…

Well, I did it. I got a job. I start Friday. I’m going to be working on another research project, in a completely different department, doing similar work to that I did before at my old horrible job, with a different population. My new boss (who, oddly enough, shares a name with my former crazy…

Apparently there’s nothing like shopping to put me in a good mood. Even though I’m broke. Even though I don’t like shopping. I think the key here was that a)I wasn’t shopping for clothes, and hence didn’t have to undress under fluorescent lights, and b)I was actually shopping for birthday presents and kitchen implements, and…

That’s where I didn’t go today. Forth. As in, out of my house. Okay, I’m lying. I went out once to check my email this morning (next door) and then I have ventured out again this evening…a full twelve hours later…to write tonight. Needless to say, there have been no cakes in the shape of…

Well, Abi and I have been having a very good week. It’s really nice, if you’re unemployed, to have your friends come and visit you, if they have jobs and are willing to sleep on your futon. I have been feeling like I want to go on a road trip lately. In a Eurovan, the…

Feeling tired? Sore? Stressed? Clearly, you need to know How To Go To The Spa. 10:00 Wake up. No, really. This late. You are Slacker McBedhead. Your Friend Abi is also just waking up on the purple futon. Having her here is like a continuation of the weekend’s party. Watch her make you a protein…

New and Improved! With linked pictures! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh man. Oh, I am so tired. I got smashed in the face during jello wrestling and hurt my wrist during the Amazing Water Circus. I got a splinter. I got a sunburn. I ate too much greasy, fatty, sugary, salty, crunchy, crispy, yummy food. My sides still hurt…

Does anyone out there want to date me? If so, I will make you cranberry muffins just like I made for Carl this morning. Maybe I will even not misread “1/4 teaspoon” as “1 teaspoon” of cinnamon…I mean, how did I even do that…and so the muffins might even be palatable. Just as an incentive.…

Chiara Mylastname, My House, My Street, Seattle, WA, My ZipCode OBJECTIVE To get a job at a cool agency doing semi-interesting work that will give me a paycheck and some goldang benefits, with cool co-workers and a flexible schedule. A really big paycheck. SKILLS Complaining vociferously to co-workers about boss Surreptitiously web surfing during work…

So, remember how I was going to the party last night for my favorite professor who done run off and moved back to Kansas? It was so fun. Pretty much every time I am just the least little bit social at all, I say about eight hundred times, “Boy, I am such a hermit! I…

It’s summer today That’s the real deal, I have to say. It’s 78 degrees today. When I lived in Miami, this would be an occasion to turn the air conditioning down to Low. We used to say the mark of someone brought up in South Florida was putting on a sweater at 70 degrees, just…

I don’t buy into the whole retail therapy thing. I certainly did at one point in my life, but a rather frugal year has made shopping real low on my priority list. I haven’t ever really liked it though. Stuff never seems to look right on me. I hate undressing under the fluorescent lights, and…

8:30 am: Roll on out of bed. Come on! Get up! Gotta get up! Can’t stay in bed all day! 8:40 am: No, really! Geeeeeeeet up! 9:05 am: Grumble. Half-assedly make bed. Think, “I have all day to make it.” Think that about the dishes, too. And the laundry. 9:30 am: Go down the basement…

I had two “terminations” yesterday at my volunteer gig, i.e. people who decided that they’re done with therapy. This can happen in several different ways. The most popular, by far, is when a client just stops coming. They cancel several sessions and then don’t reschedule and that’s kind of that. This is called “getting fired”…

Well, hello! Spruced up a bit, didn’t we? Well, I have a confession to make. I didn’t design this template or anything (click on “design” over there if you want to see who did). I was just so sick of Red and White. I am not so much into the flashy website thing, as you…

I know everyone is just so excited that it’s Outdoor Festival Season here in Seattle…even though the sun just refuses to come out, thereby lessening some of the pleasure, in my opinion. However, you’re excited anyway because you know I’ll be giving you the down low on every outdoor thing I go to, right? Well,…

Well, now, see, I was going to write a cute little entry like this one, all about how to go to the street fair with your sweetie. It was going to look something like this. You know how I do: Eat an elephant ear Carl never knows what these are, for some reason. I told…

Okay? Is everyone paying attention! I’m quite nervous, over here! About my work life…or lack thereof! About my love life! About how I’m not eating much lately, yet I continue to gain weight! Yes! A little twitchy, me! Well. That was cathartic. On to other news, also known as “I Have, Simultaneously, Too Much Going…

Well, I just got a call that the Large Mental Health Agency to which I applied and at which I interviewed on Friday doesn’t want me. “We really liked your energy, and we’d like to keep your name on file.” Hmm. “I really like you as a friend, but I’m not ready for a relationship…

Attention: “Chiara’s Boyfriend” is now most accurately spelled T-O-B-E-Y. Just an update, for those of you following along at home. But as you may have noticed from the title of this entry, we won’t be discussing his adorable lopsided smile or his entertainingly googly eyes today, nor the little butterflies in Chiara’s stomach that appeared…

Well. You will all be happy to know that there is a new feature here at Ampersand. Formerly, you scored a mention on your birthday or your anniversary. Whatever. Don’t look at me because you have this weird need for attention. But now, if you come to visit, you will not only get a mention,…

Yay! I just got back from a really good job interview. I’m not going to tell you all about it right now because I don’t want to jinx it, but I just wanted to state, for the record, that it’s been quite a while since I felt this excited about anything work-related at all. I…

Clearly the Lord doesn’t want me to work, ragazzi, because my first day of Official Unemployment has been so gorgeous. Blue sky, a loooooong day, cherry blossoms blowing in the wind, lunch outside on the steps, wonderful. So glad not to be in an office today. I don’t think it’s quite hit me that I…

Only three and a half more hours at this “job” and then it’s on to the greener pastures of unemployment, where a clean house, organized bills, baking projects, daily swims, and regular trips to the library await me. Oh, right, and increased loss of self-esteem, not to mention cash flow. Oh. Hmm. Yes. Well. But…

Now, don’t anybody get worried. I’m not going to try to emulate the brilliance of Sars or Pamie in talking about their cats. No. I know my own limits. It’s just that, well, I’m feeling a little sad right now, and there’s a lot going on in my heart and in my head, and the…

Hi yall, and welcome to the very first Ampersand Field Entry! I am writing this on my sister’s laptop in her apartment in lovely (and warm!) Tampa, Florida, part of my weeklong Central Florida Tour, consisting of Orlando, Oviedo, and this fine city where my sister goes to school! Yay! Sister has internet access! Whooo!…

..of something, I’m sure. Something big and important! Something meaningful! No, not really. I haven’t updated this week because there hasn’t been a lot to write about. It is pretty much all summed up in the following words: Work, Eat, Sleep. Oh, okay, these words too: Bellydance. Cherry Trees. Week Off. Thai food. Taxes. I’ve…

So I had a decent weekend, how about you? My weekend was a little weepy, truth be told, but generally it was good, after the tears were dried. I hope yours was too. And since I know you love it when I tell you all about the life stories of my various friends, I’ll get…

So, did I mention I had a birthday last week? And did I mention that I’ve been referring to myself as being in my “early late twenties?” And how I’ve had this nagging feeling for the past couple of years that maybe I’d like to stay right where I was, age-wise? Yeah. Well, I really…

I have to get a new design for this journal. Have to. I think the reason no one reads this is because it’s not pretty and there are no pictures of anything anywhere. Right? That’s the reason, right? So a week or so ago I was going to write about this little thing that happened…

Yes, well, it’s been a couple of weeks. I have no idea where to begin. Maybe I’ll just tell you a lot of unconnected facts and then you can put an entry together, okay? I mean, you’re smart. You can do it. I turned twenty-seven on Tuesday When I was a kid and just starting…

I think it’s good to think a little about where we were six months ago…yes, folks, welcome to my Six Months Since The Attacks entry. Sorry. I gots to do it. Anyway, yes. Here’s what I did: Got woken up by Ashley at 6:30 in the morning. She told me what had happened, and I…

Everyone missed me, right? I mean, it’s been a whole eight days since I updated and I know all yall have been crying yourselves to sleep at night. Oh, I know. Well, yes. It’s been a pretty rough week, ragazzi. Part of it has been the Well-Do-You-Even-Love-Me-Anymore? kind of rough, and part of it has…

All weekend I have been meaning to write about last weekend, and now this weekend is almost over. Right now I am sitting in Carl’s kitchen while some French horn playing is going on and Carl is making a ton of cookies for his clients. I have weighed in on the important issue of the…

Okay, first of all, stop reading this right now. Go over and bask in some (probably temporary) Pamie-ness right this minute. Go. It’s romance, baby. Okay, don’t you feel better now? You and Winona Ryder both. So, actually, I don’t have a ton to say about Valentine’s Day. I will, as tradition demands, be spending…

Boys and girls, it is very wrong to talk smack. Smack kills. Smack makes you miss the bus. Well, that, and reading Rob’s archives until the very last minute at work. I turned off my computer, locked the office, ran downstairs, ran around the corner, and even yelled “Wait! Wait!” but that mean old 78…

What’s that? You say it’s Friday night, and I’m twenty-six years old, and I live in a pretty cool city that actually has a nightlife and I have someone I find incredibly fun, incredibly attractive, and incredibly tall with whom to go out? Huh? What are you talking about? Don’t you know that I have…

Yesterday was my friend Amy’s birthday. Happy 27 years old, Ames! Of course, as I called her at 11:00pm her time last night, I was staring at the card I had bought her, having meant to send it Friday afternoon. As is my wont, I called her and told her about it instead. We had…

Here’s some stuff I like: Refilling containers at PCC (the hippie co-op where I shop). I reused a jam jar yesterday by filling it with bulk clover honey, and man. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. I felt all thinking globally, acting locally and everything. And then when I came home and…

So, newsflash, I don’t much like my job. Today I spent much of the day putting together an SPSS file for one of the studies I work on. All you social science majors out there…heavens, there must be dozens of you…remember this hellish stats program. Remember? You have to define the variables, and give them…

…I’ve got to (baomp baomp) run away. Sometimes I feel this need after coming back from three weeks of vacation, after only one week of work. Yes, sometimes it’s like that. And so it happened that this weekend, instead of going on a hike and going to meeting like a good wanna-be Quaker and then…

First day back at “work” today. I am taking advantage of being on East Coast Time and getting up early…or I have been the last couple of days, at least. Let me be the first to tell you that it’s pretty rough here in Seattle when the sun, she comes up at eight, and the…

When I was complaining yesterday about weird feelings about Home, I ought to have been counting my blessings. I got to hear about what it’s like to really feel out of place from my dear friend Kat, who I got to see for 16 hours for the first time in a year and a half,…