dunces, tank tops, and avoiding data entry

The nice thing about having all this boring data entry to do is that, to avoid doing it, I've been productive in several other ways today. I cleaned my apartment, ran some errands, copied a bunch of the TV shows that are filling up my hard drive onto discs, started rehanging some wall decorations (with my new bed I had to take a lot of things down), and looked up all the words that I had written on random scraps of paper (when I don't know a word in something I'm reading I look it up and write the definition in my journal; I've been pretty lazy about it as of late).

I also just started reading a new book, even though I never got more than about 100 pages into the last one I was working on. I've decided I'd just rather be reading fiction while I'm taking classes, and I was reminded of A Confederacy of Dunces when I noticed it listed on the MySpace profile of someone I know. My father was a big fan of the book (although it was not his favorite--that was Catch-22 by Joseph Heller), and he gave me a hardbound copy of it as one of my christmas gifts in 1999 (my memory isn't that good--he wrote "Merry X-mas 1999" in the book). I remember that I had started to read it several years earlier than 1999, when I was in high school, but the main character, at least as he is presented in the first chapter, is obnoxious, unreasonable, mean, and self-absorbed. I seem to recall that he reminded me a little too much of my brother (or rather, a much worse version of my brother), and I got annoyed and stopped reading. Of course, my brother and I have a much better relationship now, and he's far more pleasant than he was when we were younger (no doubt I am as well; I was, after all, the obnoxious and whiny little sister). So I've decided to take another stab at it. I'm finding it important at the moment to do things that remind me of my father, even though it is sometimes painful. A couple of weeks ago, I had a day where I couldn't recall once thinking about him, and it panicked me a little. I don't want to dwell on the loss, but I don't want to forget about it either, so I figure doing something like reading a (supposedly) good book that he enjoyed and bought for me is a good way to remember him in a positive, productive way.

On an entirely unrelated note, today I was a bad girl and bought two more extra long ribbed cotton tanks from Old Navy. Yes, I have 8 of them now, in addition to at least 10 other styles of tank top, but I wear them constantly. And in my defense, I've been replacing many of my wardrobe staples lately because much of what I previously had is too big for me now, since it was purchased when I was a good 25 pounds heavier than I am now (well, make that more like 22...while I had a cold and wasn't getting out much, I unfortunately decided that eating lots of ice cream would make me feel better). I also bought some pants and a shirt that were on clearance.

Oh, and S and I had a nice time at Martuni's, where I drank moderately and consumed plenty of water. S and I talk on the phone constantly, but I don't usually see him that often; I've seen him several times in the past week, and it's been lovely.

Time to go see what else productive I can do besides my data entry. There's a long-ass article that I'm supposed to be reading and presenting on for class on Monday, so maybe I can at least print it out and start looking it over.