1. Chris and I went to the American Museum of Natural History today to check out the Einstein exhibit (which I recommend for the biographical miscellany, although the physics is oversimplified a bit) and to gawk at the dinosaurs. Post-gawking, we wandered through the massive and intimidating Dinostore. I acquired a Tube-O-Dinos, which was cool enough, and an Amber Insect lollipop, which turned out to be much cooler: I bought it thinking it was a cute idea to make amber-colored lollipops with candy bugs in the middle, but it turns out that it’s a real cricket imprisoned in high fructose corn syrup or whatever. I like the idea of kiddies not picking up on that (I didn’t until I read the ingredients list and got to the part about CRICKET AND/OR LARVA) and sucking away happily until they get to the chewy cricket center. Or would it be crunchy?

2. My crazy downstairs neighbor, who’s been out to get me since I dared to complain about the salsa music shaking my apartment (two floors up) well after midnight, actually apologized to me today, and promised to turn it down earlier on weeknights. Who knew!

3. Looking for a third DVD to rent earlier this afternoon, so as to exploit my Freedom Pass to its fullest, I picked up Lovely and Amazing on the basis of a half-remembered recommendation from someone in one of my classes last semester. It turns out to be pretty good, and really I can’t complain about any movie featuring Catherine Keener getting arrested for satutory rape of the actor who played Donnie Darko.

4. While arranging my new dinosaurs, formerly of the Tube-O-Dinos, I accidentally knocked off my desk this gorgeous handmade Dia de los Muertos skeleton lady that I picked up at a Mexican folk art place in Massachusetts. I love my skeleton lady dearly, and I swore for several minutes straight when I picked her up to discover she’d lost an arm. I sat disconsolately at my desk, staring at her ceramic stump for several more minutes and wishing I had some superglue before I remembered that I actually do have superglue from the last time I broke something. Five minutes later she was sitting proudly atop my desk once more, her arm firmly affixed with not so much as a crack visible. Hooray for superglue!

5. I’d given up on getting my third philosophy class for this semester and had resigned myself to my useless English elective with its massively expensive textbooks when I got email notifying me that the philosophy class did end up getting moved to a larger room, and I had a spot in it if I still wanted it (which of course I did). Now I’ve got to go buy another set of books, but I’m much happier about my schedule, and after this semester I’ll be nearly done with the major, finally. Hooray for larger lecture halls!