The air conditioning in the temporary office was broken but now is fixed. I am working with the rest of the staff in a large, open conference room (with 14-foot ceilings, give or take a foot) until our permanent office is finished. Even when the loud air blower isn't on, I can feel the frigid air drifting down from the verts and settling on my body like a blanket of snow. This means that I have to wrap myself up like a poor peasant girl with my $5 pashmina I bought on the street in NY (thank you, shady pashmina vendors!!). And even then I almost have to break out my fingerless gloves.

Even though this big room is in a nice old building, the windows have thoughtfully been sealed shut with caulk and paint. So even though the temperature outside is perfect, we aren't allowed to experience any of it.

New topic: As if one needed an excuse to go to the Holyoke Mall, tonight at 7 Lord Russ is singing. At the Mall. Just like a Tiffany, or a Debbie Gibson. Or an off-season carny dressed as Santa. It will be glorious. So you should show up, unless you are below the age of 18, in which case you need to convince your parent to accompany you and make sure you don't frighten the other patrons with your loitering and your loud laughter and your disturbing youthfulness and your confusing clothing.

New topic: It was so lovely out after work yesterday that I extended my bike ride home, gliding right past my house and over to the dyke and then way over to the fairgrounds and the airport. And then I probably should have turned around, but instead I took a right, figuring eventually I'd wind my way back under Rt. 91 and to my neighborhood, which I did, except it took 30 minutes instead of 10. It was wonderful, though, even with my out-of-shapeness and lack of water. I missed doing this all summer long (that whole Manhattan thing - did that really happen? How strange!) and I had forgotten how much I love riding all alone on washboarded dirt roads through farmland, in and out of sudden patches of cold air and the smell of fertile ground and sweetly rotting leaves. The sky was beautiful, all big and colorful and cloud-studded. At times it got a little "Children of the Corn," since all I could hear was rustling corn stalks in the fields surrounding me, plus I had no real idea where I was going. For a long time there it looked like I'd end up at the river unless I made a u-turn, but then I found a more serious-looking road heading back in the direction I wanted. That lead me out of the fields and back up onto the dyke a block from where I started and two blocks from home.

Work is slow today. Can't you tell?