160. Shatter.

The Jessica phone curse continues*.

Sad Jessica is sad. And also needs a haircut.

I was a block away from my apartment, trying to tweet about the last choir rehearsal of the season, when the phone slipped out of my hand and landed screenside down on the sidewalk. I drop my phone all the time, but after a decade of breaking cell phones, I’ve developed a sixth sense for when it’s actually going to be broken. I knew before I picked it up that the glass had likely shattered, and I was right.

Luckily, the phone works just fine if you ignore the bits of shards that may end up embedded in your thumb. And much more luckily, I’m a month out before my contract with AT&T is up, and thus, a month out from my biennial phone upgrade.

I called up AT&T customer service (I have never been more glad to still have a West Coast phone number) and was able to inspire enough sympathy/pity to get the upgrade a little early early (played the shattered phone screen card, did not have to play “been a customer for five years” card but had it up my sleeve just in case). New phone — iPhone 5s! Thumbprint recognition, here I come — is on its way.

I wonder if I’ll ever stop breaking my phones on an annual basis, but somehow, I doubt it.

*Since this blog has dutifully noted the sad fates of all of my cell phones, I should say that the last iPhone I blogged about breaking held up until I upgraded it in July 2012 to an iPhone 4. I then had that phone until sometime last year, when I dropped it while walking to work, breaking the LCD screen behind the glass (basically, the phone still worked but the screen was gray). When I brought the phone into the Apple store for a replacement, the guy looked at it and told me he had never seen anyone break a phone in such a manner before, since the glass itself didn’t have a scatch on it. I’m special.

159. Interests.

If ever there was a day that represented a wide swath of my interests, it was today.

• brunch & bottomless mimosas
• crying during The Fault in Our Stars
• first chorale board meeting
• cooking salmon for dinner
• watching the Tonys
• taking a break from the Tonys to watch Game of Thrones

I should go to bed now, but I want to finish the book club book I’m reading. Decisions, decisions.

158. Pride.

Spent a good chunk of today at the Capital Pride Parade. Attending the event has become an annual tradition for me and my friends. Beads, dancing, shirtless men — what’s not to love?

Sadly, I did not go dancing tonight, which has consistently been the other part of that tradition. Will have to make up for that another time.

157. Reading.

There’s been some ongoing debate over the last couple days over whether adults should read Young Adult fiction. I’m not really going to delve into it, since these are the same points that seem to be made every time some sort of genre is attacked/revered. As someone who reads a lot of YA fiction, my main thought is I’m happy as long as people are reading, period.

And with that, my summer reading list in more or less the order I intend to read them in:
— Wide Sargasso Sea (currently reading)*
— Looking For Alaska
— A Tale for the Time Being*
— Friends Like Us
— The Light Between Oceans*
— the Bridget Jones/dead Mark Darcy book
— The City of Devi*
— Here’s Looking At You
— The Goldfinch*

This book list is subject to change, of course. And I’m still working my way through The Bully Pulpit.

*For the book clubs I’m in

156. Jamestown.

Was down in Jamestown, Va., for work today. I’ve never been to the area, so it was cool to see a place I’ve read about in history books (and, you know, seen portrayed, however inaccurately, in Disney films). Also grabbed lunch next to the William and Mary campus. Will have to venture down again soon for a weekend trip to Colonial Williamsburg. #nerd

155. Sleep.

I’m a night owl. The norm for me is staying up past midnight and staying in bed for as long as possible in the morning. Last night, I was up until 2:30 a.m. finishing Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, because books > sleep.

Tonight, this cannot be the case, as I need to be out the door and on the road to Jamestowne by 5:15 a.m. (#partylikeajournalist).

It’s going to be a long day, since I’ll be back in the city in time for tomorrow night’s recording, so must get what sleep that I can now.

Good night.

154. Recording.

Tonight was the chorale’s first professional session to record the Georgian piece we’ve been working on. Am exhausted. One night down, three to go.

153. Friendship.

While discussing life with friend Amy 2 tonight, I realized that it’s been nearly two years since we’ve had the chance to do this. The last time we were able to just sit and talk about whatever in person for a long period of time was the week I was in Reno for a wedding (that of friends Amy 3 <there are so many of them> and Mike) in 2012. We briefly got to see each other last year before she departed on her 11-month trip around the world, eating at the diner that is essentially our MacLaren’s.

But here’s the thing about our friendship. It doesn’t matter where we are or where we’ve been or how long we haven’t seen each other for. We will always be us. We can talk about anything and ask the hard questions and laugh about the memories and create new jokes because that is who we are.

Things change all the time. But it’s nice to know that some things, no matter the distance, are constant.

152. Map.

Friend Amy 2 will be on her own for several hours tomorrow, so I drew her a map (10 years of friendship have taught me that her sense of direction is, as she put it, essentially nonexistent) . Key spots: Walmart, Starbucks, Capitol.