Friend: John Adams on HBO. I am dying now that my free HBO preview is over. LOVE IT.

Enemy: 3/4 length sleeves. Seriously — What is the point? I want a short sleeve or a long sleeve. I don't want an in-between sleeve. Right now all I want is a normal cardigan sweater in navy blue or brown that I can throw in my bag in preparation for the upcoming alternating hot and crazy over air-conditioned season. Why can't I find one? Why do they all have to be cropped or shrugged or bedazzled or 3/4 length? Gah.

Once in a while I stumble across a poem that really moves me. Apparently, many people passed this poem around after September 11. . . I'm just finding it now.

This kid is like a bad SNL parody. . . but real. Awesome.

I graduated! Freaking finally!!!!!!!! Now, just six months till I start hacking at those enormous loans. . .

And now I look like a brace-faced teenager with a monster zit. It itches like crazy, too.

As of last night, I have a new favorite show. Normally I love the checking out new shows as soon as they air, but this semester has been rather busy for me. My new job is 100 times more interesting than my old one, but it is a lot more demanding as well. I am trying my hardest to graduate this semester, and that's really hard because in my head I have already graduated and in reality I have two classes and three comprehensive exams to complete. And, as a result, I have been kind of all over the place and indiscriminate in my television choices lately. I have never been ashamed of my love of terrible television, but lately it has gotten out of hand. All I have been watching is The Real World, America's Next Top Model (and for some reason, I just can't get into it this season), and endless reruns of various shows about families with too many kids on TLC. I watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann sometimes, and I fall asleep most nights during the commercial breaks of either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. I haven't watched anything that requires concentration — if I can't do twenty other things while watching it, then I don't want any part of it.

This weekend I was able to catch up on The Office online (funny, funny show!) and then, while scamming my shamefully pathetic On Demand options (Hey Comcast: why don't you let me watch Logo or The N anymore?!? Boooooo!) I decided to give AMC's Mad Men a chance. . . and I ended up giving it three chances. It is a complex show with delightfully unsympathetic characters and a ton of visual interest — particularly when it comes to the costumes. If you have time to actually sit down and watch television, I highly recommend it. The episodes are filmed like little movies, and it's easy to watch two or three in a row. In fact, I am hoping to watch a couple more tonight.

We're ugly!

I think that this ranking is ridiculous, but I have to say that one of the things I love about Philly is that it is completely unpretentious. You can eat in 99% of restaurants here in jeans (that's my arbitrary statistic) and on average, I'm sure it is true that people generally spend less time getting dolled up here than they do in Miami. BUT. . . I've been to pretty much every major city in the U.S. and I think I can safely say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

. . . and it is amazing.

In the meantime, my new job is challenging and exciting although currently quite stressful; I had a lovely birthday and am loving my first month of being 26; our new place is amazing but still pretty much in disarray; I am getting used to the braces but I would really like them to be gone already; and an old friend moved to town and reminded me of my roots, who I used to be and who I am now.

I am now officially a braceface. I was really really worried that I would look so goofy everyone I passed on the street would make fun of me, but now I see how unlikely that scenario is. I mean, who really cares about someone else's teeth? And these braces are not even that obvious. But I was so worried for so long about how I would look, I forgot to think about how I would feel. And I feel really uncomfortable. I can't smile, I can't eat solid food, I can't rub my lips together and I can't really talk. People say it takes a little while to adjust, but at this point, I can't imagine ever adjusting. My mouth feels so strange.