lazy sunday

I basically just chilled at the house all weekend...last weekend I went to the ex-pat bar and got SHITFACED, so I decided to lay low this week.
Its been nice to veg out and to not feel like I've got a ton of reading to do or something. Even if it isnt rigidly kept to 40 hours, I think I'm starting to look forward to being back in a schedule where you go home at the end of the day and you leave work at work...as opposed to grad school, where even when you are chilling out or having fun, there is always this nagging in the back of your skull, some itch from some lobe at the base of your brain, where you know there is still a ton of reading to do, that that paper is due next week. And you'd be in so much better shape next week if you were working on it right now. Can't even enjoy a good drunk like that. Or sleeping in. God bless an internship for guilt-free sleeping in on the weekend! I don't even have a dog to walk these days ( GODDAMN, I miss that jowl-faced beast. Sigh.)
Anyways. Today I chilled all morning. Made coffee and read my book....fiction! Gasp! (science- fiction, no less!). Ender's Shadow. Orson Scott Card. I read Ender's Game in Turkey and it was good.
So anyways. Got restless and me and Leslie decided to get out of the house and go shopping/ explore our neightborhood. We found a really cheap place on the edge of a richer neighborhood, but we've been just straight to work and back, so I hadn't really seen much. Walked up the street and just started popping into shops. L is on a mission for a good pea-coat or something in black and some more shoes. And just clothes shopping in general.
I need more dress pants for work. Maybe another tie and a couple of sweaters to go over my dress shirts. I haven't had much luck yet. Armenia is funny. Commodities vs domestic product. Some things, like street food, vodka and rent are super cheap. And then other things that have to be brought into the country are crazy expensive. It will be 150 dram (less than $0.50) for a slice of 'armenian pizza' but then I can't find dress pants for under $50 bucks anywhere. When I first arrived, I found a little shop selling mens dress stuff and cut a deal with the guy by buying 5 dress shirts and 2 ties (my entire wardrobe, now). But the fucking dress pants are so damned expensive. I've been trying to pop into stores whenever I get the chance. But I just can't bear to drop more than 15,000 Armenian dram (the currency) on pants...(18,000 dram is about $50). And most of the stuff I've found (for fifty bucks, mind you) is cheap-shit-made-in-a-chinese-sweatshop. So I was very excited today when we wert into an expensive looking shop so L could price the coats, and I found a pair of powder grey dress slacks for 12,000 dram. Only one pair in my size, but they are really nice and its right up the street so I'll try back later this week. Up til now, I had 5 dress shirts ( its a 5 day workweek, you know?) but heh heh...only 2 pair of pants. I figured I could get away with that for like a week. 2 pushin it. But its gotten to the point where I need to buy some fucking pants. So. Huzzah! I'll look like a little bit less of a schlub.
Just sucks. Everyone dresses so nicely here. I don't know how they do it. All my shit back home has stains and wrinkles all over it. In Austin, you just don't need to care too much. Not cool. But here. I stick out like a sore thumb enough as it is with red hair and a beard. I would hazard to say that 97% of Armenian men are clean shaven. And 70% of the other 3% are over the age of 60. But I just can't do it. Can't shave every day. Not an option.

So that was my day.
P.S. I made an amazing lentil soup this weekend. First attempt. Glad to have that in my repertoire.