100 things

was trolling blogs a few months ago - actually googled something and a
blog came up - apparently it's a blogger thing to post 100 things
about you on your 100th post. well we are WAY past that point - but i
thought it would be an interesting exercise. and it confirms what we
always knew - blogs are a vanity thing and i am vain, vain, vain.

okay - here goes:

1. i am the oldest of 4 siblings
2. and the only one of them without red hair
3. i hate it when people mix up you're and your (and judge you when
you use poor grammar)
4. i like to be loud
5. and have a head for movie quotes
6. i like scarlett, the sequel to gone with the wind, better than the original
7. i didn't initially want to go to d - my parents made me
8. the one thing i want out of life is to have people be different for
having known me
9. i prefer to sleep naked
10. i have a blanky and a stuffed snoopy from when i was little that i
still sleep with (unless i have company)
11. i won the nh state prize for first year latin at boarding school
12. i have had two major surgeries - appendix in 5th grade and a cyst
on my ovary in 11th
13. basketball is my favorite sport b/c it's such a mind game
14. i always consider trying something new, and then go with my favorite
15. i can't stand it when people carry dogs around in bags
16. i'm type a at heart. i like my room clean, my bills paid, my checkbook balanced, and my laundry done.
17. i love bridge jumping
18. and the disney channel
19. i have 12 hours of jimmy buffett on my ipod
20. i like knowing what's going on before everyone else
21. my room growing up had a skylight - and i miss the sound of rain on the roof
22. the only reason i moved to nyc was b/c i had a job. i'd never spent anytime here before that
23. and i don't know how long i'll be here
24. if you ask me to do something and tell me i'm the only person who
can do it, i totally will
25. i wish i were british. love the accent, love london, i want to defect
26. i mix up b's and p's
27. i think tan lines are hot
28. i hate raspberries
29. the things i miss most about college are dance parties and living
with my best friends
30. i used to hate my smile (clearly, got over that)
31. the civil war is my favorite part of american history
32. i worked at dunkin doughnuts in college
33. i am deathly afraid of getting caught
34. all my ex bfs are youngest sons
35. and three of them are engaged or married
36. grand central is my favorite place in nyc
37. i hate baseball
38. my family once had chickens and we collected and sold the eggs
39, i don't know how to ski
40. my xc team won the state championship my junior year of hs
41. i take my responsibilities as the oldest sibling v. seriously
42. i lived with my grandparents in florida for a term
43. i have never been to the hamptons (inferior to the cape)
44. i slept on the roof of the library
45. roger and hammerstein musicals are some of my favorite movies
46. i adore sesame street
47. i hate doing things that lots of other people are doing. i have to be different
48. i won an american girl doll in a raffle in elementary school - only thing i've ever won
49. i hate whales (it's a whale thing)
50. i love driving - i always take the long way home
51. i used to babysit for the son of this artist
52. i have a mole on my stomach and a freckle in my bellybutton
53. i love skinny dipping
54. if you're buying me a drink, make it a gin and tonic or a cape codder (obvi)
55. i took tennis lessons every summer growing up
56. one of the nicest compliments i ever got was when someone told me i was 'so full of life'
57. i love being silly
58. i prefer mcdonalds to burger king
59. i have to sleep with something on top of me - a sheet or whatever
- no matter how hot it is
60. if i really like a song i'll listen to it on repeat forever. this used to drive boxa crazy. but if i like it, i like it!
61. i like red wine but hate merlot. i prefer pinot noir or shiraz, etc.
62. i never gave my parents an ounce of grief in hs. i was the perfect child. so i made up for it by coming home at 4 am every day of last labor day wknd . . .
63. i was very, very, very, very angry at my parents for making me leave boarding school. it took me a very long time to come to terms with that.
64. i couldn't care less about politics. discussing it, influencing it, following it - just not interested in that mess. to me its corrupt and phony and it takes too long to make changes
65. the hook up is a deal breaker for me. if it's not a good hookup, it's not going anywhere. i refuse to have a charlotte and trey situation
66. i did the 50 mile hike from htown to moosilauke freshman spring. one of those, 'i'm glad i did it. partly b/c it was worth it, but mostly b/c i never have to do it again' things. =)
67. i didn't run for house manager at sd. i was nominated, according to legend, b/c i was vacuuming every time robin walked in my room
68. i like projects or jobs where you can clearly see you've made progress - mowing the lawn, sweeping up xmas needles, painting
69. if i could have one song play every time i walked in a room it would be 'call on me'
70. i love thrift store shopping - it's the thrill of hunting a bargain. my grandmother is amazing at it
71. i remember quotes and lyrics b/c they resonate with me. i'm always searching for something to help me make the world make sense, and when i find one i remember it
72. i didn't have a cell phone of my own until after i graduated
73. i adore anticipation and the power of suggestion
74. i spend more time reflecting on the past than planning for the future (probably not the best)
75. i think roger moore's james bonds are the best
76. i was born in the town of the boarding school i went to
77. i'm named after a famous movie actress - my mom is a fan - though she spells her first name with an 'a'
78. something i would probably never say is 'i'm tired and i'm going to bed alone' (hi huyett and reiten) though i'm not sure this is as true as it used to be
79. i've been to costa rica, france, england, italy, switzerland, bermuda, the bvis and the netherlands
80. i got deferred from d early decision
81. i want to go to paris or tahiti on my honeymoon
82. my favorite ben and jerry's flavor is half baked (chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate fudge brownie)
83. i'm a coordinator - i'm the person who puts it together and makes it happen
84. i sang in the church choir in high school. soprano. =)
85. people say i look like meredith grey. i've also gotten claire danes
86. i loved stuffed quohogs and new england clam chowder
87. i've never seen indiana jones (to the dismay of several boys i've known)
88. i worked at bath and body works and dunkin dougnuts growing up. also a country club, and two seafood restaurants. if it all blows up and goes to hell, i can always wait tables.
89. i'm an extremely fast reader. i read the last harry potter in 5 hours straight.
90. i once saw sheryl crow on newbury street and got a picture and her autograph
91. i sucked my thumb until the 3rd grade
92. the only time i've been to disney world was when i was 5 and my sister pulled the tail off of my minnie mouse
93. i love amc (american movie classics) and when i would stay home sick from school i would watch old movies all day long
94. i love waterparks
95. once when i was in elementary school i was reading the cereal box while eating cheerios and was so convinced that eating them had given me more energy and strength that i booked it down the road to the bus stop as fast as i could and made my mom really angry
96. my parents go on a date every week. when we were little every school year was a new 'date night' and we'd have a babysitter every week so my parents could go out
97. we built the house i consider home.
98. i don't know how to sail
99. my mom plays the bagpipes. i'm scottish on both sides
100. growing up, we spent each summer hunting jellyfish at the beach, catching them in nets and burying them under the lifeguard stand

phew! believe it or not, it was extremely difficult to come up with all that. i've been at it for a couple months at least. hopefully you learned something new about me. or are now deathly afraid of me and we are no longer friends.

interesting exercise though!

the tide is high

informal poll:

q: if my office crush sent me a picture of a couch bearing his name with the following description:

"Bold Look, Clean Lines, Masculine Feel...
Yes, you would want to meet him and take him home"

and two trains leave their stations, one in chicago and one in boston, each going 65 miles an hour on a tuesday, does that mean he likes me?

in other office news, i was voted 'minister of fun' by my team today. i am responsible for creating and maintaining the office corporate culture and cultivating events where we drink, eat pizza in the big conference room, drag people to trivia nights, utilize the whomp it and the byob bar, and generally hang out and pretend we like each other. this is really reminding me of harvard's 'party czar' of my senior spring and the d's trip to the journalism conference in cambridge that term in which we attended v. few conference events and mostly drank ourselves into a stupor at the one party happening on campus that night b/c of the mcats. (note: there were four parties going on at d, despite the mcats. d's approach was bully for you if you're taking them). as our office sent the karoke machine, the play station, the fog machine, the lava lamp and the disco ball to the west coast in july, i have some work to do.

also, discovered this interesting magazine about business specifically geared towards women while 'researching' yesterday. it's called 'pink' - might be worth looking at more closely.

songs about rain

hey kids!

am back from extended tday vacay on the cape. nothing in particular to note - i ended up withdrawing from the world which was v. nice. i felt like i was more home from school than on vacation from work - although these days the line between work and schooling is quite blurred. slept 16 hours in one period which sort of surprised me - i didn't know i was that tired!

on the way back to nyc yesterday i took a brief stopover in boston and met up with boxa, mini boxa, lingley, huyett and reiten for lunch at legal seafood (my fave!) boxa was also exhausted from school but having a 'heigh-ho time' in her words. looking becoming in a green coat, she had until tuesday to travel back to the midwest. mini boxa is continuing her med school tour by heading out to u mich to interview on friday. huyett's bday is today - but she was off to argentina last night to see liz allen for the first real vacation of her real world existence. lingley was cruising up and down massachusetts with hal - good to see her however briefly. and reiten is down for new years in nyc. stand by for confirmation.

i realized i have way too many sweatshirts. and yet, cannot throw any away. i think i sort of have to be in a purging sort of mood for that though. i have an exeter sweatshirt of my dad's from 1973, and i have visions of similar sweatshirts when i'm as old as he is. trouble is, you have to move them and watch them fall apart, etc.

the 7 am forecast i receive on my cell phone every morning told me heavy rain for nyc today. of course, my galoshes are at work. typical.

i sent this column to ceppos last week - it's a bit long so i won't include it here. my grandfather has sent it to me several times - it's called 'never can say goodbye' by a '76 - about how no one can ever really leave/let go of d. best quote:

Where else on earth have so many smart people taken themselves less seriously for so many years?

highly encourage you to check it out. i always have tears in my eyes at the end.

now it is time to get back into it. nothing to do but smile (and go to xmas parties) for the next few weeks - so i'm psyched. gearing up for 2008 is going to take a lot of energy anyway . . . .

monday is a terrible way to spend 1/7th of your life. ;-P

legendary status

alright kids - am going to try to do justice to the last three days - mainly b/c you are all desperately bored at work and maynard had to get up early on sunday and couldn't come out with us on sat night and doesn't know how the night ends (by out we mean when we left the apt at 1 after drinking for three hours to go out, she didn't come with us.) when i was telling laurak about the wknd plans on friday she asked how it happened that so many sds were going to be in the city. i told her it was the timing - basically this past wknd was the perfect storm of sd mini-reunions.

so am going to settle in for the long haul, put on my new favorite 'figuring out life' album, jackson browne's 'late for the sky' which explores "romantic possibility in the shadow of the apocalypse." according to rolling stone, and recount the 'stories we can tell' from this wknd.

thurs

huyett gets in shortly after i get home from being at desmonds with my coworkers. we have a heated conversation about d vs. harvard and the value of a d education while lying in darkness in my bed. i remembered it was heated the next morning, but not what we had discussed. we fall asleep at 1 am.

fri

robin and maynard come over to my apt post work. we eat the byocheeseandcrackers they had brought before getting in the car to go over to the east village and check out tattoo parlors. this trip takes a long time to complete, but i do hear from allette enroute. she will be home around xmas and we have plans to meet up! we get to the parlor and talk tats with the guy. we think this guy doesn't know what he's talking about as he makes several authoritative statements about what they can't do what we want, only to be corrected by others. maynard, robin and i decide maybe we'd better wait on this/find another place to have it done. i am v. bummed about this - i was looking forward to it!

we go have dumplings at maynard's favorite dumpling place on the les. robin tells us that she and the boy have finally moved into together in brooklyn after a v. long time of long distance. robin is living in the same building she was - only now in a one bedroom across the hall. she is sorry she has been so mia, and promises she'll be able to hang out now that nyc is her spiritual home. side note: she also ran a half-marathon in philly on sun. i'm impressed.

meet up with huyett and vin and return to the apt to meet reiten and change before heading out to johnnys, which delivers on its advertising (the sign outside says 'bar'). at the bar shots are cheap so we do a lot. god i don't even remember what we did - but i know i woke up with the taste of cake batter in my mouth . . . cody and brogiin came to meet us, brogiin took lots of pics with a camera she found in a cab (lucky duck) and then maynard showed up with karpf in tow. i believe we arrive home around 4 am based on the texts that i sent to a certain boy in washington dc . . .

sat

we all wake up at like 9:30 in the morning or absolutely no good reason. i realized i have slept in my clothes with the lights on, and without realizing that maynard hadn't actually slept in bed with me like i thought. oops.

we pull ourselves together and go to brunch near where whit has been having her teachers conference. nothing like having 15 people walk in to make it really fun. had blair, kaufman, susan a, and overton in attendance, as well as some people i thought we knew, but even though they looked our age, that did not mean they were our friends. (to be fair, i was brutally hungover)

whit is doing well in dc, she now lives with kate vb in an impressive indication of the value of sd's alumni network, contrary to what any national sorority at d wants to say at rush. sadly it is essentially just the two of them holding down the sd fort in dc, so she was glad to see everyone and catch up. also - have plans to head down there before too long and do the dc thing - it has been far too long since i've been to the museum of natural history. whit was enjoying the conference and trying to sort out details and vacation around the boy's training schedule. she'll be busy busy traveling around in the next few weeks. had a great time reminiscing about flaire and first impressions.

susan a (will butcher her last name and i don't want to look it up just now) is engaged! she told us the whole epic story of the proposal which, in typical susan fashion, involved a 16 mile run up to the fire tower on gile mountain in pouring rain. they're planning a wedding on the cape sometime this summer. congrats!

maynard loves living out in colorado, but misses all the fun people (self-call) in nyc and boston. job is going well, lots of her family is out there, and she gets to live in a house for half the price of what i pay in nyc. all i have to say is this, after living in nyc everything for the rest of my life will be relatively cheap. i'm looking forward to that.

reiten is blissfully happy working at planned parenthood in boston and part-timing at a wine store. personally i'm not particularly picky about what wine i pour down my throat - but it sounds like a blast and will come in handy i'm sure!

huyett is still contemplating the nyc move, and applying to grad programs all over. trying to make a little sense of it all, but who isn't? (i recommend jb therapy or 'late for the sky')

blair and overton are living together with cody on the les and doing the corporate thing. trying to get use to the 'real world' and nyc - hint - hanging out with us helps. =)

post brunch we chilled and took it easy before getting ready to go out and pre-gaming. it had been decided that it would be fancy dress up night - so we all got decked out. i pulled a gem from the back of the closet - the unwrap me dress - a dress that gets results - and wore it out. this dress, if you've never seen it, is a frilly, short, black and hot pink number. cody has also worn it - though she told us it was the most platonic formal she had in college. particularly amusing in light of this.

i also found a tiara in our kitchen and put it on (some things never change). thus it was decided that we would tell people that i had just broken it off with my fiance, and as it was supposed to be my bachelorette party, the girls dragged me out anyway. it really was a bachelorette party of sorts though - 10 girls taking over a bar dressed to kill? celebrating panhellenic relations for sure.

after many attempts to do the 'crank that' dance (poorly, despite the fact that diede had taught it to us late night over homecoming on the first floor of the sd basement) in my bedroom, and retelling of collective memory stories - we went out at one am and when people asked why i was all dressed up i told them i had just broken it off and i didn't know if i had made the right decision but you know how you just sort of know it's not working even when you don't want to know and you've sent out all the invites and put a deposit on a caterer? the gals - vin, overton, brogiin, cody, huyett, reiten and celeste - who we randomly ran into at the bar - did a great job backing me up with soothing comments about 'how proud they were i was out tonight even though i was devestated' and logical comments like 'it's a good thing we can return the bridesmaids dresses.' overton and i did a walk off which she won decidedly as i was not drunk enough to go for it whilst wearing a flippy dress and tiara. we effectively rocked that bar and if it wasn't the sd basement it was a pretty damn good substitute. at one point celeste and i ran off down the block and gave two guys who were leaving our number as well. i guess i was drunker than i thought, but well done all around. i'm actually a little disturbed by the number of people i talked to simply b/c i was dressed like a fool. why do i have to be wearing a tiara to meet people at bars in nyc????

after the bar closed at 4 we went with four scottish guys who's accents we liked (effective pick up line: 'we noticed you have accents') and a group of other people back to an apt and drank more. i got home at 5 am after snogging a scot in a cab. vin got home at 10 am. brogiin told me she stayed there and i don't know when she got home. epic all around. i didn't hear maynard get up to go to the bus and she was sleeping next to me.

sun

after brunch with rodman, reiten and huyett, we all went our separate ways. the gals back to boston and i went to dinner on long island at my ex bosses house. i wanted to die the entire time. i have never been so bone tired.

thus concludes the wknd. it was epic. vin was officially inducted into the status of 'honorary sd'. i think i laughed non-stop from thurs night til sun around 12:30 when i woke up. wonderful to see everyone - i think plans are in the works to reune in colorado if maynard can swing it so we can meet up with the west coasters. we missed the usual suspects who couldn't be here - it was a fabulous reminder of how important gfs are.

two great quotes from huyett:

'there are no secrets between us - only untold stories' and 'rage victoriously'

6/5/4 years after we all posed on the first floor of sd decked out in all our sink night fabulousness, we're still going strong. who would have thought. no wonder i want to get a tattoo.

itblovethelovelyfriends

lyon

it's funny b/c it's true

as most of you know, i adore the british tv show 'coupling'. thanks to christine to introducing me. i've made a lot of you watch it in the past, and quoted it at the right, but i've decided it needs it's own compilation. def check it out if you've never seen it. it bills itself as being entirely about sex. not sex acts per se, but the discussion and quest for understanding the male/female psyched and phenomenon that is the relationship.

'it's a basic truth isn't it. the more wonderful you are at the beginning, the more dumped you are at the end' - sally

'men - and i don't meant to generalize - are crap' - susan

'cooking for a man is like saying 'let's have sex and i'll cater!' - sally

'there are plenty more fish in the toilet bowl of love' - patrick

'i really thought i went over there to heal our spiritual divide. it turns out i was just gagging for a shag. those two are so similar!' - jane

'being a vegetarian for me is about saying yes to things. including meat' - jane

'i think i've fallen into the trap of blaming fruit' - jeff

susan: sally, did you ever think that age brings age and greater confidence?
sally: susan - age brings you more to shave

'friendship is more lasting than love and more legal than stalking' - jane

'we're women. needy is our golf' - sally

'it's not like that. it's v. casual. it's really just sex with a fringe of conversation' - susan

junior shop assistant: why do girls like you always have boyfriends?
susan: Because I have acute nymphomania and my own brewery

'i have 12 breasts! sorry, just rounding up' - jane

steve: that actually doesn't make any sense
susan: i'm angry. making sense gets in the way

jeff: when god made the arse, he didn't say, 'hey, it's just your basic hinge, let's knock off early.' he said, 'behold ye angels, i have created the arse. throughout the ages to come, men and women shall grab hold of these, and shout my name.'

sally: be honest with me, ok? in this dress do i have a hint of vastness?
susan: no.
sally: seriously? below the waist, does it say "look what's washed up on the beach boys. the settlement is saved."

'yeah i hate phoning. you never know who's going to answer' - jeff

'i rather like being single. except for the bit of not having a man' - jane

'when i meet patrick's gf i'll be over nice. we've all been there. it's the gf of one of your guy friends. and you've got to be really really pleased to meet her and use lots of terms like 'super' and 'lovely' to prove to this girl that you're not jealous of her and show that you're not sort of a mad dinner-for-one girl who secretly wants the bloke for yourself' - sally

'when you break up with a man you have to give him a book to show him that you're a kind and caring person and he's going to die in a pit of his own filth'

'i can explain. yes i did.' - patrick

the anti-parkhursting part: coupling is written by steve moffat ;-)

mr. deeds goes to htown

my punk of a boss is going to htown tomorrow for recruiting and keeps taunting me about how he'll 'be playing pong in the basement of alpha delta' tomorrow night. it makes me either want to kick him in the shins or challenge him to a game of one-on-one tree to be played at our earliest convenience. ( i think it was laurak that suggested that challenging people/enemy countries to pong games might be a good way to settle disagreements/differing opinions over nuclear bomb approaches. i'm inclined to agree. everyone wins at pong.) this guy is 33, an svp at my company, and still is soooo psyched to go play pong when he's on campus. LOVE it.

i'm kind of jealous of him though, even though i get my own mini sd reunion this wknd when maynard, huyett, whit and reiten are in town! the plan is get our usual suspect tattoos. this both scares me and excites me. will report back.

today's breakfast of champions: a dr. pepper and a blueberry pop tart. i decided to go with my cravings this morning.

today's lunch observation: delis are v. popular in midtown manhattan, where i was for lunch, including the ubiquitous salad bar that sells food by the pound. why i do appreciate the opportunity to pick and choose exactly what i'm in the mood for, i find the idea that i'm about to eat a pound or more of food while paying for it a bit unsettling.

am already buying xmas music. i cannot wait. that, and the new celine dion cd. kylie minogue's new cd 'x' comes out nov 26. psyched for that too.

the most wonderful time of the year

with the holidays upon us we are fast approaching the most wonderful time of the year. esp in the real world. less work, fiestas, opportunities to ruin your corporate persona, tons of candy and goodies to snack on during the day and shoot you into the sugar overload stratosphere around 4 pm . . . love it! to be fair though, i adore anything where normal behavior is temporarily suspended. which is why i liked finals. yeah you had to study, but all bets where off and if you had to cram five cupcakes down your throat to make it through, well dammit - eat those cupcakes!

with this whirl of gaiety comes a phenomenon known as the holiday party. i think we drank up our holiday party budget in june, but no one asked me, and as i am not the budget keeper, i am keeping my mouth shut. but this brings me to a point i was pondering on the subway the other day - karaoke. why on earth do people like karaoke so much?

i'm alright with it - it's not my favorite thing to do. i can think of several other things i would prefer to do than after getting drunk then singing along poorly to things. my theory for awhile was that people liked it b/c typically buttoned up folks could let loose and make a fool of themselves, but i'm a person who lets loose and makes a fool of herself pretty easily, and i don't see the appeal.

people do like to sing in the shower - does karaoke replicate that environment? does it make us feel better on monday morning - better able to stand up in front of the boss and present that powerpoint - when we see coworkers who have utterly embarrassed themselves singing on friday night? do we let our 'signature karaoke' song define us? i'm going to keep thinking on this, and may even start doing some informal polling. let me know if you guys have thoughts - i am utterly stumped (and thankful that we are NOT doing a karaoke party for holiday event).

in other non-related news - ceppos sent me this amazing link yesterday. rap represented in mathematical charts and graphs. she got it from her friend at tuck. a mere 1/2 hour later my brother sent it to me, proving what we all already knew - it takes an incredibly short time word to spread on campus. ;-P

and happy bday lingley! we wish we could celebrate with you!

61 degrees in nyc today. no wonder 'global warming' is one of the most searched terms on google . . .

castles in the sky

if i had a lot of money i would:

1. buy a house on nantucket. hell, since this is a dream, i'd build a house on nantucket

2. buy out victoria's secret and jcrew. ooo - i want everything in both those stores.

links

a few interesting links - i thought i would put them all in one place

lucy's dating blog - the blogger from lifetimetv.com that we met at the quiet party. i find her blog v. amusing, and who doesn't need more insight on the dating life?

real simple blog - i ADORE this magazine. i think it has something to do with the magazine's layout. or else i really am type-a at heart. the blog is written by the editor. a little older - but just as harried and confused.

how to fix a broken ipod. bound to come in useful for some of you eh?

quietly making noise

boy oh boy - is there any better feeling than lying in bed on saturday morning, knowing that you have nothing to do, nowhere to be, nothing hanging over you other than being lazy and drifting in and out of sleep??? =)

wednesday night i went to a quiet party on the les. yes, that's right. it's a national phenomenon emerging around the country where no one talks. they provide thousands of index cards and pens around the room, and everyone writes down what they want to say. my old coworker had read about it and wanted to give it a shot. i'm game for anything that sounds like it would make a good blog post, so off we went.

was a bit apprehensive about what type of people we'd meet there. i mean, i guess my coworker and i are 'normal', or close to it if anything, and we were giving it a shot, but what about guys? guys have trouble expressing their feelings in words - would writing them down be worse or better?

turned out to be an absolute blast. the no-talking bit made everyone awkward so the initial 'get-to-know-you' awkwardness was alleviated. i was talking to and meeting people that i never would have talked to on a normal saturday night out. (to be fair, i rarely talk to anyone i don't already know on a normal saturday night out, so anything is an improvement on zero).

some main observations:

1. it was a bit like flirting in a library. or a monastary. no one was allowed to talk, but people were giggling and shuffling paper and writing furiously. like third floor berry when you'd been there too long and had too many cups of coffee from novak.

2. it was sort of like 6th grade - people running up and giving you a note and then going back to their seat. or making paper airplanes or rocks and flinging them at other people.

3. you could have conversations with five different people (ie, guys) at once, unlike a normal bar. it was a bit like valentine's day - you'd collect all these cards and work on responding to them, then people would give you more cards, etc. or an easter egg hunt.

4. it was kind of hard work! all that scribbling. handwriting definitely deteriorated throughout the night and over the course of the drinks.

when it was over, it felt like we had been playing a game for three hours. someone had to come in and be like - yo guys. it's over you can talk now! and we all sort of smiled sheepishly and began properly introducing ourselves.

i met a woman who is the dating blogger for lifetime tv - her blog is linked at the right. she said she'd write a post about me and my coworker - check the link for it. i also met a guy who used to work for bloomberg, and now is a blogger for portfolio magazine - we're getting a drink on tuesday. and a guy who is an accountant for an architect design firm. he came out with my coworkers and i on thursday and we all had a great time. moral of the story, i am definitely dragging more people out to these. it's fun - i swear. read more about it here.

in other news, i found out that my boss saw the pictures from halloween. nothing too scandalous, but great, just what you need. i am also getting set up with his friend. i'm not sure how i feel about this. it could be verrrrrrrrrry interesting. stay tuned.

my mom is coming to nyc today - i'm quite excited to see her, as it's been awhile and she's never been here before. lots of walking and sight seeing i'm sure.

i'm getting sooooooooooooo excited for christmas! i know it's way premature, but it finally feels like it might snow in nyc, so why not right? it's definitely the best time of the year to be here.

have some things to do before my momma arrives - enjoy the long weekend!

wknd update

now that we are, in the words of the onion, closer to next wknd than the last wknd, i thought it was time to update.

the weekend started off with an anonymous phone call and text on thursday night. didn't recognize the nyc number. i texted back on friday morning and asked who it was. turns out it was this flakey '08 who goes to school in dc that i had met over the summer. i had deleted his number from my phone b/c he was so flakey. he was quite annoyed that i didn't know it was him immediately, which made me extremely pleased in the manner of a self-satisfied cat that i had had absolutely no idea who it was.

he told me he was in nyc and would come over to my apt at 6. i told him to bring some gin and make it 6:30. note - the only reason i was entertaining this visit at all was that his company was extremely stimulating and enjoyable if you know what i mean. at 6:15 he texts and says he has to delay for a few hours and asks if i will be around. i tell him that ceppos is coming around 9:30. he tells me that he has never had two girls at once. i tell him we're not that kind of sorority, naked pillow fights weren't really our thing. (did mention that strip pong was though). basically, proceed to dirty text him all night long - i was really annoyed with him, and hoping that he was at some sort of fancy dinner and getting all antsy or something.

ceppos arrives and we go out and tear it up in the west village. randomly meet a d '07 that knows ceppos, he and his friend buy us some drinks, we get home at 4. i text the kid and tell him to come over. he says he will and i text him the address. then i pass out. next morning, five phone calls and five texts between 4:45 am and 5 am saying 'i'm here - where are you?'. oops! neither ceppos nor i heard the phone ring, but perhaps it was my sub-conscious saying, 'punish him for his behavior'. i decided yesterday to send him a someecard, and while i wanted to send him 'thanks for thinking of me after 8 shots, 9 beers and half a ball of cocaine' - i sent 'i haven't decided how much longer to tease you'. if the kid wasn't such a flake, maybe i could have stayed awake, that's where i'm confused though - booty call waiting only works if you actually end up getting the booty. if you're not gonna follow through on it - stop calling me!

meanwhile, ceppos and i have a lovely time doing the usual things. drinking, hanging out, lazing about in bed, and ordering food. saturday night was charlo's bday - we went out to a belgian beer garden in the west village for the occasion which was delightful, even if we did not have the highly-recommended fries. met up with celeste and megh there - who came back to my apt post to meet up with aida who was working snl. (aida is an '07 from unc chapel hill. she worked an assignment with me, and rages harder than anyone i know. including ceppos. they liked each other.) had some more drinks at my apt before we went to johnny's and the snl after after at 3:30. mind you, it was daylight savings, so we had an extra hour of partying. danced, drank more, saw seth myers of 'really with seth and amy'. i (really) wanted to tell seth how much i love and have adopted 'really' myself, but i thought that was sort of cliche, so i went the cool new yorker route and stood there with my mouth open in awe instead. ;-P

made it home at 6/7am depending on the technical time versus what time it would have been if not for daylight savings for the third wknd in a row. i adore the late-night scene, but this happened maybe twice in college - both times senior spring. what's going on with me? delightful time all around. and good stories, which is, of course, what i care about.

have a good one.

this makes a lot of sense right now

we've gotta roll with the punches
learn to play all of our hunches
makin' the best of whatever comes your way
forget that blind ambition
and learn to trust your intuition
plowin' straight ahead come what may
- jimmy buffett 'cowboy in the jungle'

the old guard

sitting in bed, watching coupling and waiting for ceppos to get here from boston. thumbing through the d alumni magazine which arrived this morning, and i started reading the earliest class notes - earliest is from 1929. struck by a couple things:

the columns are much more thoughtful than the most recent ones (ie - the ones that i read on a regular basis, looking for the names of people i know (don't find them much)). there's a resignation, and a quietness of people who have lived a long time.

several of the notes express dissatisfaction with the alumni battles that are going on over control of the college. this says to me that not only do young alumni not care about it, old alumni don't either. odd.

all the young alum columns talk about the weddings and the births. all the old alum columns talk about who is not longer with us on earth. not that this is revolutionary or anything but it sort of makes you think.

they have some interesting stories to reflect on. watching d hall burn in 1935, jimmying doors in hitchcock through the mail slot (mail slot?) to steal beer. i love hearing/reading stories about d in the old days.

there's still so much camaraderie and spirit among classes that graduated over 50 years ago. kind of cool.

lest the old traditions fail

file this under . . .

things that are not good to say to your coworker:

"i can drink you under the table"