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had a terribly hard time packing for dc and the jb show tomorrow, as i'm not bringing anything that i wouldn't mind a) losing or b) getting dirty.

makes it tricky.

also, i have to carry linsalata's hat with me. oh my. i am a walking instant fiesta.

oh tequila

pretty solid line on 'grey's anatomy' just now:

callie: does anyone ever think you two are a couple?
meredith: no because we screw boys like whores on tequila
christina: and then we either try to marry them or drown ourselves

actually mildly impressed with grey's, seeing how i haven't watched it in at least two seasons. i was revisiting the first season and finding it comforting to watch people try to figure out work/their careers when a lot more is riding on their mistakes then targeting the advertising creative to the wrong section of the site.

speaking of tequila, charlo and i had a great time at jimmy buffett last night at jones beach. it was a super awesome venue, which i had heard. the backdrop was literally the ocean and it was a gorgeous night to be out of the city by the beach listening to jimmy buffett.

unfortunately, we discovered that charlo had lost her wallet on the bus from the venue back to the long island rail road, which sort of marred our fun, but thanks to our need to be tapped in at all times, we were able to google cancellation numbers and get a jump on preventing identity theft.

the good news is, charlo is in for the varsity show next year. if this year's concert is the 'year of still here', then it's also 'the year of converting non-believers to parrottheads!'

heading down to dc tomorrow to see lingley and co. for the first of the two labor day weekend shows and ceppos has signed on for the boston show as well! if any of the blog readers are inclined to join us, we have another ticket. tried to convince some kid with a red sox hat on on the bus back from jones beach to take it (turned out he went to belmont hill and knew a number of the '05 guy rowers, but i digress) and he was on the right path, but then charlo discovered she'd lost her wallet and we got wrapped up in canceling credit cards and whatnot.

regardless, lots and lots to look forward to. in fact 'there's just too much to see waiting in front of me and i know that i just can't go wrong' =)

some usual suspect updating - diana has moved back to the west coast with the boy and the puppy as of last weekend. they have a duplex and a yard and are enjoying being on west coast time, even if it does mess with our gtalk time. meanwhile, laurak has moved back east, she's going to be sailing out of woods hole this fall with the sea education association program. she gets to sail from the cape to a tropical island in the caribbean, but i'm not entirely sure which one it is right now. whit and the boy have set a wedding date - march 21 '09 in orlando. florida in march? pick me! also chatted with boxa a few times in the last couple weeks. she's working like a fiend doing rotations for her third-year of med school, but enjoying herself and eyeing a return to the east coast somewhere down the line. if anyone is going to be in ann arbor during football season, let her know, and she'll introduce you to the eligible med student guys. there's more than enough to go around right boxa? ;-P

happy labor day kids

change your shoes, change your life

coworker i have a crush on (and not the one i hooked up with on sat night):

"you look taller today. is it the heels? i don't think i've ever seen you standing up"

okay, so not the quickest kid in the bunch, but if you can at all pull it off, i would highly recommend three-inch heels at all times. tee hee hee!

fins up!

WAHOO!!! it's here kids! the most wonderful time of the year! yes, even better than christmas. the green key of the real world. we're a mere one day away from the start of jb-trifecta '08: 'the year of still here' tour! starting with jb @ jb tomorrow (jimmy buffett @ jones beach) with charlo! it's going to be classy (low classy) rum and mountain dew/dunkin' donuts fruit coolatas on the long island rail road tomorrow post work. why is the rum always gone?? the eternal question.

*the trifecta will continue with jb in dc on saturday and then culminating in boston for the traditional show a week from saturday. concert #s 6, 7 and 8. obsessed? yes!

i know not all of you appreciate jimmy buffett like us parrotheads do, but he does have some genuinely useful advice. selected some of my favorite commentary and lyrics to share. even if you never listen to the songs, it's good stuff to have in your back pocket when you're 'trying to make a little sense of it all'

love is a wave building to a crescendo. ride if you will, ride it with me - lone palm

if it doesn't work out there'll never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain - the weather is here

strange situation, wild occupation, living my life like a song - the wino and i know

it's a little like religion and a lot like sex you should never know when you're gonna get it next - i will play for gumbo

the order of the sleepless knights will now assume the throne - gypsies in the palace

when i left the coast of marseilles i hadn't done what i'd come to do
spent all the money i'd saved still did not get over you
you make it so hard to forget
i haven't stopped loving you yet - coast of marseilles

tonight i'm havana day dreamin - tomorrow who knows? - havana day dreaming

there are occasions that try our souls out here. this happened to be one of them but the great thing about it is you can laugh at them about 4 hours after they happen. and that's the secret to everything like that. tragedies very often become comedies and they better become comedies really fast or you're in a lot of trouble - miss you so badly

and if it all blows up and goes to hell
i wish that we could sit upon a bed in some motel
and just listen to the stories we could tell - stories we could tell

when the good times come around they gallop in like wild horses. you just try and stay on them for as long as you can. and when they throw you off, you sit in the shade and wait until they come around again

yesterday is over my shoulder, so i can't look back for too long.
there's just too much to see waiting in front of me,
and i know that i just can't go wrong - changes in latitudes

some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but i had a good life all the way - he went to paris

i have been drunk now for over two weeks,
i passed out and i rallied and i sprung a few leaks,
but i've got to stop wishin', got to go fishin'
i'm down to rock bottom again. just a few friends,
just a few friends. - a pirate looks at 50

the right word at the right time, may get me a little hug.
that's the difference between lightning and a harmless lightning bug - fruitcakes

stay in touch with my insanity really is the only way
its a jungle out there kiddies
have a very fruitful day - fruitcakes

it was too much tequila or not quite enough - semi-true story

kick it in now second wind, we've got two more hours to go
losing anymore hope of scoring anymore coke and we've still got to do another show - kick it in second wind

if you don't want it printed, don't do it - or you'll wind up on that coconut telegraph - coconut telegraph

people get by and people get high, in the tropics they come and they go - cuban crime of passion

i feel like i'm stranded on a sandbar. stuck in my tracks like a streetcar - stranded on a sandbar

life is complicated with its ifs and ands and buts - it's alright to be crazy but don't let it drive you nuts - simply complicated

we've got to roll with the punches, learn to play all of our hunches
making the best of whatever comes your way
forget that blind ambition and learn to trust your intuition
plowing straight ahead come what may - cowboy in the jungle

these moments we're left with may you always remember
these moments are shared by few
and those harbor lights aw they're coming into view
we bid our farewell much too soon
so drink it up this one's for you
honey, it's been a lovely cruise - lovely cruise

if i had it all to do over again i'd just get myself drunk and i'd jump right back in - landfall

just trying to make a little sense of it all - landfall

i wrote this thing sanding the old mainmast sitting in hurricane hole down in nassau bahamas about to throw up and the only thing that could get me through was a bottle of perrier and a jackson browne album so this is called 'perrier blues' - perrier blues

"there are some days on the road when you have the blues and nothing will get rid of them. you just have to ride it out like a bad cold or a storm, and things will eventually get better. this song came out of one of those spells, and i did survive." - survive

thank god the tiki bar is open - song of the same name

now i've got quarters in my loafers trying to fight inflation
when it only used to take a cent
sometimes i wish i was back in my crashpad days
before i knew what cash flow meant - we are the people our parents warned us about

listens to the jukebox for her answers. slowly guzzles 25 cent beers - woman going crazy on caroline street

love songs have never been easy to write. somehow pain and regret seem to be the only things that can trigger my feelings, and songs are the only way to say what i feel - but once your feelings become a song, they don't belong to you anymore. they belong to all the people who identify with them

searching is half the fun. life is much more manageable when it's thought of as a scavenger hunt instead of a surprise party

we all swore if we ever got rich we would pay the mini-mart back
yes sir we would pay the mini-mart back - peanut butter conspiracy

women and water are in short supply. there's not enough dope for us all to get high - manana

resonates . . .

The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth.

strangest places if you look at it right

got home tonight (drunk) with all sorts of thoughts in my head. and this episode of sex and the city was on - caught the tail end:

some people are settling down, some people are settling, and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies

and it all made perfect sense

wet hot, you help me make sense of the world

there are MANY MANY wonderful quotes from wet hot american summer, could probably have a serious conversation peppered with humorous wet hot american summer quotes alone, but this one has got to be the best, and particularly applicable:

Listen, Coop - last night was really great. You were incredibly romantic and heroic, no doubt about it. And that's great. But I've thought about it, and my thing is this: Andy is really hot. And don't get me wrong, you're cute too, but Andy is like, *cut*. From marble. He's gorgeous. He has this beautiful face and this incredible body, and I genuinely don't care that he's kinda lame. I don't even care that he cheats on me. And I like you more than I like Andy, Coop, but I'm 16. And maybe it'll be a different story when I'm ready to get married, but right now, I am entirely about sex. I just wanna get laid. I just wanna take him and grab him and fuck his brains out, ya know? So that's where my priorities are right now. Sex. Specifically with Andy and not with you.

;-P

weddings? I LOVE weddings!

If you read this blog with any regularity you know that I went to my first wedding since the age of 12 at the end of june.

Said wedding ushered in what prob defines the post-grad existence: who is getting married and (temporarily) saved themselves from dying a lonely death and who isn't.It also ushered in the period in which all us 20-somethings attempt to decipher wedding etiquette.

I don't know about you, but I know nothing about who does what and what gets sent when, etc. Mainly relying on googling wedding etiquette and informally polling people on gtalk.

Point being, my cousin is getting married over columbus day. I've been invited to two showers (couple and lingerie), neither of which I can attend, but I'm very fond of her! And would like to follow proper ettiqutte and send a gift and whatnot, but the person throwing the shower will not respond to my requests for an address to send the gift to! Argh.

Thus we conclude, this wedding nonsense is out of control. And I suspect, only just begun.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

actually, i feel great about that

sometimes nyc is a great place to be:

mike: so how would you feel about doing beer pong in the afternoon and then drinking on a roof and being in a commercial thereafter

ruminations

been reading katharine graham's autobiography 'personal history'. her family owned and ran the 'washington post' and she became its editor-in-chief.

very interesting book on the whole, but i was struck by a line on page 4 of the 625 page book:

when i look back over my long life, if there is one thing that leaps out at me it is the role of luck and chance in our lives.

i find that something worth thinking about. no conclusions yet, but you'll read about them when (and if) i do.

dentist this morning. ugh. if there is one thing i do endlessly it's go to the dentist!

the still north

total total blast in new hampshire this past weekend. beautiful weather, clear full moon and starry night, wilderness, great people, lots of laughing and music. that's one of the things that defines d - sense of community, awesome people, a liberal dose of silliness and flaire and a great soundtrack to it all. so wonderful to be back in a d environment. in the words of jb 'it cleans me out and then i can go on.'

drove up with stein saturday morning, after a night in boston at higgin's apt. up at the lodge we encountered the first year class from mit sloan up for their kick-off weekend. we helped cook dinner after our hike - quiche, scarborough fair bread and garlic beans (i do not like green eggs and quiche. i do not like them pat, capiche?). health code regulations meant we were wearing absurd hats and crocs with duct tape on them to 'make them closed-toe shoes'.

got back to campus where we had the entirety of topliff to ourselves, thanks to michaelson's graduate advisor status and the fact all the summer campers live in topliff which was hilarious. headed to sig ep to meet kevin garland. ended up on the roof, a goal of mine as i had not ever been up there in my seven years of hanging out at d. played the lumberjack game with tequila, threw things off the roof, quoted 'ohhhh myyyy godddd' WAY too many times, learned some interesting things from a game of 'never have i ever' and acquired a bottle of pseudo-malibu coconut rum, and then headed to tdx for a joint tdx-bg party.

enroute i rode a bike and kevin found some swim goggles in the phi delt pool. got to tdx where the dj was accomodating enough to play 'forever' for us, as it had become our theme song by this point, even though he had already played it. sadly did not make it to xh for the 'kountry kwencher', complete with a live chicken named gus, but that was probably for the best.

after some dancing i encountered a '10 who claimed he was better than me at pong. five cups into a game of one-on-one tree he conceded. tree would have destroyed me too, but i held it together long enough to kick his ass. which is what really matters here.

sun found all of us ridic hungover, but a gorgeous day, so we scaled the fence at the boathouse and hung out on the crew docks before heading back to nyc. just about as perfect a weekend as one could ask for. managed to return with my voice and without dirty feet. guess you call that growing up.

see the pics below.

weekend update

a little teaser until i get around to blogging about it, courtesy of kevin:

-- kevin said:

but it's not like we didnt throw shit off the roof all the time when we were undergrads

-- end quote --

sex sells

promo ads for the new season of 'gossip girl' are up in the nyc subways. they are causing all kinds of hell b/c they're so racy.

have to say though, they are hot hot hot and i don't even watch the show. guess it's true what they say - sex sells - and it does make waiting for the subway a bit more, erm, entertaining. ;-P

in other news, you can now create your own someecards at someecards.com. as soon as i discovered this, i searched my saved gtalks from the last year to find all the times i or someone else said, 'that should be a someecard' and started creating. this could be dangerous.

office observations

why does the hot chocolate with marshmallows taste SO much better than the hot chocolate without?

i have a delicious almond croissant from pret! a thursday morning treat . . .

new england and moosilauke tomorrow! so psyched for some time in the still north.

makes a lot of sense

sometimes the only thing to do is to start looking at everything again until you forget what you're supposed to see & start seeing what's there
- storypeople

take a break - think about what you've done

am taking a break from raging to do just that - you know - catch up on stuff like paying my bills, getting my hair done, sleeping and eating vegetables. being type a at heart, i like it much better when my life is in order!

vin is in india for three weeks, so it's just me holding down the fort. in this case, holding down the fort means making a pan of brownies and eating them all myself. but gosh they're good.

was thinking, this blog is full of complaints about how hard it is to meet guys in nyc, but i would argue it's even harder to meet girls - in the sense of meeting girls you want to be friends with and hang out with and stuff. thinking about my girlfriends (and i have a lot) most of them are friends from school or thereabouts. with the exception of vin and aida, i don't think any of the girls i'm close with are new friends since moving to nyc.

this train of thought came up today while getting my hair done - my stylist was a girl a bit older than me from jamaica plain outside boston. she moved to nyc a year and a half ago, and we had a great time discussing boston versus nyc, laughing about boys from boston and planning excursions to red sox bars to stalk boys from new england who wear jeans and button downs with black dress shoes. she said she'd look me up on facebook and i hope she does. don't think you can ever have too many girlfriends.

boston again on friday so we can head up to new hampshire early saturday to hike moosilauke. as much as the thought of being on a 4 hour bus ride AGAIN makes me want to throw up, it is how i'll be traveling three of the next four weekends, so i guess i better get used to it. at least in boston there's a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak . . . ;-P

thin line

As complete proof of concept of my last post (thin line between living
in nyc and living in boston) I just ran into huyett while waiting for
the bus to the cape in south station. My life just flows.

And also I'm drunk. Had delicious brunch with diana and ceppos in the
north end - lobster benedict - and a bloody mary - which always makes
me feel healthy (haha yeah right) bc of the celery. Hahah.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

time well wasted

On the bus headed up to boston for the night. Cape tomorrow,
post-brunch with diana and ceppos. Last chance to get up there this
summer, but we do have plans to go in sept.

Thinking about boston versus nyc - as I often do. This august marks my
third anniversary in new york.

Alternatively can't believe I've been here this long and am amazed at
all that is happened since I've lived in nyc. Almost lived here as
long as we live in htown.

At the same time I feel like I pseudo live in boston. As you all know,
one of my favorite games is the 'see people I love all the time' game,
and that often seems to be the case when you're making brunch plans
for sat on tues with people.

To be fair, this is mainly made possible by the fact I travel so much
(nothing really extensive - just weekend trips and such) and who knows
if ill have the energy to keep on doing this. But it works for now.

Was being interrogated by my two male coworkers (we share an office)
today about what I'm looking for in a guy. They're both taken - one
married with kids and the other a live-in girlfriend - and they have
vowed to find me a guy in nyc (ucla football game viewing at bars is
part of the plan apparently) but I was telling them how I have one
foot out the door in nyc and one asked what I would do if I met
someone who didn't want to leave nyc, as I do.

Aside from the 'bridges you cross before you come to them are over
bridges that aren't there' factor I honestly don't think I will meet
someone serious in nyc. Guys just aren't my type. However, I suppose
that remains to be seen, and I'm enjoying myself in the meantime.

Phew! A lot to type out on a bberry kids.. Wahoo friday! Enjoy.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

deep thoughts

my favorite deep thought, pong paddle slogan, and title of my next facebook (tag me!) album:

is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? and he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. and also, you're drunk.

from the nalgene

'87% of d students don't feel the need to drink in order to fit in'

it's true. they just feel the need to drink.

post-d panel

(before we begin, am wasted.) god i love d. was amazing to revisit pre-orientation, my d experience and the lessons i learned. there's no place like on earth. granite of nh and all that. i bleed d green. for life. how can you not. some things you don't know unless you've been there. d is one of them.

who knew?: houston edition

my sister just moved from boston to houston, tx to work at the stadium the texans (nfl) play at. all i know about texas is that song 'all my exs live in texas' (hi tay tay) and that ceppos  goes there on occasion, so was doing some wikipediaing (one of my interests). here are some things that i learned:

* it's the 4th largest city in the US

*only New York City is home to more Fortune 500 headquarters

*in 1980 Houston was described as the "most air-conditioned place on earth"

*Houston's skyline has been ranked fourth most impressive in the United States;^[131] it is the third-tallest skyline in the United States and one of the top 10 in the world.^[132]

*Houston has a seven-mile (11 km) system of tunnels and skywalks linking buildings in downtown which contain shops, restaurants, and convenience stores.

interesting. i might have to go visit!

moderating 'n stuff

it's that time of year again kids and this time i don't mean buffett, though that is fast approaching. it's 'moderate the d panel for admitted kids and their parents' time.

the panel is comprised of current undergrads (and me - the moderator) and kids who are going to d in the fall and their parents get to come and ask all sorts of questions - from 'if i'm a student-athlete will have i have a social life' to 'is there anywhere to park the car while unloading?' (these are people from nyc here. parking is always at the front of their minds).

third year doing this and i still have no idea what it means to be a moderator. in charge? i can do that. i'm more concerned with the fact i've been on the alumni fsp for a good 15 terms or something and i'm starting to forget things like the names of obscure buildings, and the prof i had for history 4. my how the times have changed.

a little usual suspect updating - saw brogiin briefly on mon night. she just decided to go to stanford law school and is heading back west to palo alto in short order. we are simultaneously super-psyched for her, while also being really bummed she won't be in nyc. more trips to san fran are in order CLEARLY.

also have seen huyett over the last few days. she's been working on her fitness a lot - riding in the pan mass challenge with maynard last weekend (that's sturbridge to provincetown kids. look it up on a map) and then running the falmouth road race this coming weekend. how she found the energy to come out and play some tuesday night pong last night we'll never know.

alright - have speeches to write and clothes to put on. happy wednesday. the week just feels different on wednesday you know?

from the archives

9/18/07:

- - - lyon wrote:
fine - you win. i used to be far more responsible. and then i got over it.
- - - end of quote - - -

it's no jimmy buffett concert but it's still a party

wow - the day is making a late in the game appearance with some winning commentary. been discussing the sat, aug 30 buffett show in dc (the most wonderful time of the year!)

here's lingley's take on it:

i say we leave dc at 9:30 am. This is supposed to be an all day party- not some jv half day shit.

amen sister friend

out to meet brogiin (shock! gasp!) and vin at the peninsula. peace kids!

informal poll

just received the ski goggles i ordered online.

does the fact that i bought all this ski gear mean that it is more or less likely that i will ski frequently this coming winter?

it seemed like a good idea at the time

am in that stage of hungoverness where nothing is registering and i want to do everything (shopping! make food! watch a movie! take a nap!) and nothing at all (lie in bed. mess around on itunes. wander aimlessly).

nyc, while enormous and full of millions of people, can feel like a college campus a fair amount of the time. esp when you're good at recognizing faces. it seemed all the d kids in the city were out last night.

kicked last night off with franz pong. as any d kid knows, franz is an aggressive way to play pong. which reared its ugly head around 11:30. (yeah. was wasted so early last night).

went down to whiskey town in the east village for some 'grandpa lemonades' and ran into chen and chalmers randomly. chen was in town for some training and for his sister's going away party (she's going to tuck!)

then things got incoherent. apparently we had some pizza, or so kevin informs me and went to off the wagon where i ran into a certain person from sig ep convention during homecoming. so we ran homecoming back til the wee hours this morning (only with no booting). the universe certainly has a hell of a sense of humor . . .

got to watch out for the ghosts of sex past. they have an uncanny habit of turning up when you least expect it.