be afraid. be very afraid.

remember kids: halloween makes the post-hook-up walk of shame even more fun.

happy halloween.

semper ubi sub ubi*

seriously, i think the best thing about today was the cute underwear i
ordered online arrived. pretty psyched about that.

was deathly hungover all day and it was not a good day for it, as it
turned out to be somewhat hectic. last night our office held our
launch party at a place called '1, 2, 3 burger, shot, beer'. as you
might imagine, the burgers were a dollar, the shots were 2 and the
beer was 3. it was also 80s night AND ladies night, which meant us
girls got to drink wine for a dollar and the dj played all our
requests. there was a lot of dancing and 'don't stop believing'
happening.

however, got home at 2 for the second night (school night) in a row,
and i'm beat. when i'm hungover i can't form sentences or edit/censor
myself. i just blab incoherently. and today i actually had to talk to
some people and try to sound intelligent. um yeah.

halloween costume woe continues. am seriously really annoyed by the
social pressures of halloween costume and party planning. creative and
cute are sort of mutually exclusive. kind of like miranda on sex and
the city, 'sexy is what i try to get guys to see me as after i win
them over with my personality.' can't really do both.and so many
people are having parties i am exhausted at the thought of trying to
coordinate the night.

some of my best halloween costumes growing up were simple - i was a
witch for a long time - sucker for painting my face green. a scarecrow
was a good one too - lots of baggy, farmer type clothes, stuffed with
newspaper. big hit. but i think my favorite costume was dressing up as
a waitress. my family friends own a restaurant that my grandmother
hostessed for a long time, i worked there, my uncle worked there, you
get the idea. when we were little we would go visit my grandmother and
the bartender would give me marsciano cherries and the restaurant was
this cool, fun place to go and run around. so i got this idea that
being a waitress was a fun and glamorous thing to be and that was all
i wanted to be when i grew up - a waitress. as i told my coworkers, i
guess some dreams really do come true. ;-P

*always wear underwear. i'm a latin dork.

brooklyn bocce

went down to brooklyn last night to play bocce with will and some other psi u's. brooklyn on a saturday during the day is an ambitious undertaking, let alone on a school night, but it just kind of seemed like the right thing to do.

memo to self: never go to brooklyn at night unless i'm planning to stay over (wink wink) or am with a bunch of people who will be heading back to manhattan later on. got off of the express train at 86st b/c it was just faster to ride up then to get off and wait for a local at 1:30 in the morning and walked home the half a mile in a harsh, cold soaking rain that had sprung up between my trip down earlier that night and my trip back. but that also kind of seemed like the right thing. soaked to the bone, mascara running down my face and 'songs about rain' had come on though my ipod was on random. funny how that works.

the rain continues in nyc - would vastly prefer to be snuggled up in my sheets cozy like a bear. instead am hungover and have a meeting with hr. guess i best get on with it.

tidbits

it's friday afternoon. finding it tough to focus:

1. lately at the gym been seeing some terrible tv. namely 'ncis' and 'wife swap'. 'ncis' stands for (had to look this up) 'naval criminal investigative service'. it is total crap. how much can the navy possibly have to investigate? def not enough to have an entire show on usa about it. it is appallingly terrible, even if the real 'ncis' does have stuff to investigate.

am also disgusted by 'wife swap'. i think the show promotes awful values among families, i'm disgusted by the way people behave in america, and really it cuts both ways: the uptight, type-a wives are almost as bad as the slovenly, what-do-i-care ones. i think this show is so terrible that when my coworker told me he liked it i told him flat out that i was judging him (he also does not like james taylor) and we had a heated, loud argument about whether he should be judged for liking the show. in the midst of this, one of our vp's came into our office and told us the head of our division was speaking to the group and could we keep it down. oops.

2. i think my parents are having a great time not having kids around. my youngest sister went to school this past fall, and since she left have not talked to my parents nearly as often as i was. which, to be fair, was not very often to begin with - i never talk to them on the phone, mostly email and gtalk - but even that has fallen off. and then at my cousin's wedding a couple weeks ago they were living it up, with my dad cracking jokes and my parents dancing and whatnot. most unusual. they've always been good about spending time with each other - going out on a date every week, spending weekends by themselves while we stayed with my grandparents, but this is something new.

3. if i was ever to join the military or be drafted, i would join the navy. even though i am scared to death of drowning, it appeals to me. had a poster that i really liked from our trip to washington, dc during senior year of high school: 'gee, i wish i were a man. i'd join the navy' from world war 2 era. loved that poster. and if i were to join the navy, i think i'd be a nurse. and thus, this post comes full circle.

in other news, going out to ct tonight with celeste for an adventure at her coworkers mansion. this should be interesting.

maybe i should have gone to homecoming

from 'the d's' 'overheard at d' (homecoming edition):

Frat Row [heard through Choates window]: I DON'T LIKE YOUR ATTITUDE! YOU NEED MORE ALCOHOL! (this is a line i need to use more often)

Chi Gam: IDs? Thank you. IDs? That's a thong, thank you. IDs? (hi cappie!)

priceless.

goes to show you never can tell

so it's been an interesting week thus far - not quite sure what to make of it.

so far i have:

gone to a screening of a really depressing movie - 'changeling' with angelina joelie. i'm all for free movies, but this one left us feeling shaken and stirred. it's a true story, set in 1930s los angeles, about a woman who comes home from work one day to find her son gone. the police tell her they've found him five months later and try to get her to take home a kid that she knows his not him, but the police and the press twist around her words and she eventually gets thrown in a psychological ward b/c she clearly can't all be with it if she's defying the male and corrupt lapd. it had pretty graphic scenes of murder and torture, angelina spends most of the time crying, it's everyone's worst nightmare, and the feelings of powerlessness and frustration are clear. it was a well done movie, no doubt it will get an oscar nod, but it was very hard and scary to watch. draw your own conclusions.

last night went with will to the city harvest fundraiser. they had all these tasting stations set up from different restaurants around the city. it was amazing, sampled lots of delicious dishes, had a drink from grey goose called a peppermint patty - vodka, peppermint schnaps, milk and garnished with the candy of the same name. cool and refreshing! i also made my own mojito - i now understand what i've been doing wrong all this time - somewhere between crushing the ice and muddling the mint. or maybe it was the lack of simple syrup. needless to say, was stuffed and tipsy when i got home.

so of course capped the night off by playing pong with my old coworker and boss, which he enjoyed quite a bit. got yelled at by the neighbors downstairs (they of loud children fame). he said, 'you know i have a child right,' and i said, all sarcasm and drunkness aside, 'yes, don't you have two?'. apparently his one child is quite loud on his own.

week of fun and kind of randomness continues. wonder what today will bring?

rowing in the head of the charles on saturday was a blast - had a perfect sunny fall day to be out on the water. we got 'green monstah' shirts which the girls from boston university had trouble understanding ('but d's not in boston!' 'our mascot's the 'big green'. 'ohh! now i get it!') and i am very pleased to have. rowing went over a lot better than i expected, the boat was decently set considering none of us had rowed together before, and was not gasping for breath the entire time, but my technique went to hell somewhere around mile 2. that was something i could not really train for. but it was a lot of fun, great to be back in a boat, and am thinking about continuing to train for something else. will keep you posted.

was great to be in boston when the sox won, even though they lost the alcs ultimately. watched the game over by fenway with the boston boy -good times.

allette was in town over the weekend for her birthday. she was up in htown for homecoming, and then she and huyett came over for a sleepover on monday night to catch up and hang out. allette's still in tn, but she's applying to grad school programs in clinical psych, and will see how that pans out. she could be back in the northeast as soon as dec, depending on what happens with her job, which is pretty much everyone's situation these days. great to see her, however, brief.

just around the corner there's a rainbow in the sky

interesting website - meetways. allows you to enter two addresses and find the half-way point, as well as a coffee/bar/restaurant near the point for you to meet at.

check it out! no more 'where should we go?' when you're trying to make plans to hang out. :)

happy is the bride the sun shines on

hi kids - a little behind on my posting. a bit of a crazy week so far; our first website launch was on monday and we have three more tomorrow, so my regular schedule is all out of whack.

the rest of my columbus day weekend was a blast. went out on friday night to the bhp with christine, elise and my sister who was in the city for the weekend from houston. reiten joined us as well for a last hurrah before she heads back to cali. she'll be living at home, saving money and applying to schools (hopefully) in nyc, so while we are sad she is out west, we can look forward to having her back on the east coast soon.

kevin took a break from law school to come out as well, and we ran into a bunch of kids we knew, both from d and from the cape. we also kicked a lot of ass at foose, both me and christine and my sister which is really our favorite thing to do in bars, especially when the boys get all macho and competitive. after a particularly competitive game, which we won of course, we decided to step off as there was not much competition in the bar, a statement that got a lot of kids' knickers in a twist to say the least when i announced to the people assembled.

the boston boy came over to hang out and meet the gang, i think he had a good time, but he might have just been overwhelmed. unclear. after the bar closed we went back to his apt where he told me he had just gotten 'sleeping beauty' on blue-ray which apparently has completely revolutionized the viewing experience (read the nyt's article) and did i want to watch it. um, sleeping beauty is only my favorite disney movie. so we watched half of it and went to bed at 6.

this was rough because christine and i had to be on the road early sat am up to exeter to pick up my sister. thank god for dunkin donuts. it was a gorgeous, perfect new england fall day, the kind we wished it had been when all of us drove up to htown a couple weeks ago. this time we got to put the roof in christine's convertible down and drive with the sunshine and wind in our hair.

the foliage was even better than a few weeks ago and we enjoyed the small town new england experience. walked around exeter briefly and then headed down to the cape where the brilliant sunshine continued.

my cousin REALLY lucked out big time - it's a little iffy to plan an outdoor wedding in mid-october. fortunately, they hit the jackpot and the 5:30 pm ceremony on the beach was beautiful.

the reception was interesting. a lot of fun because my whole family was there (i have a big one on that side) but also kind of weird because:

1. it was the first time us kids were of age to drink/party in front of our parents (my parents never drink)
2. all of my cousin's friends are married and me and the sibs were sitting at a table with three other milquetoast couples. i think we scarred them for live
3. was thinking about how in theory there will be four more of these events in my immediate family.

all in all, lots of good fun though. got to fly back to new york on sunday on one of my uncle's buddy passes (he works for delta), which made the trip considerably more pleasant. and is helping me stomach the idea that i am headed up to boston again this weekend for the head of the charles. sounds like lots of rowing folks will be around and i'm excited to get in a boat again. despite all my training, it prob will still be an unfun 20 minutes, but i'm looking forward to it. will report back per usual.

cheers!

spring or full moon - one of the two

'it might as well be spring'
 

 The things I used to like, I don't like any more
I want a lot of other things I've never had before

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm,
I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string,
I'd say that I had spring fever,
But I know it isn't spring.

I'm as starry eyed and gravely discontented,
Like a nightingale without a song to sing.
Oh, why should I have spring fever,
When it isn't even spring?

   - from the musical 'oklahoma!'

Humpty dumpty has a great fall

Wandering around harvard square/ boston on a gorgeous fall day. Just
'kicking down the cobblestones, looking for fun and feeling groovy' in
the words of simon and garfunkel, with periodic gtalk breaks of
course.

Learned I could get a fully furnished studio here for what I pay in
rent in manhattan. Hmmm.

Listening to my classic rock playlist and thinking about 'under the
influence of all this lovliness, almost I am persuaded to love autumn
best'

Going to walk along 'the banks of the river charles' on my way to do
some damage via retail therapy. ;-P

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

Love that dirty water

Just arrived at logan for new england wedding weekend extravaganza.

Feel a little like I did at the jb concert when someone asked me where
I was from and I said 'massachusetts' bc its not worth the effort in
nyc to try and explain where on the cape I'm from and they responded
'duh'.

Its good to be home. :)

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

there's a party in my tummy

this is a really dumb video to be posting, as its audience is not really the people who read this blog, but we've been watching/quoting this video in our office for at least two weeks now and it cracks me up every time.

i should say that one of my coworkers (i sit in an old conference room with my boss and our partner in distribution crime and we're often silly/sarcastic/snarky when we're not discussing work or current events or the latest user generated phenomenon) has a last name that is close to 'brobey' - the main character in this video, which is where our fascination came from. we're trying to convince him to be brobey for halloween, but so far no luck.

anyway, it's a pretty good beat - i can't wait for the techno remix. if anything you should watch this so you know what i'm referring to when i go 'so yummy so yummy'. ;-P

yo! gabba gabba, 'party in my tummy'

whirl of gaiety

well friends, the fun and merriment continues. (october goes by in a blink.) headed up to boston tomorrow night for my cousin's bachelorette party - the first that i've attended, though i suspect there are lots more in my future.

i'm flying up post work to make it to dinner on time, but i'm so used to going up to boston on a friday via bus that i keep forgetting that it's a little different this time, that i will actually be leaving on a thursday, and that the trip involves an airport. flying jetblue is really not that expensive, especially compared to the train, but when you add in all the time to get to the airport, hang around, inevitably be delayed b/c it's jfk, it really almost just makes more sense to take the bus!

dinner and shennanigans tomorrow night, and then i get to hang out in boston all day on friday while everyone works. friday night will be fun - i think the bhp and foose are on the agenda in some capacity - and then christine and i are headed up to new hampshire (again! yay!) to pick up my sister at boarding school. then all of us go down to the cape, hopefully in time to make the 5:30 ceremony in the mid-cape. so while i don't have to work on friday, it will not be a relaxing long weekend or anything. hopefully will be fun!

last weekend was also fun - had a bunch of the usual suspects around for whit's bridal shower. elise came down from boston and we were able to convince her to stay overnight and hang out. also saw robin, who had just wrapped up the gala event for her foundation and is going to be in nyc for the next two months! get at her.

bridal shower was a lot of fun. we went to a tea salon by union square and stuffed our faces with salad, scones, tea sandwiches and of course, tea. also copious mimosas and champagne cocktails, which had us all feeling good when we headed down to the east village to meet up with laurak and huyett.

spent a delightful afternoon drinking beers, gossiping, catching up, and watching baseball - more baseball than i think i've ever watched occurred this past weekend. really just SO SO good to hang out with the girls. made me really really happy.

eventually we trekked back up to the upper east side for some pong, where elise and cody beat me and laurak shamelessly. the word is she and the husband have a pong table, but he is only allowed to use it twice a year. elise, it seems, has no qualms about playing at other locations, and she has promised that when i come visit the pong table will get a bye from the 2-a year rule. elise is still in school in boston, trying to sort out next steps like the rest of us. she and the boy got married in august, which she said was a blast (see facebook for pics) and are living in boston proper in a house with two dogs. and she can still beat us at pong. =)

laurak was stopping by on her way up to woods hole to 'go to sea' as we kept saying. she's going to work on another boat - this one's sailing to st. croix for the next few months. she promises to keep us posted on if she'll be on dry land for new years so we can plan.

laurak and i did brunch on sunday with everyone and then napped, walked around and up fifth. we then cooked shrimp creole for cody and huyett and huyett's friend, a recipe we decided was a success.

so it was a real friend-filled weekend - very very enjoyable. there is so much to be said for good company, and for people who have known you and seen you grow. there is a simple joy, comfort and pleasure to be with good friends.

have no doubt this weekend will be more of the same.

genius

pretty genius innovation from google (though let's be honest, what from google isn't?)

you enable a setting in google labs that forces you to answer math problems during pre-set days and times to keep you from drunk blitzing. i can think of MANY times at d that something like this would have helped me save face. (though let's be honest, it will be a real help in the real world too).

thank you google for once again helping me micromanage my life.

details on how to get it here.

weekend update x 2

well kids, have had two amazing weekends in a row of adventures, fun and hanging out with people i adore. i realize i still haven't posted on last weekend's trip to htown, so will knock that out and then cover this weekend.

sept 27/28

headed up to beantown last friday with vin. the chinatown bus made it in about 4 hours, a fact which i both love and alternately scared by. that means it's going really really fast. got to boston and were ripped off by a cab driver whilst driving to the pour house which really started the evening off well, but it was much improved by some shots and several jack and cokes. met up with vin's bro and the boston boy, but he and i soon headed next door to hang out and then back to dorchester when the bar closed down.

saturday's plans were a bit up in the air as hurricane remnants were taking their toll on new england and we weren't sure whether vin and christine would be coming along for the trip to htown or not, etc. etc. thus, had a bit lazier of a morning than he and i have had in the past (i generally show up late friday night for about 12 hours and leave early on sat morning to go someplace else) which was really really nice, and i headed over to christine's apt around 12 after grabbing some breakfast and hanging out. vin and her bro showed up and we sat around and waffled about whether we should go up despite the rain. thanks to some aggressive peer-pressuring, we ultimately all decided to go, and jumped in the car to speed up 93 after a stop for gas and provisions (d+ds and sour patch kids).

we were racing against fading daylight and rain and mist, but we made a quick stop at the outlets on 93, before heading up 89. even without the sunshine, the fall colors were gorgeous. it's so incredibly cool that the leaves do that. amazing.

got to school and found diede in her dorm before heading over to molly's for margaritas. several margaritas later, my bro had shown up and we were trying to convince the waiter to come out to play pong after he was done with work. unfortunately, he didn't get done til late (10:30) and had to get up early (8:30) and couldn't make it. what a brush-off that was.

quick stop at stinsons for boones and we were down to the sd basement where we ran into some ghosts of sex past and played pong on a real table for the first time since august (it was amazing). christine and vin were holding their own, and we played a couple games before deciding to head to sae. (side note: the '10s repainted the bathroom and pool room in electric blues, greens and purples. the back of the bathroom door says, 'is this heaven . . . is this hell . . . and how long is it gonna last?' love it). there had already been some booting and rallying, and i found an amazing tshit from '08 soph summer - it had a fake tuxedo on the front and on the back it said 'sexy strips '08x' - which i told christine she could have if she put it on immediately, which she did and proceeded to tell everyone that she had 'dressed for success'.

got over to sae after a stop at foodcourt for french fries and nuggets. at sae we encountered all the boys from the various jimmy buffett shows from the summer. these boys didn't know what to do with us at the concerts, and they still didn't know what to do with us on campus, but there was instant beer, pong table line-up maneuvering, and some follow-up to the things that went down at the shows which made for a very jolly atmosphere. they cleared out the back room of construction materials so that christine and vin could play strip pong with some of the boys. at one point they both came wandering out with no pants on - hilarious.

vin and i cut out and over to heorot for a brief time, as they were having a pseudo-party. couldn't handle the crowds, but my brother did manage to procure the dregs of a handle of soco, which vin and i swigged from the bottle in the great room and chased with dos equiis. there were no chickens that i could see.

sufficiently liquored up, we headed back to sae, where the aforementioned 'pants off, dance off' situation occurred. let's just say that all three of us ended up sleeping at sae in various forms of compromising positions. some things never change eh?

sun morning found us on the road bright and early heading to woodstock, though yours truly was a hungover idiot and put her cell phone in her make up bag so when it came time to call my grandparents to tell them we were coming, said phone could not be found. eventually it was found, but only after returning to campus and being EXTREMELY late, which really pissed my grandparents off and resulted in christine having to eat blueberry pancakes which she hates. oops! you get used to having cell phone service and then it all goes to hell when you do a simple thing like misplace your phone. sheesh.

we all loved woodstock though and are considering moving to open up some sort of business. apparently you can get a three-bedroom house for 200k. pick me!

headed back to boston singing and considering what we would like to eat given the hungover state, after a pit stop at the 'cabot cheese official sampling station' (not to be confused with the unofficial sampling station) where the cheese really helped us all feel better and we took some strange pictures with a wooden cow. vin and i caught the bus back to nyc. though we were both deathly ill all week with d flu, we had a great time.

some solid quotes out of it:

rbs that shit @ now (rbs = royal bank of scotland. motto: make it happen)

you have to be very careful with infections - vin (unclear)

vin: why do you have handi wipes?
christine: in case things get messy

lyon: there's got to be a sketchy dance party somewhere
christine: we are the sketchy dance party

phew! that was a long post. last week and weekend may have to wait for a day or two lest i be late to work.

psas

sd4life gets a little serious for a second or two. bear with me.

1. debates. didn't intend to watch them, but did when cody showed up and demanded we turn them on. NOT a fan of ms. palin. i want a woman in the white house as much as anyone, but not that woman. what really struck me though, was mr. biden, an old white male, only this time not on the conservative/republican side, but on the democratic side and not as the presidential candidate, but as vp. it was strangely unsettling to hear liberal sentiments come out of a guy who looks like he belongs on the republican ticket and to hear him backing up his running mate. the times they are a changing. hallelujah!

2. public service announcement (psas) number 2 - if any of you readers are sexually active and haven't been tested for stds or hiv in the last year (more recently if you've had unprotected sex) i really encourage you to go get tested. yes, needles aren't fun. yes, waiting for the results SUCKS, but it is a very important and responsible thing to do. i believe we should talk more about this publicly - testing - and i know far too many people who don't get tested on a regular basis and should. stds affect everyone, it can happen to you, and personally they are far scarier to me than the threat of getting pregnant. we've all done stupid stuff, but suck it up, and get it done, and start with a clean slate. and if you practice safe sex, you can be confident knowing you've done what it takes to be responsible and safe. reiten, back me up. safety first.

that is all. happy friday.