from the archives

it's summer. it's friday. hooray for summer fridays!

from: maynard
reply to: mayhem
to: sd blitz list
date: wednesday, june 10 2005
subject: to do list

-- mayhem wrote:

1. Come to meetings.

2. Become inebriated.

2a. Spill a drink and blame someone else.

3. Boot.

4. Rally.

5. Become more inebriated.

6. Show someone your boobs in the basement, because that always
seems to be a good idea if you are an '05.

7. Watch the Aires.

7a. Show someone your boobs at the Aires, because that always seems
to be a good idea.

8. Rage until sunrise.

TO RECAP:
Come get wasted. Everybody's doin it.

-- end quote --

i like options

been spending a lot of time at work project planning two big projects - one for the end of july and the other for feb of next year. am learning a lot about myself in the process, namely that i don't like commitment.

project plans and product requirement documents make you define every little detail. i don't want to be held to those (even if they may change in the future) - just putting it down on paper makes me antsy. i think this is why i don't like numbers too - too specific! i want to keep my options open, see how things evolve and make decisions as i go along. this may also be shedding some light on my relationship strategy. by not committing i can't get let down when things don't go my way, but i'm also that much less likely to get what i want. hmmm.

incidentally, all this messing around in microsoft project has me and the coworkers joking about project planning our lives in microsoft project. you know, setting some major milestones like 'marriage' with a dependency on 'find someone useful to date'. basically what would be revealed by said exercise is that my entire life plan is at risk. sigh.

*i realize i am a dork ;-P

start of summer

morning friends.

not a ton to report. memorial day was low key (read: not a ton of drinking) b/c i got clothes-lined by a serious case of dartmouth flu post green key. this one was a bit more than poor diet, little sleep and excessive amounts of alcohol though - it started affecting my sinuses - so i spent most of the long weekend sleeping and lying outside (have a brutal sunburn to show for it).

still had some fun - vin and i went down to chinatown with her cousin for pan fried noodles on sunday and we watched 'dirty dancing'. got a lot done around the apartment and tidied up my life. still, was pretty bored and ready to go back to work by monday afternoon.

since i couldn't spend memorial day on the cape, i had oysters and beer on sunday, wore nantucket reds, listened to cool 102 (my radio station from home) and ate cape cod potato chips. it was not a bad substitute for beach and ocean.

finally starting to feel like myself again, but i'm going to take it easy for a few more days. kind of nice having nothing in particular to do or going on. mulley is back from london this weekend, so going to head out to the beer garden in queens to visit with her on sunday, but that's about it. i'm sure something will come up. the biggest news is it's t-minus 30 days to buffett in boston and the start of my vacation. SO excited to get back up to new england.

gk '09: twist

i want you all to know i got up specifically to update on gk, as i know inquiring minds want to know.

a couple of episodes of 30 rock ago, one of the tag lines was 'twist!', meaning the plot had suddenly taken an unexpected turn. this occurred last friday at about 5 pm when guy #1 asked if his third roommate could come along in the car with us. this was a 'twist' b/c i had spent last tuesday night talking to his roommate about why he should agree to go out with me for a drink in a non-pong/frat basement environment and see if we really liked each other. so now it was me, celeste and the three '08 sig eps in the car and we'd all be on campus together.

actually had a great time road tripping. the mix cds worked out great - something for everyone - and i heard a lot of songs that i don't listen to on a daily basis on my ipod. a trip down memory lane if you will.

we got up to campus around midnight. the green key magic worked it out so that a random party cd played 'since you been gone' as we drove into hanover, and then 'come on eileen', which the boys had been clamoring for all road trip as we drove around the green and into sig ep. celeste and i headed over to sd and found diede and my brother in the sister's room of sd. played some pong before moving out to the main room. kevin garland showed up, more wasted than i have ever seen him (he looked physically terrible) and we danced for awhile, before he disappeared. we headed over to chi gam to check out the scene, which did not impress us, and then i went to sig ep to find the boys (my coworkers had come up on thursday night), where i had an epic conversation about relationships and cheating with said roommate of interest.

spent the weekend referring to sigma delta as the 'room of requirement' (of harry potter fame) b/c of its ability to just provide whatever you need. for some reason there were several sleeping bags and umbrellas, as well as assorted other things we needed in there. sd always provides.

saturday morning i played harbour at xh with my bro and several members of the track team. this was my only priority for green key, so i'm glad it was accomplished. after bfast/lunch at the hop, went back to sd to play more pong/drink more. i took a nap on the first floor of sd (i had gone to bed at 5!) and then we headed over to sig ep for convention.

i've never fully explained what went down at convention the first time i went on the blog, but it was legendary and most of you know the story anyway. this time around was no different. i watched my brother drink 25 cups of beer in 5 minutes, and boot 4 times, which was a little unsettling. the event disintegrated into a boot/beer/red bull-flinging impromptu dance party in the basement of sig ep. spent about 2 hours dancing on a pong table, before we found some undergrads to buy us food (chicken filet with ranch, bacon and swiss!) and played more pong at sigma delt, where we ran into ceppos and the boy.

my coworker and i played a couple games with them, then it was back to sig ep for ebas and a walk home in the rain to pass out around 1.

grabbed bfast with diede at the hop, hit up the co-op for some new dartmouth flip-flops, and then it was back in the car to head home to nyc. celeste and i decided we wanted friendly's, which we made happen in short order (love the watermelon slammers), though the boys scoffed, and got rear-ended on the west side highway in stop and go traffic. it was chafey b/c i was driving a zip car, and it was the first accident i have ever been in, but the magic of green key was strong b/c the car had no visible damage and no one was hurt. waiting to hear back on this though.

carried on the fun of green key by going to olive garden with the boys once we were back in the city, which was a tourist-ridden endeavour, but still fun. was telling the boys how my mom thinks she's a failure b/c all of us kids grew up on the cape and don't know how to sail, and joe goes, 'your brother can chug 25 cups of beer in 5 minutes and you're wearing the same boot and beer soaked shirt you've been wearing for the last 24 hours, and you think inability to sail is why your mom is a failure?' (for the record i think my dad would approve) true to form, all my predictions about clothing and frequency of showering had come true: aka ruined and not at all.

not sure what's up on the boy situation - tbd - but it was a blast hanging out with all three of them, and i think there is more to come. it's hard to spend 10 hours in a car with someone and not come away either hating them or loving them (in the words of 50 cent).

speaking of boys, i went with my gut and told the boston boy he shouldn't come down this weekend. i wasn't looking at it as serious, and i wasn't really looking forward to him coming. breaking up with him sucked (it's hard to do) but i feel really relieved that i did and that i have the weekend to do what i want instead of get irrationally irritated for not listening to my intuition.

onwards and upwards.

stuff and things

i realize this is not at all sufficient for those of you who are interested in what went down at green key, but i really like this quote from my mary engelbreit desk calendar, so i'm posting it. will get around to the gk details later on:

silently, one by one in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of angels - henry wadsworth longfellow

in other news, allette was here last night - played some pong at hook and ladder and caught up with her. she's still in tn, working at camp, but going to be taking some classes at u tn this summer and applying to grad school in the fall. she promises to be less incommunicado and maybe leave the woods once in awhile. seeing her was great - making me miss the usual suspects something terrible - and we're all really psyched for our 5 year reunion next year (woah).

went out to dinner on monday night with vin and charlo to flex mussels on the ues. SO cute and the mussels were delicous! they bring you a big pot of them steamed in whatever broth you've chosen. i had the p.e.i: melted butter and lobster broth. it's great to have a good seafood place around the corner, and i want to hunt down one of their tshirts b/c those were super cute too.

found out on tuesday that i get summer fridays beginning this friday (hello memorial day. how did it get so late so soon?) which means i get done at 1. highly doubt i'll ever actually leave the office at 1, but it's nice to know i can, and i'll take getting out at 3 on fridays too! this changes all the summer plans as it is now possible for me to get to the cape by midnight on a friday instead of 2 am, making the trip that much more worthwhile. yipee!

speaking of memorial day, am spending my long weekend in nyc, primarily b/c i made a hair appt weeks ago for this sat, not realizing that it was memorial day weekend. the boston boy is finally coming down, post let's-not-hang-out-anymore-just-kidding-i-do-still-want-to-hang-out conversation. not sure how it's going to go, but it's supposed to be gorgeous out and he claims he wants to play pong (with paddles) so i think outdoor drinking is def in order. will see how it goes.

gk update to come - i promise! tom petty did say that waiting is the hardest part . . . ;-P

the faithful get the message like it's written on the breeze

wheee! it's the most wonderful time of the year (after christmas and jb) - green key! green key = a big weekend at dartmouth without any real reason other than people are so glad it's not -30 anymore and there are leaves on the trees. in theory that is. my freshman year it snowed. really put a damper on the ad lawn party, that's for sure.

lots and lots of alums go back for this one, so looking forward to seeing some of my favorite people, including kevin garland, who will have finished his first year of law school by the time i see him around 12:15 tonight, and ceppity-cepp who is still contemplating her involvement in this year's green key, but am anticipating the game time decision will be to hang out. ;-P

driving some kids up tonight, including celeste, so the road trip will be a good time. christine and i were discussing ideal road trip mixes - we decided it came down to upbeat music that at least 3 people in the car would know, as well as some quieter songs so it's still possible to have a conversation. as our last road trip did not treat the ipod very well, i have dug out all my old mix cds (we're talking summer of 2002 here) and are bringing them along in case the ipod fails. there's some dead air in vermont that's not good for the singing part of the road trip.

as i was packing this morning i was planning for several things:

1. the possibility that i wear the same clothes all weekend
2. the possibility that said clothes will get wet, muddy, booted on, etc.
3. the possibility that i won't take a shower for the next 48 hours
4. the fact it's supposed to be warm and rainy

kind of like packing for jb really. looking forward to this.

i bleed dartmouth green

this week is all about dartmouth: reception with president wright and the dartmouth club of nyc tonight, always a good, 'i love dartmouth' time, and then friday we're driving up for green key.

per usual, is supposed to be cloudy all weekend, but hopefully warm and i'm super excited for some time in a consequence-free environment, though at this point i am mostly looking forward to the road trip.

love driving and listening to good music. never mind doing that. good stuff.

under pressure

hell of a week kids. hell of a week. but you prob got that impression from the last post.

it went extremely badly - fucked shit up all over the place and used up tons of favors with my coworkers - but the things did launch on the day we said, most of the issues are not evident to the end user, and i am proud of myself for not crying in the bathroom until after they were launched. that which does not kill you makes you stronger right?

learned a lot about working with vendors, project planning, digital stuff, and myself under pressure, which is good b/c we have to do it all again in 2 mths. clearly me and my group are gluttons for punishment.

still a lot to do, but slowly getting myself back on track and recovering (train hard. recover equally hard). lingley comes to visit tonight which i am very excited about, we're going to hang out with celeste, go for a run in the park, maybe some brooklyn bridge action. and then sunday i'm heading down to philly to see my bro run at the ivy track championship at upenn. good times.

onwards and upwards.

if you're going through hell, keep going

so goes the saying - practically the only one that got me through my break-up with my exbf. had to write it on my hand and look at it a lot while that was happening. not quite at that point yet, but my big project for the product i manage is supposed to go live mid-week - my inaugural product launch - and we're getting down to the wire and the communication has gone out, and the expectations have been set and i'm relying on someone else to come through!

needless to say, i am very very very stressed out about it as i am worried the vendor will not deliver. i feel like it's finals and i need to go pull an all-nighter in 1902 except all i can really do is wait around and hope for the best. dreamt last night i got mugged 4 times walking from 9th ave to 8th avenue. yeah - mugged 4 times in the space of a 1/4 mile. think that dream means anything freud?

to revive an old finals favorite: 'kick it in second wind got a few more hours (days) to go losing anymore hope of scoring any more coke and we've still got to do another show' - jb song of the same name. this is going to be interesting.

i've got a rock n roll heart

i've got a feeling we could be serious girl
right at this moment i could promise you the world
before we go crazy before we explode
there's something about me you got to know

i get off on a '57 chevy
i get off on a screaming guitar
like the way it gets me every time it hits me
i've got a rock n roll heart

- eric clapton 'rock n roll heart'

it's the weekend - wheeeeeeeee!

oh my - a lot of fun going on as of late! went out to do karaoke with the coworkers post work last night. i sang 'you're so vain', mainly b/c it's a song that makes a lot of sense to me right now, particularly the 'i had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee' part. and, as janet jackson put it, 'if it weren't for that damn cream there'd be no clouds in my coffee.' amen sister friend.

headed over to mcsorley's to meet up with vin to celebrate her job after singing. had never been to this bar before, but had heard lots of good things. absolutely loved it - it's the oldest bar in nyc, totally chill vibe. they only have light and dark beer, and it's 2 for $4.50! unheard of in nyc. i also had a delicious ham and cheese sandwich. you sit at communal tables and order 14 beers at a time and the place encourages rowdiness. cody and huyett showed up and we sang some sd and rugby drinking songs and then the alma mater and it felt totally right. but i may have just been drunk. in fact i def was, as i also texted someone 'i dont' want weed i want you' (hi textsfromlastnight.com) - i don't think that's a sentence that comes up very often - and went to bed at 1.

this was rough b/c vin and i got up this morning at 5 am to come down to 30 rock at 6 for the 'no doubt' concert on the today show. waited in lines and for the band to play for 3 hours, but it was really fun to be so close to the tv broadcast and the band! they came on at 8:45 and played 'spiderwebs', 'don't speak' and 'it's my life'. we were super close to the stage and i spotted myself on tv during the replay of the concert as the today show ended. an awesome nyc-thing to do and i would def do it again.

tonight is party hopping and general debauchery, and then tomorrow is terrace planting before we commence day drinking at a kentucky derby party and then cinco de moustache party post. have decided my derby bonnet is going to be my corona light hat (my party hat!) which i may tie a ribbon around. either way - i'm psyched. it's the weekend - wheeeeeeeee!