be afraid. be very afraid

october gave a party, the leaves by hundreds came
the chestnut oaks, and maples - their costumes all aflame
miss weather led the dancing, professor wind the band,
the guests were all a flutter, and danced off hand in hand

when we were little we had a collection of halloween decorations that we were always excited to bring out, and one of them was a foam grave headstone with 'be afraid. be very afraid' on it that my parents got a big kick out of.

was walking around the upper east side last night with hopper, checking out the brownstones over on park and madison, because people get realllllly into halloween around here. spiderwebs, massive gourds, fake ravens, bats in trees. it's kind of nice because these are buildings that look like no one lives in them most of the time, so not only is it a sign of life, it's a sign that these people are human too.

big weekend on tap in nyc. our office is closing at 3:30 for a halloween party. i'm going dressed as a sailor, courtesy of the sailor hat that i acquired at kit's bachelorette. am minus the white sports coat from jb, but i think i come out okay. am a little tired of all the stress associated with halloween and costmes and whatnot. less creativity, more drinking! plus, i wear flare all year round. why should i let a socially contrived costume day stress me out?

ceppos is coming down tonight for halloween festivities and to see cody run the nyc marathon on sunday. should be a lot of fun and a great way to wrap up october. and then a week from sunday we go to argentina. how did it get so late so soon?

happy halloween/weekend/november!

unidentified party injuries

occupational hazard of waking up at dartmouth:

1. bruised knuckle
2. bruised hip bone
3. bruised foot (someone dropped a can of keystone on it)
4. really weird scrape running vertically from my armpit to half-way down my chest. not entirely sure where that came from, but i suspect it had to do with wiping out at xh.

i also found two whippet cartridges in my work bag. what?

that's what you get for waking up at dartmouth

homecoming 2009:

after swearing that i would never go to homecoming again, this past weekend found me driving three girls up to hanover. got up to school around 10:30, way too late for any sort of bonfire festivities, but a few die hards were still running around the smoking pile of wood, and it was just so great to be back up north that we kind of didn't mind.

yas and i pulled ourselves together and headed to sd, where we hung out in the kitchen, did shots of gin (gag me) and kool-aid and peppermint patty shots. seriously - don't understand why people buy gin aside from at a bar with tonic. it goes with nothing. and shoots terribly. not something you want to have leftovers of.

ventured over to alpha chi to listen to a jam band and have some cider, but there were too many people to faciliate drunkness, so we headed to bg, where we pounded lots of tea in an effort to get drunk. there were kids in '13 shirts running around, which i have to say, there is no better way to convey that you are underage than by advertising your year.

ran into diede and linsalata for a brief stop at the chi gam dance party (aka mosh pit) and headed back to sae to play pong and get drunk. played a game of pong in the back room while some girl and her friend were having a wayyyyyyyyy too intense convo about whether or not her boyfriend wanted to marry her. less marriage more pong! linsalata and i played a pathetic game of pong and then the ebas arrived. we stuffed our faces and i decided that instead of sleeping at sae with a bunch of sae's, the better move would be to go back to sd.

made myself a bed on the couch in the sd library, which was slightly confusing when i woke up a few hours later on the floor attempting to use a coat as a blanket. but i think the fact there was an '03 and her husband sleeping on air mattress between my couch and the door means that i woke up, stumbled my way out the door and then decided it was easier to sleep on the floor than to try and find my way back to the couch.

sat morning after a trip to bagel basement with diede we managed to round up a game of harbour by 11 am in the sd basement, which quickly became 'take off some clothes when your boat gets sunk'. normally this wouldn't phase me, but my sister was playing and it was only slightly awk to think about getting naked in front of her, so we implemented a 'no nudity in front of siblings rule'. i have to say, that seeing how she's a month into her dartmouth career and already playing harbour bodes well for her. there was also an extremely attractive boy from middlebury playing in his boxers who at one point said that he didn't think anyone wanted to see him naked. every girl in the basement agreed that he was wrong.

post harbour played a game of social, then some more pong, then made my first kde appearance in prob a good five years to play more social. when we got there we discovered no one was in the basement, and not only was the music terrible, but you couldn't hear it in the room where we were playing, all of which confirmed my suspicions that i had pledged the right sorority.

not entirely sure what went down post social, but i suspect it involved a stop at psi u, and i know it involved a blacked out shower. woke up in the sd library at 9:30 with jenny fisher telling me it was time to go to xh for sd-xh tails.

arrived at xh on sd time - an hour after they began - and jfish and i played my bro, who was wearing a john deere sheet toga, in pong. lost pretty terribly, and then blacked out again until 12:30 or, when i blacked back in to dancing on a bench with aforementioned hot boy. this worked out well, b/c i also saw my ex for the first time in over two years (incidentally, the last time was at xh too). feel like those were pretty decent circumstances to re-encounter an old flame.

the night took a turn for the disaster when i went to leave and couldn't find my bag with my wallet, work bberry, etc in it. turned the first floor of heorot upside down, and enlisted the bro and sis to find my bag and stop me from flipping out. the main issue here was that i had to drive the girls back to ny on sunday and i wasn't sure how i was going to do that without a license or keys to get in the car.

post bag-flip out things got weird. my brother put me to bed on the couch in his room and tucked me in 'like a burrito' in an attempt to calm me down. then we had a nice chat about life and stuff and things before his door burst open and several '09 track team members came in. one snuggled with me, while the other got lectured by his girlfriend about how she was not going to sleep with him on my brother's other couch. then me and the '09 got off the couch and went to the track house where he looked (unsuccessfully) for an empty bed, and eventually we slept on a mattress in the kitchen. i did acquire a sweet pair of sunglasses, though the red plastic ray bans i really wanted were obsconded with by the '09.

got up early sunday morning to go deal with my crisis scenario in my brother's room, including cancelling my credit card, atm card, and ordering a new license from the state of ny. then returned to sd only to find that i had not actually brought my bag to xh at all, but had outsmarted myself by leaving it at sd. so. i have had no atm card these last few days and a new license is on the way. i'm an idiot. i am never telling my brother about this, as i'm fairly certain he would kill me.

made it back to ny uneventfully and put myself to bed at 7 pm. and that's what you get for waking up at dartmouth.

tidbits

dana re: trivia last night: if it has anything to do with fish or new obscure music, listen to lyonif it has anything to do with fish or new obscure music, listen to lyon

(i knew that ichthyology was the study of fish, and one of the songs they played is a popular basement song at xh sent to me by my bro)

i counted up the number of weekends i have been or will be gone from nyc in 2009. turned out to be 40% of them. love working in nyc but i have places to go and people to see on weekends.

mulley and i are on the five-year reunion food and events planning committee. what this entails, we don't really know, but damn we're old. our first call is tonight and we're planning on having some beers and making this the best reunion ever. or just having some beers.

if it has anything to do with fish or new obscure music, listen to lyon

you know your party was a success when . . .

vin's bday was on sunday (officially) so sat night we threw a party at our apt. her parents imported alcohol from jersey for us - we estimated we saved about $85 bucks by crossing state lines. to our shock and delight, our neighbors did not say one word about the fact there were still 30 people in our apt at 3 am, when we finally decided to go out. why this is is a huge mystery as we think said neighbors saw us unloading the alcohol, and yelled at us when we got home at 1 on thursday night (in a much less boisterous manner i might add).

party theme was one of vin's faves in college: no cups. you could drink out of anything that was not a cup. had a lot of baby bottles and martini shakers, as well as 'i can't believe it's not butter' tubs. vin drank out of a trophy she ordered and custom engraved with 'i like winners' (hi christine). her bro drank out of a beaker and was super excited about his concoctions. people got pretty creative, though i'm not sure if the lack of cups hindered or facilitated our drinking.

in a birthday miracle, both vin and i made it out of the apt to the stumble inn at 3 am. there was flip cup playing, hell hole playing, aladdin sing alongs, and a dance party. hearn made an appearance with his roommate, who wanted to play everyone (literally) in flip cup. i tried to reverse psychology him by telling him that it was hearn who was so drunk he needed to go home, to which he would say - i know. he is. hearn took him home and to his credit, returned to the party.

i didn't know half the people at the party and apparently there was a couple there on their first date, which it sounds like went well as they were making out all over the building. someone booted on the wall and our bushes (that sangria is dangeroussssss), had several heart to hearts in the bathroom, caught up with megh and kjb, after weeks of trying to get together to celebrate her engagement (only dax didn't make it - weird). cody put in an appearance with a flabongo to represent, as it was two, not one, weeks before the marathon.

we're slowly but surely putting our apt back together, as it was a total wreck on sunday morning. furniture is still out of place, and we have 45 or so beer cans outside, but we're getting there. sun morning i found a bottle of jameson in the bathroom cabinet that dana hid there so hearn's roommate wouldn't drink it. the floor was all sticky, i found a beer can in my dresser drawer, the door to my bedroom won't shut properly, just total ridiculousness and a total blast!

was reminded on sat night of the 'sd formal rule of thumb'. we had a semi-formal and a formal every term, and subsequently, had to find a date for said events. would frequently invite friends and such, but if there was a guy you were interested in, he had to fit several criteria, namely be completely fine with you drinking your face off, running off and dancing with your friends for periods at a time, and holding your hair back, or in my case, dealing with drunk crying, which i did quite a lot in college. basically, he had to be cool with chilling with your friends without you, having fun and adjusting to the situation at hand. and if he would be a good formal date, then he'd be a good date date. something i hadn't thought about in awhile, as most of the guys i've been interested in lately have been drunk hook-ups rather than serious contenders for anything useful.

speaking of formals and sd, dartmouth homecoming is this wknd and i'm driving a bunch of '08 girls up on friday night. this HAS to be my last homecoming until i have kids that need outfitting in dartmouth gear. i've been to 8 of the last 9 years counting this one and we all remember what happened the last time i went to homecoming. besides the '08s, diede and linsalata will be up too, so looking forward to seeing those kids, and of course i love a good road trip.

my boss is also back in the office today after being ooo for her wedding and i have to say that i am extremely glad she's back. it's rough work running shit, though most of that is reporting to the management team and going to meetings. still, will leave that to her for a bit longer.

nothing of note

anyone else hate it when gmail adds people you've been emailing with to your gtalk contacts? i monitor my gtalk/fb/twitter/blog lists v. carefully and tailor my comments to my audience. randomly adding people just messes that up.

don't see the point of 3d movies. i don't think 3d ever a. works or b. adds anything to the experience. one dimension is fine thanks. they're as bad as those magic eye images. could never see the image there either.

broke the elastic on my work id on tuesday coming home drunk, and apparently work just ordered new ones, so for the time being i am walking around wearing my id on a lanyard. which was super cool in boarding school, not so much in life.

this year is the 40th anniversary of monty python, so there have been numerous monty python events in celebration. mulley was kind enough to give me and dana tickets to see 'an evening without monty python' last week - a sort of monty python tribute band - in that the troupe performed several of monty python's most famous scenes and the audience would whoop and holler when they heard the opening lines of some of their favorites. pbs did a series of sketches from 'the flying circus' (so named for the groups of pilots that used to go around and perform tricks) last night. in that monty python combines silliness and great quotes, it's no surprise that i love it, but if you're a reader of this blog you knew that.

speaking of dana, i met her b/c she is now hopper's roommate, but she used to live in boston. in fact, you may recall that post hurricane jimmy buffett show, we took the party bus to crash a party in brighton that linsalata wanted to go to. at the time i was drunk, tired and didn't know a soul. turns out, however, that said party was happening at dana's house. i love when stories get tossed around like that and details get filled in. just confirms the 'stories we can tell' mantra. and i love a good one.

it's been one week +

been a bit since i posted, as linsalata kindly pointed out. lots going on in these parts. they turned on the heat in our apt yesterday morning, always kind of a milestone, as in nyc the landlord pays for heat, much like college. good thing they did though, it's been mighty chilly in the morning the last couple days.

had a blast over the wknd with ceppos. kicked off an aggressive weekend on thursday night with three games of one on one against hearn without eating dinner, which lead to me getting cut off at a bar up the street - that was a new one for me. hopper was guest bartending and informed me that he told me i could make a playlist from his ipod to play instead of drinking, which i promptly did and then told him i hated all the songs. as i have no idea what was on it, i can't comment on what the hell i was thinking, though i most likely wasn't thinking at that point at all. as nick, the hook bartender, said, 'a piece of pizza never hurt anyone'.

friday night we watched the two shark movies we've eagerly anticipating for some time now at stoebe's apt: 'spring break shark attack' and 'mega shark versus giant octopus'. 'sbsa' has the scientifically implausible line of 'omg there are so many hot dartmouth guys here.' (not even kidding. wikipedia it). shark bites were ordered for the occasion, and during an intermission game of kings one of the categories was 'types of sharks', in which such creative answers as 'card' and 'bites' were tossed out and approved by the group. 'ms vs go' was, as you'd expect, pretty terrible, as it was a low budget film. they actually re-used the exact same shot multiple times. however, it was entertaining and enjoyable.

sat ceppity cepp and i played in a charity beruit tourney. i sewed up my 'self call' shirt that linsalata ripped in dc 18 mths ago and we were team 'self call'. the shirts were genius (self call) as they prompted endless conversation around what a self call was from the non-d types, while also identifying us as dartmouth kids based on the quote on the back of the shirts that say 'whoever said nobody rages anymore obviously never met us' and the use of the word 'rage'. there were a surprising amount of dartmouth/tuck kids there. ceppos and i played three games - winning one epicly and losing a close one, at which point we dragged some tuckies to hook to play a game we could win - pong.

ceppos and i held table from 6 pm to 11 or so, at which point we had to cut ourselves off, due to an inability to see the cups. off we went with dana and hearn to a d bday party by union sq, with a clutch stop at kfc for some absolutely delicious chicken and biscuits. talked a lot of smack at the bday party, which was a cross section of kids from d that i don't see very often, and then a brief stop at crocodile lounge where we thought vin was. she'd left by the time we got there, but we did pile into the photo booth for a round of pictures (always fun). found vin at the kingshead tavern, but couldn't stay out too long, as it had been an extremely long day.

sunday was spent in hungover misery, but we did venture out for some thrift store shopping, where we found a bunch of movies on vhs for $2. we have a vcr, so i picked up 'the american president', 'white christmas', 'philadelphia story' and 'thoroughly modern millie' (a lyon family fave). was pretty pleased about that. ceppos and i went to the west side for dinner to catch up with celeste and cody. cody has a new job and is running the nyc marathon in less than a month and celeste has some new furniture. always good to see those girls.

am going to the d/yale club tonight for an exeter mentoring event. should be interesting and perhaps i will sort out my career aspirations. work has been aggressive, as my boss is out this week, and it's meetings meetings meetings in her absence. am not feeling too hot either - looking forward to a chance to sleep in anticipation of vin's bday on sat night.

a usual suspect note - laurak heads out to hawaii today for the next month or so. despite exchanging several drunk dials, we didn't manage to connect, and it'll be awhile longer now, but so everyone is aware - she's ON A BOAT.

the bad girl's guide to the open road

i have to say - as dumb as i think it was for them (by them i mean my company) to rebrand the sci fi channel 'sy fy' - i am really enjoying the 'ghost whisperer', now in syndication. it's an interesting mix of creepy and entertaining with a heavy dash of victorian clothing/decorations, and jennifer love huyett looks pretty damn good. almost makes you forget about amanda (hi one of my favorite movies). plus i'm a sucker for a mystery that unfolds and is resolved in an hour-long show.

fantastic time up in the north country this past wknd - vin and i headed up to boston on friday night, where we ended up meeting her brother out at a party in brighton. played some disastorous beer pong and then had the most delicious wings (wangs?) i've ever had from 'wings over brookline', before heading back to vin's brother's apt for an impromptu dance party focusing primarily on 'genesis' and phil colins. if there's one thing i really enjoy it's impromptu dance parties.

made it to christine's for 4 hours of sleep before getting up to hit the road early in christine's car. per usual every weekend we try to drive the kancamangus, it was raining, so we decided to spend more time shopping at the outlets and less time driving. shopping while hungover is a terrible idea btw; you look terrible while trying clothes on and you're impulsive without any good judgment on whether or not you should spend $150 dollars on a coat. i'm just saying.

drove mt. moosilauke highway over to route 10 (dartmouth college highway) and down to hanover, with a stop in lyme for lunch. i can't put into words how incredibly beautiful it was, even in the rain. there was still a fair amount of green, which contrasted with the leaves, and it was amazing. 'nature can make me cry faster than anything.'

my grandparents were staying in woodstock, so we headed down route 4 with a stop to sample cheese at the official cabot cheese sampling station (love that place), a stop at the woodstock farmer's market, and then, b/c no fall fiesta trip would be the same without a huge crisis (see post from last year), we made a misguided attempt to scale the mountain road that my grandparents and parents were at the top of in christine's car. the car stalled out on an incline and for a minute i'm sure we all were thinking how we were 3 miles up a v. steep incline with the nearest house half a mile back and how far did we think triple-a towed?

we employed the technique favored by everyone for computers and shut the car off, to have it resume again when we turned it back on. however, it was very stressful for everyone, seeing how we were a good 3 hours from where we needed to be on sunday and no car dealerships were open for miles. fortunately, we had copious amounts of alcohol at the house - how my grandparents roll - so the alcohol got flowing and we all got down to bonding with the lyon family, particularly when my brother, sister and my bro's special friend showed up. 10 people for dinner at a house 3 miles up a mountain in vt. love it.

said house also did not have cell phone reception, which was strangely liberating in a lot of ways. i take the same approach to when my phone dies on a sat night. oops! now i can't drunk dial anyone.

early breakfast in woodstock with the fam at my grandparentals favorite place for blueberry pancakes, although this time without the drama of getting there in time to have bfast at all, and we all headed on our merry ways. so all is well that ends well, we got plenty of fall foliage and bonding in - set to the soundtrack of 'cascada' and 'heart'. great to see christine, hadn't seen vin in a week so bus time was necessary, love visiting with my family and was just so happy to be up in new england. couldn't stop thinking about how wonderful life is. :)

fun continues this week; am going to the jimmy fallon taping tomorrow and ceppos is in nyc this weekend. going to tear up the beruit table and catch up. v. excited to see her. boss is out for her wedding starting on thurs, so the next two weeks are going to be holding down the fort for her, but hopefully will get through in one piece.

waking up in chelsea

have had 'waking up in vegas' stuck in my head all day b/c i woke up in chelsea this morning. chelsea is both the land of our old apt and about as far away from the upper east side as you can get (maybe the west village is farther).

go out last night to local corner bar for quick drink with the girls in comfy clothes and flats and end up in chelsea nine hours later next to a hot austrailian after a couple drinks in soho at a lounge so trendy i was the only girl not wearing a super short skintight dress and 3-inch stillettos. i kept telling him that i hadn't prepared for this scenario (jv i know) and that he couldn't hold it against me. to be fair, it didn't really seem to matter. booked it back to the upper east side this morning - weekday walk of shames are aggressive (self call) - took a five minute shower, threw my stuff in a bag and ran out the door. not even sure what i packed, but i have my fleece. that's about all i know.

headed up to boston tonight with vin to meet christine for our fall foliage festiveness wknd. you may recall how we terrorized campus/sae last fall about this time and it was so much fun we decided to do it again. taking a scenic drive or two, hitting the outlets, and doing dinner in woodstock, vt where my grandparents are staying, hopefully without the phone drama that made last year so fun. am printing out everything this year, no relying on cell phone service (there isn't any).

big plans ahead - skips will be on the east coast on monday, and ceppity cepp is coming down on saturday where we will embarass ourselves at beruit and cause trouble. just like old times.

oct 1

"there is something in october sets the gypsy blood astir, we must rise and follow her; when from every hill of flame, she calls and calls each vagabond by name" - william bliss carman