tbd

i wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. delicious ambiguity.
- gilda radner

living on a prayer

yes, ladies and gentlemen, that would be 'b/c we're halfway [done with the olympics!]' wheeee! suspecting this olympic experience will v. much be a 'glad i did it partly b/c it was worth it but mostly b/c i never have to do it again' experience (that one's from mark twain)

not sure if i 'believe in life after the olympics,' to paraphrase cher, b/c it's been pretty hard to visualize, but here's what i do know:

1. we're going out every night of my bday week. l'eighties, maybe some mcsorleys, there will be mucho fiestaing and maybe less (or more?) goldschlager.

2. i bought a plane ticket to go to florida for a much needed couple of days off in the middle of march. my sister will be down there as well on spring break and, while cleaning out my closet (cue eminem) i found a bathing suit i bought in june '09 and meant to return but apparently didn't get around to, so now i have it for my trip. which was my plan all along (yeah right).

3. i have a date on tuesday night! not entirely sure who the kid is (he just said 'tom from hook and ladder' when he called. yes, called.) but i suspect it's a kid i met on wednesday night during the d young alumni event at hook. incidentally, hook was raided by the cops a couple weeks ago and the back patio area was condemended as being 'unfit for life'. didn't really register that wood, tarps, space heaters and one narrow means of egress to the exit was a fire hazard, but no pong until they get a permit. on the one hand, i feel sad and lost without pong (though we played spring thaw pong on the terrace last night), on the other other, i feel like i have more money and less hangovers. hmmm.

4. typically february means jimmy buffett ticket-buying season, but sadly jb concerts are not in the cards for moi this year. the boston show is the weekend of my five-year reunion, and the dc labor day weekend show is kjb's wedding. fortunately, there are plenty of folks to hold down the jb concert fort while i'm off doing 'grown up' things that prob won't be that different from the concert at all. i fully intend to run back the ledyard challenge over reunion. at least.

don't you know that i love my music

if you've spent any time watching the olympics you've no doubt seen that 'at&t speedskating ad with apolo anton'. and if you've seen the ad, you've probably liked the song in the commercial, which turns out to be called 'intro' by the british band 'the xx'



just ran to it and it was incredible.

if you if like that, you'll probably like my other new favorite song by 'the xx' - 'heart skipped a beat'. they sound the way lykke li would if she did a duet with a guy or how bon iver would sound if he did a duet with a girl. 'no need to come to me when i can make it all the way to you.' i'm a fan.

cowgirl in the (urban) jungle

"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"
  - jimmy buffett 'cowboy in the jungle'
 

radio silence

hi folks. apologies for the extended radio silence, i've been wrestling with my own demons, which doesn't exactly make for compelling reading, but i did want to check in and let you know that i'm still here.

the olympics started on friday night which you should already know unless you've been living under a rock. my days have taken on a very methodical set schedule, which is why the 'lather, rinse, repeat' bit applies. keep thinking of the days when we would do 10x200 on the erg during winter training for crew, or the day we ran 12 200s on the track after we won the old colony league championship in xc in high school. you go hard during the piece, then take a breather and regroup to do it again, but the repetition and high number of repeats starts to take a toll. in this case, 14 more days to go and in the words of 'trading places':

Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That's the other guy's problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness. Super Bowl, World Series - they don't know what pressure is. In this building, it's either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?

weekend was uneventful b/c of work. valentine's day was uneventful b/c i'm in a relationship with the olympics. i did see taylor on friday night, in town from philly. grabbed some drinks at 'super dive', a bar that has the coveted distinction of being a dive bar with a guest list b/c you can do table service with kegs. we arrived before the guest list was enacted and left when the flip cup got so loud that we couldn't hear each other talk for 'whiskey town' where the music brought us back to richardson 309 and the days of serving soco and lime in our bathroom.

two long weeks ahead with not much in the works, then it's my bday - looking at 27 and not entirely sure i like what i see. forget quarter-life crisis, try late twenties crisis. tbd. fortunately it seems there will be plenty of time for reflection. or attempts at reading the future. i did dream that i totally rocked the blue trail linsalata made me ski down a couple weeks ago, with less than stellar results. i'm taking this as a good sign, as according to one dream interpretation website, 'skiing suggests that you are pushing yourself and putting your mental and/or physical ability to the test.'

in music news, liking:
1. 'how can we be lovers if we can't be friends' - michael bolton - my bro reminded me of this one over new years. just may be my new go-to karaoke song
2 'take it off'- ke$sha - give 'tik tok' a rest and try this out
3. 'bad things' - jace everett - 'true blood' theme song and really hot.
4. 'cowboy casanova' - carrie underwood - awesome song and great video
5. 'we are golden' - mika. been listening to this on repeat. 'no giving up when you're young and you want some'

Whattya want from Gaga ooh la la shake that bubble fireflies with a bottle of jack in the USA

so. vermont. the title of this post is what the mash-up would be of all the songs we heard over and over again. our rental car actually had satellite radio, so our soundtrack differed slightly, but it's still pretty accurate.

we were heading up to hopper's house in danby, vt with the pong kids for a hanging out (not skiing!) weekend. somehow we managed to get 15 people out of nyc on friday and to stamford, where i picked up the rental car we'd be driving. being one of four people older than 25 on this trip of primarily '08s had its advantages: they didn't charge us extra to rent the car.

ripped up to vermont on the back roads after a stop at hopper's for sleds (olverson thought i said 'sluts'. sorry. wrong trip). quick pit stop at the price chopper in bennington (not price dropper - though the idea was the same vin) where we bought obscene amounts of keystone light and taco-making materials and headed north.

hopper's farm was extremely remote which was good b/c we made a lot of noise. started drinking when we got there at 1 am, and stayed up til 7:30. in fact, i took over someone's bed who had gotten up to go skiing. kind of like on a submarine or something. can't remember the last time i stayed up late enough to see the sun rising, but it may have been the snl after after party with ceppos when aida was a page. attempted to capture the full moon in the early morning light over a snow-covered field at 6:30 am, aka 'commune with nature', but the pics didn't come out

the entire weekend was a lot like a high school birthday sleepover only with more drinking. lots of 'truth or dare' led to me making out with several of the assembled folks. learned many many drinking games that i'm sure will be coming to a party near you including finger cup and horse racing. we also played a lot of rounds of 'this or that', which again turned out to be both very revealing, and extremely useful for deciding who was worth hooking up with. if you liked someone's answer to 'lights on or lights off' or 'top or bottom' then you were good to go. some of the catchphrases of the weekend (which we also played) turned out to be 'god or no' (hopper's) and 'free food and no sex or no sex' (charlie's) it took charlie awhile to realize why this didn't make any sense and he refused to play for a few rounds. we all picked free food.

sat afternoon me and some of the girls went outlet shopping, but did not make it to jcrew like i'd hoped. sat night we made tacos, beans and rice - another impressive feat considering we were drinking constantly. smirnoff icing was in full effect as well (hiding smirnoff ices all over the place and if you find one you have to chug on the spot) and there were a few good ones including in the cheetoes bag (got me!) and in vin's purse (allowed b/c it was open and sitting out). it was also ash's bday so we got her a cake and balloons and sang happy bday. played celebrities, more finger cup, several aggressive games of mafia ala doc trips, and lots of general dancing, inappropriate dancing, franzia drinking and beruit playing before passing out and waking up cuddling with one of hopper's friends from ct.

headed back pretty early on sunday to get the car back to stamford by 4 pm, when the rental car place closes. that's the only negative about renting a car in stamford and i am pleased to say that it looks like this discovery will make trips to hanover and to the cape a lot easier and cheaper. went to bed pretty much immediately on sunday.

in the meantime, february trudges on. saturday i had a hair appt and let me tell you there is no greater cure for binge drinking than being forced to stare at yourself for 4 hours in a mirror in unflattering light when all you want to do is pass out. my hair dresser said she couldn't tell i was hungover - not sure if this is insulting or a good thing.

saturday night we hosted 'forget your new years resolution (if you haven't already done so)' complete with 'hello my name is' stickers with our resolutions to break on them. they were easy to break (some of mine for example were 'wear underwear' and 'dance less') and our apt and guests were covered in stickers, but it was a lot of fun.

the olympics begin this friday if you've been living under a rock; still no idea how those are going to go but at this point i just want to get it over with. vin and i have extended our lease until may, so we've traded the certain stress of moving in february for the uncertain stress of something in the next 2 months. tbd on that front. 'i like change, she said. as long as i remember i like change.'

juror # 5

my soph summer we were given the choice of having crew practice in the morning or in the afternoon. during the school year we had morning practice on wednesdays so that people could take their labs on wednesday afternoon. that morning practice - though only once a week - was enough to put me in the camp of absolutely afternoon practice, particularly when the delights of margarita monday, wed night meetings, thursday night 'days that end in y' and assorted other 'schools out but really in for the summer' events were on the horizon.

to my utter surprise a massive and aggressive blitz war (and the '05 crew team could blitz with the best of them) commenced on the topic about when we should have practice. this was the first time I had the experience of 100 percent not understanding how someone could think anything differently than what i thought. just couldn't understand the argument for morning practice.

jury duty (delib level minus the blitz war) is the second time i've experienced this.

still at it today. should have worn the princess leia costume. but the state of ny did buy me lunch yesterday. sigh.

in the criminal justice system . . .

well kiddos, i have a little bit more time this morning b/c i actually got put on a trial during my jury duty stint last week, (seriously - who does that?) and now i have to go down to the courthouse in chinatown at 10 for day 1. this is chafey b/c i still have to go to work after we get let out, but i am very excited for soup dumplings and pan fried noodles during our lunch break (1 - 2:15) from joe's shanghai.

the trial is a robbery; so far it's actually been kind of an interesting experience. it's something i (or anyone else really) knows nothing about, so you just sit there and listen and be told what to do. and now that i'm on this trial i am thrown together with 13 other people (the full jury and two alternates) that i don't know and we're all the 'members of the jury'. sort of feels like i'm doing a mock trial in business law class or something. and no one has told us anything about what happens in the jury delib room. and i'm guessing it's not red cards and green cards like at rush. do we all go around and vote and see what we think and go from there? not quite sure how that part will work. tbd.

had a fantastic weekend in vermont which really deserves its own post, so i will spend much of the waiting time of this jury duty crafting sentences and remembering quotes. wait for it.