lest the old traditions fail

this time of year (may/june) always makes me think about transitions, graduations, etc. in a few weeks my brother is graduating from dartmouth, which of course has me thinking about my own senior spring and impending graduation five (gasp!) years ago.

one of my favorite coworkers is leaving the company - this is her last week - and has been cleaning out her desk. went over to see if there's anything she wanted to bequest to me and of course started thinking about bequests at dartmouth. bequests are a funny thing - not really sure if other schools do them, though they probably do and call them something different. they're basically a chance for seniors who are graduating to call out the undergrads they like/have shared epic experiences with by presenting them with an item of some sort that usually has some sort of significance to the reason the person is receiving the bequest. the items can range from the mundane (tshirts/flare) to the truly incredible, purloined bequests (incriminating evidence or stolen frat stuff), but they usually have a history, complete with the names of the people who have received the bequest in the past as it is now being passed down to the receiver. bequests are something that happen in frats/sororities, sports teams, campus groups, secret societies, etc.

i love the tradition and lineage that bequests represent, but i'm also kind of torn. a lot of bequests are pretty cool and you kind of want to keep them forever instead of passing them down, but i suppose, like college, all good things must come to an end and they're belong best in the collegiate environment. the best bequest (of course) was the one me, diana, allette, and laurak created senior spring, team tequila. we actually got our act together (an impressive feat in those days) one day before meetings to create iron-on-letter tshirts proclaiming our team names (all brands of bad bad BAD tequila. i was 'tortilla gold') and that we had been 'taking one for sigma delt since '03x' (long and involved back story). i didn't actually go to my senior year bequests - i was stuck at the d doing something and i don't think i was ready to face saying good-bye anyway - but i did come back to the house to do a shot of tequila with the '05/'06 team, which resulted in one of my most favorite pics ever - a black and white pic of me and ceppos mid-shot. i wish i still had that shirt pretty frequently. my other favorite and memorable bequest was the lion's head cane from the president of sae, which i earned by being a kleptomaniac junior spring. huyett had also received/told me about a pretty awesome bequest from the early 90s, a tshirt that said 'coed naked pong: get it up, get it in' that had been lost over the years, but i digress.

so as my coworker cleans out her desk i understand where she's coming from. do you hold on to the mementos of your time with the company or do you pass them down, continue the tradition, and know that the memory of the 'way we were' is enough. i guess it's part of knowing when to let go.

dire straits

bit of a mixed bag this wknd:

 

    1. i found a dress for awesome 80s prom thanks to tay tay and lidia

    2. spent most of sunday day fratting on amsterdam and 81st street - aka i sat outside on a couch and drank cheep beer in front of jake's delimma during the amsterdam street festival. then i had shake shack.

    3. i got a lion tattoo (fake!) on my ankle from mallika on friday night, which, while the lion/lyon thing is cool, i am wearing a skirt and i am horrified by its ugliness every time i see it

    4. i ran 10 miles. it's good to know i can do this with the 13.1 mile run approaching. lidia informed me that she ran the covered bridges half on a hungover whim without any training two years ago, so i'll prob be okay.

    5. walked into a fence on friday night resulting in big ugly bruise on knee. again, am wearing a skirt and i am horrified by its ugliness every time i see it

    6. experienced emotional trauma resulting in the need to 'take a break and think about what i've done', leading me to conclude that i had behaved extremely badly and want only to stuff my face with candy for breakfast for the foreseeable future.

points for honesty?

the more realer world

i'm not a 'lost' fan myself, but i must admit that i am VERY interested to see if people who are die-hard fans are satisfied by the upcoming finale on sunday. when you've waited for something for that long i like to know if it was worth it, so i've been informally polling people to find out if they think the ending will be worth the wait.

several big props are in order - to hearn, for managing to make my ipod work again, and to boxa for successfully graduating from michigan med school over the wknd. i don't know much about the med school process, though i did wikipedia it a few weeks ago, but it has been interesting to live vicariously (even that might be a strong word) as boxa has made her way through the med school gauntlet and so far she is kicking ass, so keep up the good work!

#RWWestport, as the twitter hash tag was named, was a blast. the real world reference came from the fact we were all converging on charlie's house in westport, ct for the weekend. that and the fact that most of the group is about to turn 25 and therefore become ineligible to audition to be on the 'real world'. we also had a hot tub. in this case, things were more realer than the MTV version, or 'what happens when a group of 15+ binge drinkers go to a house party in ct for the weekend'.

headed out of the city on the metro north on friday afternoon. aside from this being one of the easiest traveling trips i've done, it's possible to drink on the metro north, so we kicked things off with 6 packs and snapple and vodka beverages. charlie met us at the train station with '#RWWestport' signs and cars outfitted with keystone lights. it was sunny and warm and while there was no green to streak, so far it seemed like missing out on green key wasn't going to be that bad after all, esp with two pong tables outside on the deck and all the keystone we could drink.

highlight of friday night was probably the duke v dartmouth boatrace that consisted of me and an '06 against vin (duke '05) and olverson (duke '06). the dartmouth team won narrowly, leading me to immediately turn around and boot all over the garden (drinking outside pro!). the cat also booted twice from eating too many pizza bites. lyon: 1, reggie the cat: 2.

it was a bit of a fend for yourself sleep scenario, so people were sleeping on chairs, on the floor, outside in sleeping bags, etc. i slept on a couch with a friend fri night and woke up when dana came in after her bartending shift in the city around 7 am. we had enough folks awake and game for the traditional big weekend game of harbour at 10 am - but decided the best thing to do was to hit the beach first and then play the game. we loaded up the coolers for a trek to the beach that charlie said was half a mile. turns out it was 2.5 (we've been calling this the batan death march but i realize that's not pc). it was in fact worth it though, b/c despite cold water, it was a beautiful day to be lounging on a beach, telling jokes, boozing and eating fried dough, which we all did for awhile.

caught a ride back to the house later that afternoon in time for some chat roulette. had heard a lot about this but never participated. basically people with cameras in their computers sign on and you troll through people who are also signed on and chat. sounds innocuous, but it's basically become a sex thing (cue 'avenue q' and 'the internet is for porn'). the other aspect is you can quickly change to the next person if you don't like what you see. incidentally, saw a lot of sketchy stuff, but it was fun and we had a few laughs as a result.

set up the game of harbour early evening, which olverson and i ultimately won, and then played a game of social to include and teach some of the non-d folks how to play pong, with the end result being that we have converted a lot of folks to pong, including what looks to be most of the aforementioned kickball team i'll be playing with in june and july.

sunday was a funday as we tried to drink up the remaining keystone by playing leisure. i'd never played this game until after i graduated, but the gist is you need 6 people - three on each side - and each side has three cups of beer set up in a triangle with the point closest to the end of the table. two people of each team are on one side, while the third person is on the other side with the other two members of the other team. the two middle people serve to each other like normal pong, but in order for a team to score, both people on the other side have to hit the ball before it hits or sinks in the cup and you play three sets so that each person on the team gets to play one position. sounds complicated, and it does take some time to adjust to playing differently than pong, but it's lots of fun and perfect for less aggressive drinking days when you want to involve more people than a typical game of pong.

in summary, given the beautiful weather, ease of travel, copious amounts of keystone and pong, and the fact the entire weekend cost $40 per person, it was a pretty good substitute for being on campus for green key. not that i don't miss hanover a ton but will be up there soon enough. attempting to peer pressure kevin into going for memorial day, as it seems there's going to be a sig ep exodus to hanover to party one more time before they tear down the sig ep house this summer. do i hear unofficial alumni wknd?

things fall apart

am having electronic woes all over the place. my computer randomly shuts itself off. my ipod randomly erased all its music and refuses to be recognized in itunes.

all i use my computer for these days is music and pictures, and i'm sure some of it is because i have viruses or something but it's really really annoying. all my efforts to figure out what's going on have been for naught and i don't really have time to keep playing around with them. and today's the day the new miley single drops - argh!

weekend update to come when i'm less irritated by my computer.

kids say the darndest things

was reading a blog i like called 'trend central'. it chronicles, as the name suggests, trends. a few days ago the post was on slang that kids are using these days. some of my favorites:

OMLG - oh my lady gaga. expression of surprise or alarm

PMFM - pure mother-fucking magic. as in 'insane clown posse'

Fauxting - pretending to do something on your phone to avoid talking to someone

tres interesting! was telling this to allette on wednesday during ladies night at the stumble and she introduced us to a hot phrase down in tennessee: 'co-sign'. as in co-signing for a loan, so echoing or taking responsibility for something. so if someone was telling you how much they love the new miley cyrus cd, i would be like 'i'll co-sign that'. love it! incidentally, allette was in town for her sister's graduation from smith on sunday, and she'll be back for the reunion in a few (eek!) weeks as well.

let's see, what else. complete inability to pack for this weekend's 'real world: westport' event. combo of rain, heat and cold is making it difficult, but i think i'll employ a green key approach to packing. i am a little said that i won't be up in hanover for green key, but this weekend has lots of promise.

i joined the infamous kickball league for the late spring/early summer. kickball is pretty big in nyc, as it seems like it is in dc, and i expect my friday morning's to get a lot more painful, as games are thursday night and the social part of the 'new york social sports club' figures in heavily.

party all the time

just got home - monday night has become my gym and grocery shopping night. i go to an abs class at 7, run or erg for half an hour, and then do my favorite gym class (and prob the only reason i'm still an equinox member) - 'definitions'. all we do is lift to tone and, as the name suggests, define. and then i hit up the dagastino's on 76th and lex after i get off the subway. it's pretty expensive, even for nyc, but i generally buy what's on sale with the end result that i save some dough - $23 dollars tonight!

weekend was a blast - thursday night merriment continued on friday night with coworker karaoke into the wee hours, and then we got up very early, and very hungoverly/still drunkenly to prepare for the derby/gk in nyc/cinco de mayo party we were hosting.

kicked things off with screwdrivers and mimosas, so it quickly became pretty hazy and delightful, but some of the highlights (ie signs you know it was a great party) included the dartmouth '73 and dartmouth '12 in attendance, the fact i spent some time in the kitchen eating shredded cheese out of the bag with a spoon, hearn and co taking shots out of easter eggs, the dance party that happened in my bedroom before moving to the living room, and the fact i was able to rip 'can't be tamed' - the new miley cyrus single - off of youtube for everyone's listening pleasure (it hits itunes next tuesday. yeah, i looked it up).

dragged everyone off to the blue room around 9 for one of the hook bartender's going away party. interestingly enough she's in a play this summer at the dennis playhouse on the cape. memo to self: go home one weekend it's open and see it.

this week is busy as well - allette emailed to say she's in town this week - hoping to see her one night, and then it's media league bowling on thursday, which i accidentally replied all to the entire list informing the captain that i 1. wanted to bowl, but only if 2. it was one of the later games, as i wanted to go to the gym first. oops.

friday we are heading north for a party, but sadly it's not green key. instead we'll be going to westport, ct for a house party at stoebe's house. his parents are out of town and he's hosting what is sure to be at least a good distraction from the fact we're not in hanover. he should prob take a page from my life and not throw out any 70's-era exercise equipment, lest he incur the wrath of his parents, but maybe my dad is more psycho than most (this more than probably true).

job hunt continues with no end in sight, onwards and upwards i guess. i'll end with a random thought (not that this blog isn't full of them:

1. one of the main reasons i am interested in seeing sex and the city 2 is to find out what plot line could possibly justify the girls decked out riding on camels in the desert scene they keep showing in the promo. yes, i watched a lot of tv yesterday.

best foot forward

'how could you say 'thighs' to a person with an interview?!?' - coupling

if my entire work community wasn't on gtalk, that would def be my gtalk status today. i'm off for a big interview this afternoon. can't help but feel that friday afternoon is one of the worst times in the world for an interview - last thing i want to be doing is presenting myself well at 3:30 on a friday.

but there's a light at the end of the tunnel/booze in the blender b/c we're doing work karaoke tonight. ended up doing karaoke last night too, after my other former boss's going away party at rink bar (anyone seeing a pattern here?). my voice is in rough shape, but this isn't the first time i've done back to back karaoke, and i have no doubt that i'll be able to rise to the occasion. 'like a blind man at an orgy, i was going to have to feel my way through' - naked gun

and lastly, was talking about miley cyrus with someone at the party and they clued me in to the ridiculousness that is the video for her new single 'can't be tamed'. it's v. britney-esque. i'm loving the song - can't wait til it's available on itunes.