if you want an experience, go to a jb concert

last friday rowena and i drove up to boston. as it was a summer friday, it took us a damn long time, but we had a lovely trip traipsing around connecticut, eating taco bell, and stopping at amazing party stores for swag.

we also heard just about every song on the top 40 on our road trip, so the current faves are:

• 'last friday night' - katy perry. this is the first song of her's that i really really really like
• 'right there' - nicole scheringzer ft 50 cent. super hot song that inspired me to listen to old 'fitty cent' as he's a really good rapper. remember 'just a lil bit', 'candy shop' and 'in da club'?
• 'more' - usher. is usher capable of making a bad song?
• 'stereo hearts' - gym class heros ft adam levine - catchy song that i mainly like b/c it uses music metaphors to describe relationships.
• 'find your love' - drake. i like the 'hey hey hey' part best

top 40 songs we heard a million times but did not love include 'et' and 'blow', mostly b/c we heard them a million times.

buffett concert number 11 was, per usual, fantastic. despite the initial gloomy forecast, the day dawned sunny and almost a little too hot. perfect for day fratting in a bathing suit. highlights:

• we had 7 folks in for the concert this year, so we decided to rent a mini van so we could all fit. this ended up being a fully loaded, snazzy red chrysler town and country. we were all in awe of the automatic doors, the bucket seats and the creative booze holders, but it fit everything we needed and proved to be a great fort for the day

• alex passed out on the grass during the concert. i myself only blacked in towards the end but apparently lots of pictures were taken with him
  

• kelly accused me of eating all the shrimp before the concert but i had just eaten most of them. i ate the rest when we were hanging out during the post concert tailgate

• swimming in the back of the pick up truck. the boy claimed i had just taken a bath in the back of a pick up truck, but i went under water so i think that counts
  

• making friends with the group of guys from hingham who were hot but not smart as they had not brought sun tan lotion and i was tasked with the enviable job of lotioning them all up. this paved the way, as did the pirate tattoos we brought, for caroline and rowena to 'make friends' with two roommates. double dates are in their future.

• once again we were miraculously parked next to the 'topless tikibar' and the 'shipwreck tavern', who had a dj, dj speakers, a great dance party and a weighted wheel of boob-flashing options. they were also giving away delicious reese pieces mudslides with a hint of banana for anyone that flashed - best mudslide i had ever had - totally worth flashing for
  

• i lost my black jersey skirt while swimming in the pick up truck and miraculously found it again

• christine asked nicely for this shark helium balloon after the concert that kept floating all over the van during the ride home. money quote from yours truly: get that flamboyantly-colored tuna fish away from me
  

• the concert, the parts i remember at least, was great, especially since the bruins had just won the stanley cup. there were gratuitous bruins videos, images and references during the entire show, including all new lyrics to 'boat drinks' to commemorate the occasion. you can check that out here.

• the moon was this crazy red color as it rose over the concert that made everything feel even more magical
  

added 3 new converts to team jb and i'm so sad it's over but can't wait til next year! :)

the most wonderful time of the year

impossible to focus today as we are within spitting distance of jimmy buffett 2011. we have a great crew coming out for the boston show this year - some veterans (linsalata, christine, caroline and yours truly) and some virgins (rowena, alex and kelly). we have rented a mini van to drive out to the concert and while i am slightly horrified by the idea of a mini van i think it will be hilarious when we all tumble out and it has the potential to be a great home base after we put down the seats.

i love love love just sitting around and boozing and having a few laughs and listening to good music, and while there are showers in the forecast, it's also supposed to be hot, which is vastly preferable to cold rain.

things that happened this week:

• i bowled a 160 last night at bowling. my old team is in an all media bowling league and we ended up winning the league! 160 was my pr so i was very pleased
  

• i heard from laurak! she is back on the main land and making her plans for diana's wedding in july. i also talked to whit who is planning away as well. can't wait for the mini reunion in a couple of weeks.
  

• we had an offsite for work on wednesday that involved the entire company breaking up into teams to write a song about our brand. we did ours to the tune of 'only girl in the world' by rhianna and put on hula skirts and sunglasses to perform. while walking through 30 rock back to perform someone commented on how 'natural i looked wearing a hulu skirt over my work dress and parading around the building'. little does she know . . . i am happy to report we won AND they announced we're getting new computers and a software upgrade. hot dog.

• i was officially elected to the executive committee of the d club of nyc. dax was elected co-vp and slaine was also elected to the committee. hooray for new blood!
  

graduation last weekend was fantastic. we drove up last friday on a gorgeous, lazy, hazy new england summer day so i could do an event on friday night at the salt hill pub for the dartmouth alumni association of nyc. the alum association bought the senior class some drinks so they would listen to our pitch about daanyc. went over to 3 dorrance post event to play pong with tommy dickie and his cousins. was happy to see that 3D is still a ledyard/climbing house and they were very nice to let me indulge my 6-years-after-graduation craving for pong.

saturday was cold and wet so i hung out in my sister's room in the choates (she's still up there working c&r and then will be back for her soph summer - '11X WOO) before doing lunch at the canoe club with my family. my main thought was how lucky i was to be sitting there surrounded by my grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins, cousins in law and sister. a few months ago it wasn't even clear if my grandmother would be able to make it at all and i am happy to report that after a hip replacement, she is doing much much much better. will be seeing them again on the cape in a few weeks.

lastly i have recently found myself in a bit of a romantic entanglement ('avoid entangling alliances' - george washington) that i am cautiously optimistic about. it has me singing of lots of corny musical songs but i mostly keep thinking of the billy joel song 'the longest time':

Maybe this won't last very long
But you feel so right
And I could be wrong
Maybe I've been hoping too hard
But I've gone this far
And it's more than I hoped for

Who knows how much further we'll go on
Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone
I'll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven't been there for the longest time

it really has been an awfully long time since i thought this way and who knows where it will end but it's making me happy. will keep you posted. :)

dartmouth self calls

lots of stuff to say about graduation today, but the best part was conan o'brien's speech as the commencement speaker - chock full with dartmouth self calls and some useful advice too. video and favorite parts below. so much dartmouth love.

• Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired President of the United States and decorated war hero (George H Bush) while I, a cable television talk show host, has been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today

• To communicate with you students today, I have gone to great lengths to become well-versed in your unique linquistic patterns. In fact, just this morning I left Baker Berry with my tripee Barry to eat a Billy Bob at the Bema when my flitz to Francesca was Blitz jacked by some d-bag on his FSP.

• Your insecurity is so great, Dartmouth, that you don’t even think you deserve a real podium. What the hell is this thing? It looks like you stole it from the set of Survivor: Nova Scotia. Seriously, it looks like something a bear would use at an AA meeting. - (he was referring to the tree trunk podium that is a staple at d)
  

• If I had gone to Dartmouth, I’d have a liver the size and consistency of a bean bag chair.

• [Under the Conan Doctrine] I will re-instate Tubestock. And I will punish those who tried to replace it with Fieldstock. Rafting and beer are a much better combination than a field and a beer. I happen to know that in two years, they were going to downgrade Fieldstock to Deskstock --- 7 hours of fun sitting quietly at your desk. Don’t let those bastards do it!

• It’s simple: there are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized.

• At the end of my final program with NBC, just before signing off, I said “Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen. “ Today, receiving this honor and speaking to the Dartmouth Class of 2011 from behind a tree-trunk, I have never believed that more.

full transcript and video here.

bookends

one of my oldest friends from the cape -carrie over at capecodchica - just graduated from law school with a joint degree (congrats!). she was out at school in denver, but has now made her way back to cape cod, where she was cleaning out closets in her parents house and came across some pictures she took of me senior spring.

no not those kind of pictures (get your mind out of the gutter!) but some pictures she was doing for a photography class. one of the benefits/weird things about dartmouth's academic schedule is it really didn't align with other school schedules. for example, i was gearing up for an entire new slate of classes during our spring break trip to costa rica, while my friends from duke and middlebury (also really old friends from the cape btw) were studying for finals and staring graduation in the face.

because of the non-overlapping schedules people came to visit me at dartmouth a lot more than i went to visit other people, and carrie came up to dartmouth for a couple days during her senior spring at penn. we went to class, studied in 1902 and went for runs in the woods. she also told me she wanted me to be the subject of an assignment for her photography class, so she took some black and white pictures of me just goofing around on the first floor of sigma delt.

she found the pictures while cleaning out the closet she said, and sent them on to me. i received them yesterday, and just looking at them last night i wasn't struck as much by the images themselves, but of the time in my life that they captured. college is starting to feel like awhile ago, and the feeling of being a senior, with impending graduation and not knowing what my next life step would be and also just the carefree time of college and growing into who i am. those feelings are turning into memories, but for a minute the pictures brought me back.

simon and garfunkel say it well in their song 'bookends'

time it was, and what a time it was, it was
a time of innocence, a time of confidences
long ago, it must be, i have a photograph
preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

so this is kind of a long winded way to say thank you for sending carrie. lylas. :)

december is here before it's june

i know i know i'm a terrible person with the lack of blogging as of late. still don't have internet in the new place so that's been most of the delay. also been running around crazily prepping for the move and taking care of post move activities so i haven't had a ton of time.

the move went as well as it could have i suppose. living in a small studio meant i had a lot less stuff/cleaning to do than the last time around. despite my best efforts to determine whether staying in that apartment was an option, i/my subletter never heard back from the management company, so i just moved out and left the keys on the mantle. a little weird but glad it's behind me.

the new place is on 96th and amsterdam. definitely a different feel up that way but very central in terms of the upper west side due to the express subway at 96th street. there's a cvs, a whole foods (and whole foods wine store), tjmaxx, sephora, home goods and dunkin donuts close by. moving in has required lots of cleaning and organizing, as people have been rotating in and out of the apartment for years, and much like our chelsea apartment, the whole thing never really got cleaned. i discovered an arrest record from 2007 while cleaning out the closet. yup.

so we've been painting and scrubbing and sorting and tossing for much of the last two weekends and i've been buying things i need for organizational purposes and whatnot. getting there, but am out of town the next two weekends so it might be as far as i get for now.

this past weekend i did the high line with a friend who had never been. they're opening the next part (from 20th street to 30th street) on wednesday, june 8th and i'm excited for more clever and neat outdoor design. they're going to have an open area by the 30th street entrance with food trucks and an outdoor bar for the summer. awesome.

sat i played in a beruit tourney with vik. we did much better than i expected - vik is super good and i held my own - but lost in the first round and then after a couple games in the loser's bracket. we had the best celebrations though - we'd do the top gun high five for made shots, and this fist pound into a rocket thing that my old coworker taught me on thursday at bowling. trust me it's very intimidating.

got very drunk during the tourney and had to go home to bed for a nap after pizza bagels. did make it down to johnny's in the west village on sat night to catch up with maynard, who was in town with the boy. didn't get to spend enough time with her, but will see her again at diana's wedding in july.

this week there's softball and the black eyed peas concert in central park and then heading up to dartmouth on friday for graduation and family time. supposed to be partly cloudy and 70 all weekend  - can't wait for early summer in new england. :)