least said, soonest mended

when you're dumb, you gotta pay. let's leave it at that.

terrible ideas

if you're trying to avoid someone so you don't get drunk and make bad decisions i'm pretty sure the responsible thing to do is not to go to a house party in rural vermont where the goal is to drink your face off with said person.

then again, if i had wanted to be responsible i would have invited my parents and my pants to this party, and neither will be in attendance. besides - 'terrible ideas - don't you just love those?' ;-P

fab fall weekends

hi! it's me! been on like a three week bender - so much going on every night and of course it all revolves around drinking and consequently, hangovers and not sleeping.

last week was a bday party for the old coworkers, a trip to a gay bar in hell's kitchen for drag queen open mike night with brogiin and huyett, the ad week closing party at wollman rink in central park with hopper  and hearn, fooseball and my brother's unexpected 10 hour appearance in nyc, another apt party on the UES (tons of time in the old hood) and then patriots viewing and long weekend-like behavior even though i did not have today off. i pretty much have zero voice and my boss was basically like go home but in the back of my head i knew why and always sort of feel like i have to suck it up b/c it's my own damn fault.

the party on thursday night was sponsored by linkedin and in a fantastic marketing move they were offering party-goers that chance to get their linkedin profile pictures taken. you could even get your make-up done by a professional before the picture. had been meaning to do this forever, but when do you ever take normal, sober pictures solo looking professional? right - never. thought it was genius though. 

did two day trips this weekend - first up was to new haven on saturday for the dartmouth-yale football game with stein. we went to a breakfast reception with president kim and the new athletic director, and then to the yale bowl. we were stunned b/c it seems like not only do people in the yale community go to yale football games, they tailgate. this was such a radical departure from dartmouth that we couldn't get over it. it was a blazing hot, sunny, indian summer day so we soaked up the sun (safely with sunscreen) and watched dartmouth play terrible football (they lost 30-zip. no parties at gamma delt on sat night).

we cut out around the 4th quarter to go road tripping through the middle of connecticut to the jones family farms for some wine tasting and pumpkin loving. it was gorgeous out, the wine tasted delicious and it was lovely to catch up!

sat night after the apt party we hit up session 73 on 73 and first. not sure why we never went there when we lived down the street, esp since it was a great party. 80s cover band, red balloons when nina played and hair banging to pour some sugar on me. def want to go back.

sunday rowena and i checked another item off the nyc bucket list by trekking out to the queens county farm museum. while i was under the impression that 'queens' and 'farm' was an oxymoron, it turned out that there really was a working farm on the very edge of queens that had a multi-acre corn maze. we've discussed doing a fall trip to vermont for awhile now, and since the weekends keep getting away from us, we decided it was the next best thing. the corn maze was a blast - took us an hour to get out - but it was another gorgeous sunny day, and the dj (yes, only in nyc do corn mazes have dj's) was playing great music and inspiring us all to persevere, hydrate and make it across that victory bridge.

i've really enjoyed playing the harry potter lego game for the iphone. $5 on itunes, great reviews, and so far a lot of fun. it's very true to the books and you learn spells along the way that you execute by tracing on the touch screen. so far i know reducto, reparo, wingardium levorosa, incedo and how to fly and i just defeated the troll in the girls bathroom. :)

next up is an sd mini reunion trip to philly this coming weekend to hang out with diana, ceppos and glassman, and we're hoping allette joins as well. haven't hung out in philly really ever (i don't count post jb concert number one soph summer when we were there for 10 hours) so excited to check that out and spend some quality time the girlfriends.

definitely needed some downtime tonight to take a break and think about what i've done, but on the whole, it's been a blast and i can't wait to see where my life takes me next. here's to the great adventure. ;-)

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! :)

can anyone direct me to the basement?

so distracted at work today b/c i keep reliving the memories (many hazy) of green key 2011. only way to get over it is to blog it so without further ado i present the tweets of green key:

• lobster dinner for $13 - #winning! - drove up with stein on friday after work. we stopped at stu leonards near westport, ct for dinner. turned out they had lobster for $13 so we indulged before ripping up to hanover.
• 'when i get to vermont i am so speeding again' - we literally ripped up to hanover. we were going 81 mph or so when we got pulled over on 91, just shy of the vermont border. somehow stein got off with a warning. we'll chalk it up to the magic of green key.
  
• 'harbor is a morning game' - true story. continued the tradition by playing at 11 on saturday though it was remarkably difficult to round up 8 ragey people who wanted in. booted up the blue boones (terrible) we were drinking half way through and my mouth tasted like coconut for the rest of the game
  
• 'if i wanted to be responsible i would have invited my parents and my pants to green key' - neither were in attendance so you can guess how much responsibility there was
  
• 'can anyone tell me where the basement is' - jill and i shouted this a lot and i kind of think it would be an awesome tshirt b/c basements are such a thing at dartmouth. also think 'got basement?' would be good too
• 'this is all i have to wear because my pants are muddy and jason ripped the sleeves off my shirt' - sums up the weekend pretty well
• 'it's my 25 millionth time at the rodeo' - different take on an old quote. but it really was.
  

got to campus and sd on friday and found alex, who was in pretty rough shape from beacoup drinking, but i managed to peer pressure him into playing lots of games of pong until my sister showed up and we blew up the inflatable shark that she found in celeste's box in the sigma delt storage room. eventually wandered back over to xh but it was pretty late and there was no beer so we went back to jill's room in mid fayer.

it was a gorgeous gorgeous night and i kept wanting to take my clothes off and run around but no one wanted to do it (or jump in the river) with me (apparently it's the coldest it's been in 67 years and no one cared about our lochness expertise). kevin came up to jill's room around 4 am and we sat on the fire escape and ate girl scout cookies before deciding it was too nice to be inside and that we wanted to be out on the green. we noticed the lights were still on in the d so we went up to the d office and hung out as the sky got lighter. the balcony of robo wasn't a terrible place to watch the sun rise on green key.

was kind of okay with the idea that the world might be ending at dartmouth on saturday. it just seemed fitting. as did dancing to 'til the world ends' while playing pong on saturday afternoon.

spent saturday night playing pong outside at the backyard of 45/47 leb aka the track house. the smell of the lilacs from the lilac hedge really did a lot to offset the smell of stale beer. alex was in pretty rough shape after drinking all day and fell asleep in his car on top of his resume. that was a new one.

i acquired several pirate tattoos, including a treasure chest on my upper right hip. places i will never be getting a tattoo: my upper right hip.

i also spent more time with my brother's friends than with my brother, primarily due to the fact that his friend sliced his hand open pretty bad while trying to scale the fence to the track to run drunk 400s. they had to take him to the hospital where he got 10 stitches before they returned to campus, went straight to stinsons and then to the heorot toga party.

finally dartmouth has a lot of lingo - both words specific to campus and trends in language. the big one over the weekend was 'literally'. it was used both liberally and erroneously many times to describe everything from how hungry people were to how to how hard they raged. so of course now it's a thing for me too. i'm literally saying it all the time. ;-P

check that off the bucket list

i know i've been a delinquent on the posting front. had a bit of a crazy week and a very crazy weekend down in dc with lingley, so forgive me?

last year over mlk the party went to linsalata. this year the party went to lingley. sat afternoon lingley and i went shopping in an area of virgina where we were afraid for our lives. we decided to have lunch at the olive garden and discovered there was a woman passed out drunk at the table next to us. this was at 1 pm in the afternoon. #youcan'tmakethisstuffup.

sunday afternoon i went to the museum of american history in dc. i love this museum - looking and reading and learning about our country's history give me chills (yes i am a dork). i saw a really cool exhibit on the wars the US has been in and then the first ladies exhibit. i also love that they refer to the museum as 'your museum.' good work government - i guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

even though i was devastated by the patriots' loss on sunday, i have to say that someecards has had some hilarious cards lately including: 'i bet mlk would have approved of the patriots' non-violent resistance this weekend.'

spent some time on sunday contemplating what would go in a 'money shot' shot, as surprisingly, it doesn't already exist. it's got to be white obvi, and frothy if possible. i was thinking maybe bailey's shaken in a shaker over ice with a splash of goldschlager? any other ideas? may have to ask dana to concoct something.

speaking of money - some money quotes from the weekend: 'he lost his one-legged virginity to you?', 'you decided to bring out the puppies tonight huh?' and 'those sound like all the ingredients for a one-night-stand.' i'll let you decide who said them and what they meant and when i read this again in a year i hope i remember as well.

i'm playing on a flag football team this winter with some of the kickball kids and we had our kickoff party on thursday. ended up running a beruit table with my new columbia '03 friend until the wee hours. can only make one of the games, as they're on saturday, and i'm out of town a lot, but it's fun to make new friends and i'm looking forward to participating in a more sport-like activity than kickball.

was laughing about this website - seacaptaindate.com - last week. can't really tell if it's real or a joke, but if it's a joke it's very well done, especially the promo video. was discussing this with several people last week when i had an epiphany - LAURAK IS A SEA CAPTAIN! so shot her off an email asking her to investigate when she gets back from sailing in the south pacific. heard back from her - she's exploring the islands and eating crepes at food trucks before heading out on a few trips. she'll be back stateside in march

headed up to hopper's farm in vermont this weekend for #rw: vermont 2011. we've got more people and less dignity - this should be interesting. other trips on the table include new haven for harbour/dartmouth-yale hockey, hanover for winter carnival and charleston to see my grandparents.

off to dinner with mulley in the hood!

hazy shade of winter

'i look around, leaves are brown now
and the sky is a hazy shade of winter
look around, leaves are brown
there's a patch of snow on the ground...
- simon & garfunkel

'hazy shade of winter' is a simon & garfunkel song about the depression of winter. not entirely depressed, but it seems to apply to these clear cold days. on nights like this i like to take a moment to appreciate the fact i have a warm, safe place to sleep, esp when you live in a city and the less fortunate people are easy to spot.

just went to a gym class with rowena called 'urban rebound'. it involved jumping on individual trampolines to music (aka dancing). was surprisingly fun, while also making me think of foot-fire and suicides from my basketball days. 90% sure i won't be able to walk tomorrow.

following the forecasts for this next winter storm that's supposed to hit nyc tomorrow night into wednesday morning. i know snow causes all kinds of problems and travel issues, but there's something fun and magical about it. if only nyc had snowball fights in central park. sigh.

heading down to dc for the long mlk weekend to hang out with lingley. nothing in particular planned beyond the jets-patriots game on sunday - it'll be good to be with massholes and down easters for the occasion.

played pong with ceppos at hearn's apt on friday night. i am pleased to say that we beat hearn and olverson three games in a row. and this was superior pong and come-from-behind half-cup wins. good to know we've still got it.

saturday night was the third kick ball - aka the kickball formal. watched the football games, played flip cup, experimented with a shake weight, watched 'zombie strippers' (not my cup of tea), made out with a ref and went to bed at 4:30. good times.

jimmy buffett plays paris in september 2011. still holding out for tahiti, but may have to give serious consideration to a paris trip. after all, 'paris is always a good idea' (sabrina).

current favorite song is 'top of the world' by the cataracts (aka the 'like a g6' 'getting slizard' group). the song has the line 'your daddy must have been a drug dealer. why? b/c you dope'. also liking 'patron tequila' by paradiso girls, also for its line 'by the end of the night imma have you drunk and throwing up, by the end of the night imma have you SO FUCKED UP.' getting a kick out of both.

that's the word from these parts. stay classy.

sunshine state

greetings from the not-so-sunny sunshine state! seriously it's raining and like 45 out. december is pretty hit or miss. hopefully it'll warm up for the weekend - i want just one beach day please!

continuing my whirl-wind tour of the east coast, i am down visiting my grandparents for a couple days. it's a rough time to be out of the office as the end of the year is fast approaching and it seems people at my company are really not going to be around much through the end of the year, but sod it. i hate being out of the office when other people are working - just feels like i'm doing something i shouldn't. but answering emails from my grandmother's couch is vastly preferable to my desk, so i'll deal.

alert readers will already know that i'm super close with my grandparents. oldest grandchild means we've always had a special bond, and i lived with them down here when i was in college junior winter. they're getting older (not surprising) and it's tough to see them moving much more slowly than they used to, especially my grandmother. she's still very with it and wants to be active, but has had a leg issue for awhile now that's kept her from driving/walking very much, and i know it's hard for her. they live by themselves, though frequently have company, but i'm realizing how difficult things that used to be easy for them are now. i guess this is part of me getting older too, but i'm very aware of this these days, and it's only one of the reasons i'm really glad i can spend time with them this trip.

in other, happier, less serious news, i had a great trip to dc last weekend for the inquiring minds. was wonderful to catch up with aida - in arlington, va you can live in the penthouse of a complex, with a pool, parking space AND a bar within walking distance where you can get 5 drinks for $20 bucks. (said bar is the 'tortoise and the hare', motto: hop in, crawl out). something to be said for virginia!

aida and i did brunch with lingley and then bummed around dupont circle/lingley's apt sat morning, including three separate trips to ann taylor loft, when the girls decided the jeans i had packed were not the right kind for the top i had bought for dinner saturday night. met up with the boy saturday afternoon, and i am happy to say that it was really fun. surprisingly wasn't all that awkward - we had lots to talk about - went for a constitutional in the park near his apartment, out for a great dinner at 'birch and barley' and then a couple drinks at 'cafe st. ex' (named after the author of the 'little prince') where we did a bunch of whiskey shots with the bartender (oh my). really glad we decided to do it and it's always nice to talk to someone who doesn't already know your life story. not sure what's next, but good stuff all around.

monday night was the dartmouth club holiday party. mulley came to help out, and we had planned to watch the patriots/jets game at a bar afterwards. 9:30 rolled around, and the party was still going pretty strong, so we joined slaine, dax and some of the other merry-makers down in the bar room of the yale club to watch the game. ended up drinking several dirty martinis (trouble!) and sleeping in the grammercy apartment of a yale '98. there is something to be said for boys over 30, and that thing is amazing apartments. seriously - gorgeous. this kid's name pretty much sums up the entire experience, but i can't post it here in the interest of protecting the guilty. his last name is related to the 'little house' books and his name for short is a color. that ought to give you an indication. we're supposedly having dinner next week - i'll report back.

that's the word from florida. have christmas trees to set up, and doorbells to fix for my grandparents. such is the price of admission. :)

smiling's my favorite

chelsea market, where my office is, has many delicious food options and baked goods to choose from, but is not at all conducive to being hungover. all i want is greasy chinese food and diet coke and i have to walk two avenue blocks to get those things so i'm miserable and making do with spring rolls from chelsea thai.

the reason for today's hangover is heavy drinking last night (thank you captain obvious). vin's been working from nyc this week so there have been lots of delicious dinners and replays of the 'five day cocktail party' we did for my birthday last march.

we went to 'flex mussels' in the old hood when vin and vik, her brother who has just moved to nyc from boston (yay!), got in to to town on sunday. tuesday we went to 'back forty' in alphabet city where they had just gotten (captured? acquired?) a 450 pound elk, so elk was on the menu (i had elk sausage and risotto - pretty good!). really cute place - highly recommend.

after dinner we met up with a bunch of people at mcsorley's. i adore mcsorley's - perfect place for rounds of cheap beers in mugs (they only have dark or light beer), communal table sitting and being rowdy and loud with friends. despite these admirable qualities, no one ever wants to go, so i was selfishly glad vin wanted to go too.

last night we went down to tribeca to hang out after work. started at 'puffy's tavern' where they served you a personal pan cheese or pepporini pizza that they made in the bar (awesome) and then headed over to 'reade street pub' to meet up with some of vin's coworkers. they had a great guitar player who could play everything from billy joel to oasis to jimmy buffett. i got up there and sang 'son of a son of a sailor' with him to the crowd's dismay and my delight. we also asked him to play hall and oates 'you make my dreams come true'. he said he knew the song but not the words, so we looked them up on an iphone and i stood up there and sang/held the phone so he could sing the words. together we successfully performed the song (teamwork!) and if you haven't seen the 'you make dreams' montage from '500 days of summer', you should watch it now. guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

steger was out and about too - she's interviewing for jobs in nyc and san fran (selfishly hoping that she ends up in nyc) and we sent her and vik home with mulley to sleep, though vin insisted she and steger could fit on our love seat of couch (no way). didn't get to bed last night until 3, and vin and i have been staying up chatting the last few nights, so am very sleepy as well as hungover, but it's been a ton of fun so i can deal. besides - it's my own damn fault.

tonight i'm going down to dc to see aida who i haven't seen in maybe a year? and then tomorrow is my extended date, which i am quite looking forward to. went on a mini shopping spree on wednesday in preparation, but i'm excited for fun, dc at holiday time, and hanging out. anything else is an added plus. ;-)

what $150 buys you in the poconos

• room and board in a 20 person house for three days. i heart house parties
  
• epic icing scenarios
• all the alcohol we could drink (and a lot we couldn't) including a bottle of hot damn. YES.
• a hot tub
• three semi-serious injuries including two hot tub wipeouts and a sore butt from falling down the stairs
• several not-serious injuries. but everything hurt on saturday morning.
  
• repair for the broken sheet rock wall in the basement that resulted from the fall down the stairs (side note: it seems no one has a picture of this. how is this possible? i literally felt like i had been blasted in the chest by a spell ala harry potter and flung down to the button of the stairs. this happened on thursday night, about 2 hours after i arrived. i joke about the #1 rule being no death but sometimes it hits a little too close to home)
• impromptu dance parties with fantastic music including multiple replays of 'dynamite' and 'the club can't even handle me right now'
• 4 group viewings of the pirate porn
• several rounds of ugly christmas sweater flip cup (of course i won. hi kickball)
  
• a trip to the poconos brewing company in our ugly sweaters. people thought we were teachers.
• quite a few compliments on my breasts
• two hungover trips to an outlet mall where nothing was purchased. i texted ceppos that i probably shouldn't have been out in public at that point
  
• an opportunity to see a grown man wear a purple fleece onesie (without feet) THAT HE FOUND IN THE HOUSE out in public
• two epic freakouts over rearranged furniture. we're talking 'couches stacked to the ceiling blocking the means of egress' furniture arrangements
• three nights of post-3 am bedtimes
• lots of beruit practice
• the nickname 'mackrel'. apparently i accessorize with fish more than i realized
  
• amazing food all weekend courtesy of lopez and amy (pot roast and beer can chicken. i don't eat that well at home)
  
• a round in the hot seat during a game of kings - 'does the carpet match the drapes?' 'how many people here have you slept with?'
• deer and wildlife sightings
• 11 new friends and one special friend ;-P
• one kick ass weekend to celebrate lingley's 26th birthday #wewerethereanditwasawesome

the music faves from the wknd:

1. ke$ha - 'blow' and 'we r who we r' - both off her new album that comes out 11/22
2. trey songz - 'bottoms up' 'bottoms up bottoms up what you got in your cup got a couple bottles but a couple ain't enough'
3. chris brown - 'yeah x 3'
4. pitbull - 'hey baby (drop it to the floor)
5. rihanna - 's&m' 'b/c i may be bad but i'm perfectly good at it'

text book definition of 'erring on the side of raging'

got up at 5:30 this morning for an 8 am breakfast meeting. with the hour to travel, and the half-hour cushion so i wasn't late, it was a very early morning.

fortunately yesterday was a very leisurely day. saturday night went out with taylor and lidia for drinks at the rose bar at the grammercy park hotel to celebrate taylor's big news. got all the details, and had a quick catch-up over a dirty martini, before going to meet up with rowena and a few of the old coworkers for a former coworker's bday party in the east village.

on the way over we decided we'd better stop and do some more pregaming, so we went to cherry tavern for $5 PBRs and shots of whiskey. we thought it was a straight bar, but we found ourselves surrounded by boys in plaid shirts who taught me the meaning of 'docking' when i went in for a fist pound on our way out the door. gonna let you look that one up for yourself.

the bday party was at 'alphabet lounge' - on avenue c - super far east and pretty crowded, but great music, so we got to dance a bit. i left at a respectable hour, but ran into a dartmouth '08 on the street corner while looking for a cab and decided to go drink with them. after another several rounds of PBR and whiskey shots, i found myself in a union square apartment dancing salsa and drinking out of a giant beer mug with a friend of a friend.

and sunday morning around 9 am on the subway doing a walk of shame in hot pink heels - always a character building experience, though this time was nothing compared to the time i did it in a 'call on me' leotard circa halloween 2006. took the subway up to 86th street so i could stop for mcdonald's breakfast, canceled brunch plans with cody and went back to bed for a couple hours. hadn't been out like that in the city in awhile and it was long overdue.

chelsea market where i work is decked out for halloween. i mean above and beyond. there are creepy zombie scenes and things hanging from the ceiling everywhere, and the manhattan fruit exchange has pumpkins lining the walk ways in an almost farm stand kind of way. not really sure why chelsea market feels the need to do this, but my favorite decorations are these hologram type pictures of old fashioned people in frames that turn in to skeletons and zombies when you look at them a different way. they make me smile while also creeping me out.

and lastly, you can tell who the new yorkers are and who the tourists are very easily in midtown manhattan; the tourists stand on the corners and wait for the traffic to stop and the light to change, while the new yorkers stand out in the street and cross against the light. megh told me about this distinction ages ago, but nowhere is it more obvious than midtown manhattan around the holidays.

have pong paddle, will travel

this will likely be the title of my next facebook album as well, as all my pictures lately seem to be of dartmouth kids playing pong.

fri night we took the metro north up to new haven to play pong at lamb's apartment b/c new haven has space along with shootings and crime. harbour to be exact. it was pretty epic. lamb kept reminding us that it was 'only eight beers' and we were going out to some yale law school party after the first game but those eight beers hit us hard b/c the rest of the night is pretty hazy. we ultimately decided that we had come to new haven to play pong and dammit that was what we wanted to do so back we went for harbour game number two. and that's where things stop being hazy and start being black out.

been an influx of good music lately, capped off by the return of fratmusic.com which makes me very happy. i saw 'easy a' last night which i really enjoyed and had an excellent soundtrack. came home and bought the entire thing (can't remember the last time i did that). i like a song called 'trouble is a friend' and a song that samples blondie's 'the tide is high'. highly recommend you check out the flick and the songs.

kylie minogue also has a new album out called 'aphrodite'. been a big fan of kylie's since the days of prancing in our underwear in richardson 309 and i am pleased to report the album passes the prancing test. check out 'aphrodite', 'illusion' and 'all the lovers'.

i have also secured an apartment and will not be homeless on october 31st. decided to go with the apt with the right location, price and layout. however this means that i'll be sharing a bathroom with the 4th floor of the brownstone i'll be living in. you can bet i'll report back on this.

otherwise it will be all about the upcoming move for the next couple weeks - packing and making arrangements and whatnot. it's been a good run but it's on to the next one.

potomania

if you don't know what potomania means, you don't have to google or guess b/c i'm going to tell you - it means 'a persistent and intense desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess' (why has no one i know not discovered this word yet? would have come in handy in the past, like you know, 'my potomania is flaring up again, let's go out and rage this weekend').

potomania was also the theme of this weekend's trip to charleston for vin's rugby reunion. the official theme that is. the unofficial theme was 'delta sucks' (#deltasucks) as we had travel woes up the wazoo. we were scheduled to fly out of nyc at 7 on friday night. after the first round of delays, we sat on the tarmac while an intense thunder and lightning storm happened around us - causing the plane to shake and us to frantically call delta, other airlines, and finally a rental car place, as it quickly became clear we were not going to make our connection flight in atlanta.

we booked the car while we were still in nyc, which we were glad about, as we finally arrived in atlanta to discover that all flights to charleston were booked until 9 pm the next day and people were preparing to sleep in the airport. we were not pleased to discover that our weekend trip to charleston would turn into a weekend trip to atlanta if we continued to try to fly to charleston, so we picked up the rental car in atlanta around midnight, and drove the five hours across the (dark and somewhat sketchy) state of south carolina to charleston, arriving at 6 am in time to watch the sunrise over the cooper river from a dock. as vin said, sometimes you have to work to party.

grabbed three hours of sleep and then woke up to wander around king street and meeting street in charleston. hit up the charleston margaritaville store, where i wanted to buy everything and anything for sale, and then grabbed oysters and beer for lunch by the market (money quote: 'excuse me, i have to go party'). then the girls headed out to the beach and i took a much needed shower and a much needed nap so i could have dinner with my grandparents on the water.

met up with the girls at folly beach after dinner for a quick swim and some booze while the moon rose over the ocean, and then we headed to my new favorite dive bar called bowen's island down a dirt road on a creek. this place had plywood walls, mismatched chairs, and we were all in our sandy and salty bathing suit clothes from the beach. had some beer and seafood and then headed back to charleston, with a quick stop at sonic to buy $14 worth of cold beverages (also a subtheme of the weekend) and ice cream. this was my first trip to a sonic, after years of seeing sonic ads on tv despite the fact there are no sonics for miles in new england, and i have to say, it was worth the hype.

did some boozing back at the house (which was a gorgeous house btw - straight out of southern living.) - drank some strawberry daquiri and blue hawaiin boones (again - why do they bother making other flavors than snow creek berry? but boones is hard to find in nyc and beggars can't be choosers) and played drinking games and catch phrase and self-call (the opposite of never have i ever) until 4 am when the three hours of sleep from the night before caught up with me.

sunday we spent back out at folly beach, with a quick stop on the way home for the most amazing corn dog i have ever eaten and some damned good blue cheese coleslaw at jack's cosmic hot dogs before some more boozing while we waited for our flight to stop being delayed and take off (#delta sucks). made it back to nyc around 10, tired and sunburned but happy.

i am pleased to say i have been made an honorary member of the duke women's rugby team and am invited to future rugby events (primarily it seems b/c of the aforementioned boones drinking). it was a lot of fun and i'm glad to have had a chance to booze and tell some jokes with vin's friends from school, esp since she's been forced to do the same with mine so often. and it's clear that the sigma delts and sigma delt community have some kindred spirits in the duke women's rugby team. :)

and charleston - i just love it so much down there. it's beautiful, the history is a tangible part of the city, the lowcountry way of life is unique and i have fond memories of sailing (my mom's side of the family are big sailors), walking around the battery and visiting with my family while growing up. i'm glad to be on intimate terms with charleston, even if i am a (damn) yankee girl from new england ;-).

sorry for partying

so i realize i have been remiss in posting and it has come to my attention that people want a post. this is because my computer is still being ridiculous and randomly shutting itself off, which doesn't make me want to turn it on, and i started my new job this week so i actually have work to do. after 3 years of working with the same people i'm getting used to a situation where no one knows me and i have no good will built up, and it's a new role, and the situation totally sucks. you really really are dependent on the kindness of people when you start over.

the reunion was amazing. so fantastic. the weather was beautiful so there was that haze over the green mountains and baker looked perfect in the early summer twilight. i'll do a run down of events

- drove up with robin - she's been in class for interior design and she and the boy are buying an apt in bklyn so she'll get to put her skills to good use.

- me, allette, karla, robin, laurak and huyett were in a cluster on the 4th floor of wheeler. i brought my mini speakers and we listened to 'in my head' (JASON DERULO!) and 'bad romance' all wknd, complete with lots of shouting of 'i don't wanna be friends!'

- mainly hung out with the rowers and the sd usual suspects, including some quality time on the sd beach. thanks to a combo of being drunk, hungover or wearing sunglasses all wknd, i didn't have to talk to many people i didn't want to see

- getting into sd was going to be an issue b/c we didn't technically have access to the house. allette rang the doorbell and we befriended the '11 housemanager, who made the risky but right decision to hide her key so we could get in. sd was a bit of a scene all weekend with folks from lots of different groups hanging out. really glad sd is still a place where anyone can go and feel welcome

- apparently my lot in life is to change the music (although i guess i'm the one that feels most strongly about it) and i was happy to discover that the random 'sd pref mix' that i put on still has 'we are family' and then 'like a prayer' as the second song, to rock out to on pref night. that's an '05 tradition that's still around.

- richardson 309 is no more, as apparently they renovated the dorm and renumbered rooms. it truly is the stuff of legends though, and i sort of feel that like 'brigadoon', it will reappear every 100 years or something

- friday night stinson's was out of pong balls (amateur hour) so we were all sticking our stash down our boobs. need a pong ball so i ran over to psi u to beg one. in my haste to get back to sd i ran out the back door of the basement as a short cut. turns out there are cement stairs that i ran into full speed and fell into the bushes. lay there for awhile, stunned, before hobbling back to sd, where i insisted the girls pour keystone on my wounds to cauterize them 'civil war style'. i'm an idiot.

- went out on the river with the '05 crew girls on sat in an eight. it was so amazing to be back in a boat on the connecticut, but i have to say it's really hard to row hungover when your hands are shaking. we rowed up to the starting line, did some pieces and rowed back, including an all eight pause at hands away with the boat set up for about 5 seconds. skips has captured this feat on video. boo yah.

- had a nice little gathering at the d that megh set up. great to see those kids. i also acquired my own copy of 'guy and fellow', the comic strip that ran for awhile. this is particularly relevant as i wasn't the biggest fan of the comic as an undergrad, though the name of this blog comes from a comic, which the d directorate board knew. when they gave me a book (the party after you left - a collection of new yorker cartoons) for being staff writer of the year (one of the awards i'm most proud of) they inscribed it was an apology that they weren't able to give me the 'guy and fellow' anthology.

- sat night we had a lobster dinner in the BEMA. i had to prepare everyone's lobster for them, as apparently lobster eating is not a life skill that everyone knows. and then we headed back to sd to hang out more. i played some pong with a bg '12 who really needs to step up his game if he wants to be respected at bg. but it was fun to hang out. ended up playing pong until 7 am, just hanging out and playing when people showed up. it was so weird for it to be light out but we decided we didn't have to stop playing just b/c the sun was coming up. shuter and i closed down the basement, and then she walked me back to wheeler b/c she had promised laurak she would. it's nice to know oaths still mean something around here.

- the 'hard guy' tshirts made a reappearance with 'hard guy reunion: i didn't even go to this school'. well played.

- drove back to nyc with karla, who is going to grad school at berkley this fall for urban planning, and huyett who doesn't yet know what she's doing this fall. we were all on the struggle jet to struggle town, but we made it.

- someone's facebook album had a comment that 'they wanted to friend every '05 they went to school with'. it was pretty accurate. we're all obsessed with dartmouth and each other. karla and i decided there needs to be more of a commitment to getting together without major life changes like weddings. it's only going to be harder and harder for us to keep getting together and in the words of a raffi song 'the more we get together the happier we'll be.' :)

this past weekend was also ridiculous. friday night we did a ferry friday on a perfect night for it. had about 20 people come out for it which was fantastic. rode back and forth a couple times until we had drunk all the beer on the boat, so we got off and ventured into to statan island looking for a dive bar. we found one - karl's klipper. we all thought we were going to die, but we had some 'statan island ice teas', played some pool and then ventured back to manhattan to 'jeremy's ale house' in the financial district. went to 'commonground' and then down to the lower east side to a bar the boys like called 'vig 27'. drinking whiskey on the rocks was prob not the best idea, but i think it impressed the boys.

sat i rolled out of bed to go up to dana's bar 'dylan murphys' to be in a college-humor type video that a friend was shooting. my role was to look disgusted when the boys tried to pick us up with offense/dumb pick up lines (you girls on myspace?). then headed down to watch the soccer game with the crew. just kept on going out from there - things are a little hazy - i know i took a nap in the bar for a bit before ending up back on the ues at dylan murphys. things come full circle eh?

going to be a long week this week but my eye's on the prize of going home to the cape on friday for a week! wheeeeeeeeee! vin and rowena are coming along for the ride and my fingers are crossed for great weather and some fantastic fireworks. i need to go home so badly. can't wait to be where 'the wind and the water are free'.

girls just wanna have fun (& run)

big weekend here in nyc and the northeast. kicked it off with kickball on thurs night - 45 minutes of actual kickball and then 5 hours of flip cup at a bar on the lower east side. this league not only has kickball champs, it has 'bar champs' as well, which the team has one for three consecutive seasons. needless to say, we're on a mission to repeat.

we won our game and managed to start a dance party in the middle of the bar, which ought to help, and then me and this kid on the team who happens to have a house 2 miles from mine on the cape and i went to get chicken nuggets (with honey!) from mcdonalds before grabbing a beer at stumble. went to bed at 1:30. it only took 5 years to find someone to carpool with to the cape!

friday night was 80s prom. cut out of work around 5 and headed to charlie's to pregame with an 80s powerhour. everyone had gone all out for the event - charlie's apt is now strewn with make-up, glitter, and heels. prom was fun; all the 80s high school movie cliches were present, including the popular girl dating the captain of the football team. he introduced her as 'my girlfriend who looks like she's from a whitesnake video'. she did. 'saved by the bell''s dustin diamond was also in attendance; i think they were under contract to say 'saved by the bell' anytime they mentioned him. the post-sbtb years have not been kind, but it did kind of up the wow factor. also ran into celeste and a couple of her coworkers in fine form. i think this is the closest thing to a formal that we're going to get in nyc.

post prom the gym turned back into the club, so we danced for awhile longer. they put some boxes out on the stage and so of course we danced on those. i think it's our lot in life to dance on the highest thing in the room, whatever that may be. blame the benches in the sd basement. charlie had the brilliant idea to go to the 'continental' after prom. this is the bar that gives you 5 shots for $10. so we played shot roulette. everyone ordered one kind of shot for their five, and we ended up with 45 shots on a platter. we went around the circle, chose one and threw it back without stopping to think about what it was. dangerous. and then we went and ran it back. 10 shots in 10 minutes. oof.

quick stop at charlie's for more beer, and then we went to 'whiskey river', sat in a booth and played 'either/or' until they kicked us out at 4 am. always eye-opening, i vaguely recall a heated discussion about age and hooking up. never fails to be an interesting debate.

sat am vin dragged me out of bed at 7 am to catch the train to new haven, where we picked up the zipcar. this was our first time trying this train/automobile thing out, and i actually really liked it. less driving (new haven is 2 hrs north of the city), skipping traffic (i-95 in connecticut is the worst), cheaper (zipcar charges by the miles). i think we'll be doing it in the future. the car we were driving was a toyota prius - a hybrid - which was interesting. the key stays in the car at all times and the power button is pushed to turn it on and off. it's also super quiet - according to my sis you can sneak up on people in them b/c they make no noise under 6 miles an hour. which i imagine to sort of be like the 'killer cars' segment from monty python's flying circus. i was not a fan overall, but beggars can't be choosers, and i guess this is why you test drive before you buy.

drove up to hanover on a beautiful sunny day and met up with my bro and sis for a brief run (read: jog) down to the river to swim and hang out on the docks. stopped by the hop for some hangover chicken tenders and a big ice water from the ice machine. the hop ice machine may be, in the words of the ggmm, a BAFFINGLY LARGE INEFFICIENT, BORDERLINE-USELESS DARTMOUTH INSTITUTION O'THE DAY, but it sure helps a hangover. swung by sig ep to pick up a bequest that charlie had asked me to pick up. went down in the sig ep basement and found a brother and said, 'this is going to sound really weird but charlie stoebe asked me to pick up something for him in the npr?'. they trustingly (and stupidly) handed it over, no questions asked. i'm contemplating not giving it to him, as it has a lion on it with the phrase 'king of beverages' (aka dr. pepper). tbd.

met up with ceppity and her entourage at the hotel in lebanon, and then we all drove to woodstock for the pre-race community pasta dinner at the woodstock country club. if you have never been to woodstock i highly recommend as it is just adorable, beautiful and about as new england as it gets. post-dinner we had some time that we couldn't kill by playing pong or drinking, given the impeding race on sunda. this was a new one for us, and while we briefuly discussed some water pong ala the dry days of the crew team, we decided instead to play mini golf in quechee before a pit stop in hanover and off to bed.

sunday woke up to pouring rain. basically rained from the time we woke up until we were an hour down the highway towards nyc. fortunately while the rain was chilly before we started running, it was a good temp for running and i actually really like running in the rain. listened to my ipod, enjoyed the rustic vermont scenery, ran through a covered bridge and past two others. vin and mike were our ace cheerleaders and lugged our gear all around in the rain. there was a brutal hill at mile 8, and the last three miles were pretty painful, but all in all it was totally worth it and a lot of fun. i ran a 1:50, had been aiming for under 2 so it felt good to have a goal and accomplish it, even if i was not the most dedicated runner of the bunch. all around - a plus weekend.

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.

seven days without a blog post makes one weak

so. went to try to post this morning and my computer would not cooperate which leads me the sad state of affairs of blogging at work. but this week has been dull as dishwater while waiting for the new mobile guy to start so i don't think it hurts.

last week at this time i was on the chinatown bus en route to boston. in fact, i was almost there. last thursday night was my big boss's going away party and it was RIDIC. we were on the roof of the empire hotel on a gorgeous night and the party was in full swing. when the boss who hired you is leaving you just can't say no to tequila shots, so it was no surprise that i blacked out and have no recollection of how i got home. according to hearn, i just grabbed my stuff and left without saying goodbye. let it not be said that i don't know when to leave a party.

by some miracle of god i woke up at 5:30 on friday to finish packing in time to make a 6:30 am bus to boston. there's a good chance i was still drunk, but met up with christine for the drive to the cape. the gods truly were on our side all weekend, b/c we just made the 1:55 fast ferry to nantucket (literally, last people on) after unforeseen delays, traffic and general annoyingness. it was a gorgeous spring day in new england - sunny if a bit chilly. when we arrived on the island we found keena and headed out to madaket so i could take a shower and we could collect our thoughts. then we headed to cisco brewery (nice beer if you can get it) where we proceeded to sit at the bar, play 'shut the box' and drink several rounds of drinks to the sound of the bluegrass band outside.

by the time we left we were fast friends with the bartender, to the point that we paid $11 for seven shots, had told him we had 'magic boobs', gotten him to participate in a disguise montage (i maintain, you never know when you're going to need a disguise) and invited him to join us at cambridge street later on. after some dinner, the night ended with us taking pictures in the triple eight vodka booze bus (pretty sure it's illegal for a drunk person to sit in the driver's seat of a vehicle, even when it's not moving, but we didn't get caught so) and keena driving us home to madaket while blasting lady gaga's 'alejandro'. side note: i adore being a passenger in a car when i'm drunk and the music is blasting. love love love it!

sat morning dawned clear and sunny and we got up and headed in to town for the daffodil parade. main street was filled with antique cars decked out in their daffodil best. everyone was dressed up in daffodils, complete with wide-brimmed hats (memo to self: get one stat). we cheered the cars on as they left for 'sconset, and then headed to 'something natural' for sandwiches for the picnic before driving out to 'sconset to join in the merriment. we also went to check out the daffodil show put on by the nantucket garden club. keena won several awards for her daffodils, and we learned that 'not all daffodils are created equal' from a display about sub-par daffodils not worthy of being in the show (hint: count the petals - there should be six - and keep the stems long).

post daffodil fun we went back to madaket to hang out on the beach with keena's corgi 'maggie' and then got dressed to go to dinner at 'sfoglia'. apparently there's another 'sfoglia' on the upper east side, not far from our apt, but according to ny magazine, it doesn't measure up to the original on nantucket. post-dinner the only option was the 'chicken box', where we danced the night away to the sounds of an amazing cover band. the band is based in nyc so i think i'm going to have to go to one of their shows. the music was awesome - i kept sticking my beer bottle in the back pocket of my jeans so i could air guitar, with the sad result that my jeans were covered in booze, but i think it was worth it. in between sets the (hot) lead singer got a mohawk, which, while it may have decreased the value of his stock, was still pretty cool. all in all, we danced our faces off.

sunday had a delicious brunch of lobster eggs benedict in town, and then a quick stop at brant point for some senior pictures in the rain and then we were the stand-by of stand-bys for the 3 PM ferry, and still managed to get on (the gods love us!). i spent sunday night at home on the cape with my parents, where i discovered my parents are certifiably crazy as they have installed solar panels, a security system, and were increasing their poultry flock by four baby ducks. yes. i held a baby duck on sunday. i can never bring a boy home.

still, it was great to be home, if even for a little bit, and then i headed back to boston with christine and back to nyc. all in all, a fantastic trip, with great company and good memories.

back in nyc it's been a long week. things are up in the air/in a holding pattern (could i use anymore aviation terminology?) at work; still waiting to find out what the management changes mean for me. in the meantime, embarking on a familiar interview journey with a company i've interviewed with before. this time around i think i really want the gig, which puts added pressure on the gauntlet. best foot forward and we shall see i suppose. always do.

stay classy friends.

8 hours of driving for 6 hours of pong

we've lived on third avenue for over 2 years now. our bedroom windows face the street, but our terrace faces a roof and a wall directly across from us, and some other apt buildings kitty corner. i'm not so good at shutting the shades in the morning, but the apt building diagonal from us is having some construction done and there are construction workers out there every morning. i think i need to get better at shutting the shades lest they get the wrong idea when i'm getting dressed in the morning. that being said, it's so easy to see into other people's apts that i'm sure someone's seen it already before.

had a fantastic trip up to hanover this weekend. dragged vin out of bed at 6 on sat morning, something that was pretty rough as we'd been at a bar up the street where the hook bartenders were guest bartending at dana's bar on friday night. found celeste at grand central and took the train to stamford where we picked up the car.

made good time up to hanover on a gorgeous sunny day. usually i do that drive up in the dark on a friday night post work, so it was nice to have daylight so we could see the beautiful landscape we were driving through. met up with my parents and my brother and my sister and the puppy (sasha bear!) and went to boloco for lunch, then wandered around the football stadium, gym (which i've been trying to check out for two years now. just generally too drunk), bema/robert frost/lone pine and library. i was thinking about the time boxa and i took tay tay's pink flamingo rosario to various places around campus and took pictures of him to send to taylor while she was on her off term in barcelona. (the only remaining pic is one of us at a lot, but i know we did robert frost too).

found celeste and diede at dirt cowboy, made a trip to the co-op to snag some 'merchandise' and then hung out on the green where puppies and strange performance art of a person dressed up in a clam suit abounded. this clam (if you could call it that, it mainly looked like burlap to me) was just bopping around the green, collapsing in strange places for awhile, and then getting up again. my sister told us this was the current installation at the hop, so we went over to check it out. the installation was a bunch of burlap clams inside a glass case. so odd.

back out to the green to listen to the baker bells play the alma mater at 6, and then to molly's for $2 margs and sustenance. quick stop at stinson's for beer, boones and cups, and it was back to sd for harbour with some sig eps. the basement music, as usual, was subpar, but the harbour was fantastic. the night disintegrated from there; eventually i had to step off a pong game b/c i couldn't see the cups, but it was so nice to play real pong, in a basement, with plenty of space where the ball bounced and people weren't trying to fight you for playing a game they've never seen. we all passed out in the sd tv room/library, where we glad for some sketchy sleeping bags. that's the one issue with cleaning out the library - where will sketchy alums sleep? vin was worried about getting lost on campus, but we told her that 'sigma delt was a destination you could ask for' if she needed to. fortunately that was mitigated simply by never leaving sd. problem solved.

grabbed bagel basement for bfast, dropped the extra 30s of keystone we had bought off to my sister, and headed back early on sunday. quick trip, but so worth it. just need a fix every once in awhile. vin and i hit up target and taco bell in stamford before dropping off the car. could not for the life of us find the taco bell, so vin called and asked for directions, a process that took about 15 minutes. when we finally did arrive the cashier asked if 'we were those girls who wanted directions to the taco bell' and 'we really wanted to taco bell that badly?' it was like a taco bell commercial, which got better (or worse) when we ran down the stairs at the stamford train station and got on a train that turned out to not be the 4:03 to nyc, but the 4:00 to new cannan. so we rode the train to new cannan and then back to stamford, an experience that would have been much much worse had we not had the taco bell in hand.

so happy we went, and super happy that i'll be back again in six weeks. makes leaving easier. :) other things that make the dartmouth withdrawal easier is the fact that boxa is in town this weekend! looking forward to lots of catching up with her and causing mischief.

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.'

if i'm not dead by thursday i'll be roaring friday night

rough morning kids. staying out til 1:30 on a monday night is not advised. i promised some hook regulars i would teach them to play pong (on a monday, not a tuesday, as that's the showcase) and i had to keep my word, so one thing led to another and several games of pong and tequila/tabasco combos (who decided that was a good idea?) and i think i'm still drunk. at least it's tuesday and not wednesday, as i have a standing 9:30 am meeting with my boss on wed morning. to her credit she's never said anything to me about it. 'functional' is the key word.

it's an aggressive week on the drinking scale - tonight is an office going away party for my coworker and tomorrow night it's 'l'eighties' night at '1,2,3, burger, shot, beer'. yes you read that right. 80s and $1 glasses of white wine. pick me! and friday we head up to hopper's house in vermont for a house party that might as well just be called 'drink your face off' weekend. i'm driving so i have to be somewhat with it, but still!

i also have jury duty tomorrow for new york county - never been called before. kind of interested to see what it's like, but i may have just been watching too much 'law and order'. planning to flat out tell them i work in news. at the very least i'm sure i'll get a good blog post out of it. may even post from the court, depending on how bored i get. being called for jury duty seems like a very grown-up thing to do - i said as much 7 years ago as well - i have the im conversation. have i progressed in that time? apparently not.

lastly current favorite music, as there's been an influx:

1. 'lollipop' - mika - kind of a weird song but pretty uplifting. mika reminds me of the scissor sisters
2. 'the morning after dark' - timbaland featuring nellie furtado. oh timbaland.
3. 'i got it' - gorilla zoe - fratmusic.com find
4. 'i hate this part' - pussycat dolls. courtesy of my bro
5. 'i'm alive' - kenny chesney with dave matthews. country style. it is the most popular genre in the country you know.