I heart (and hate) New York

So.

Sorry for being MIA for the past week guys - I needed some time off from the internets and it seemed as though being physically AWAY from them was the best time to do that.

Well, right.

I went down the shore for Mem Day, then up to the deep Jerz and the city to see a variety of people. And par for the course, I came away with deeply conflicting feelings about my HS friends (other than NY Laura and Arielle, about whom I have NO ambivalence), Evil Corp, and of course, New York.

In short, I want to be a part of it. Mostly. Kind of.

And so, as is my wont, I present to you, what I love and hate about NY:

Loves:
Bagels. Bagels. Bagels.
The utter lack of humidity (compared to the District)
Fashion. I wore all black AND sunglasses while it was raining and no one asked me what was wrong.
Frenetic walkers. People in DC move slowly.
The accents. "You wanna grab some cawfee and tawk?" LOVE IT!
Best bar ever.
$15 pedicures - that last.
The subway goes EVERYWHERE.
My NY FRIENDS!!!

Loathes:
Fashion. I hate skinny jeans, can we JUST GET OVER IT ALREADY
The subway - hello. Eau de urine is not attractive.
Frenetic walkers. Caaaaaaaaalm down it's going to be ok if you're two minutes late to work. Srsly. Trust me.
That no matter what, I run into people from high school at my absolute worst time. This is also true of the shore and the Jerz.
Lack of policy people. Don't get me wrong, I love talking about the recession. Oh no wait, I don't. I love talking about Obama.
My DC friends. Not being there. I missed y'all!

I have lots to say NOT about New York, so I'll be back tomorrow and maybe also the next day. How are you guys? Good? Any news?

Enjoying the humidity?

GUEST BLOG!! Emilia: "All the people on the street, I hate you all."

So until the end of the week or so I'm going to be up north while my IRL friends take over the blog. Today we have Emilia, my tarty New York friend! And she's pissed.

Happy Memorial Day everyone! I hope you all are enjoying some meaty grilled deliciousness on this day when we are to remember those citizens who have given their lives in service to the country. I'm not entirely sure how this is different from Veteran's Day, except that the weather is more enjoyable, but I do sincerely appreciate the job our servicemen do, because it's important and not something that I would ever sign up for.  Thank you!

So anyway, I don't blog. In fact, since I finished grad school I haven't really written. At least not anything besides a lesson plan or a greeting card. MA said though that I could do anything I want, and since complaining seems to come quite naturally to me, here are . . .

Things that have been annoying me lately:

• Unbidden comments. I plan my route to the subway every morning to avoid people. I don't want to hear whether or not you think I look good. I don't want to hear you suck your teeth, whistle, or mutter dirty things under your breath but loud enough that I can hear them. It does not start my day off on the right foot, and since I live in New York and cannot afford the space I want, there is only one side of the bed I can get out on. I do not crave the attention. Mostly I want to get to work in peace and be left to my own devices, since once there I get a new group of 20 people trying their damnedest to annoy me every 55 minutes. Subgroup: running commenters. As in, people who feel the need to comment on my form, ass, or progress as I pass them by. Because I don't run very fast, they have ample time to get in their two cents. I don't want to hear it, and I can't wear my noise-canceling headphones because they are too bulky to carry.
  
• Man-boys. Subgroup:Peter Pan Syndrome. I'm a jackass but my mom will still tell me I'm God's gift so I think I can land a model thus can dump you without a second thought. Newsflash:you're not, you can't, you're thirty and wouldn't know a good thing if it kicked you in the ass . . . which it would be totally justified in doing. Good luck.
  
• Tourists. Specifically, tourists walking slowly in front of me, five abreast, stopping to take pictures and just generally being inconvenient. I would rather get to my destination and wait than have to follow your torturous pace and ponderous progress.
  
• Students who think they are smarter than I am. Not only am I actually smarter, but I know more and will have quicker, wittier comebacks than you could ever handle with your barely teenaged brain. Don't give me that snotty look, because I have had at least a decade more practice being a know-it-all, and I am the one who doles out the grades. Subgroup: grade grubbers/whiners. If you didn't do any work for the first 14 weeks in the semester, you are probably not going to be able to make up for it, and any opportunity I give you to do so is a gift, and you shouldn't complain that you don't have time to do that much work . . . that's why I doled it out over triple the time on the first go-round.
  
• That incredibly stupid McDonald's commercial for the McCafe, their "fancy" lattes. I just really hate it, and I have a pretty high threshold for stupid TV. I mean, I regularly watch "The Hills", but at least there's some fun in reviling the stupid, whereas the commercial is just dumb.
  

To counterbalance and leave on a happy note, things that I have appreciated lately:

• You readers allowing me to vent!
  
• Taking a weekend away to spend with my family, who are always behind me, and who have learned to let me fall asleep on the recliners downstairs and leave me there until I get up on my own.
  
• Really great coworkers who are smart, good at what they do, like what they do, want to get better at it, and have accepted me into the fold despite my less attractive personality traits. Thanks guys!
  
• A really good burger, eaten in the company of friends, and something cold to drink to go with it.
  
• Free Broadway musicals, I had such a good time!
  
• Getting something you really love at a 50%-off sale.
  
• Sleeping in, for three days in a row. My bed and I had been rather distant recently, and now we have reconnected.
  

So that's it from me for now. To close my first foray into the blogosphere, three questions. What makes you crazy? If you write it as a comment your friends won't put you on their lists for whining too much. What makes you happy? Hopefully there's more of the latter than the former. Is there a possibility that in the near future a writing award will be given in the category "bullet list"?  Have a great holiday!

GUEST BLOG!! Arielle Tawks Funny

So for the next week or so I'm going to head north while my IRL friends take over the blog. Next up, the Arielle, of the "holy shit I'm friends with adults" fame, has a bone to pick with y'all. Or you guys. Or yous guys. Whatevs.

Because you don't know me, lets start off by saying I am currently located in Massachusetts. For a few years now, I have avoided saying "I live here". Now back to topic.

"Haha where did you say you were from? You just said 'layast' instead of 'last'". "Playastic? Ooohh 'plastic'". "Huh? You want cawfee? Sorry we don't serve that here". "Soda? Is that like No, duh?" "Ayepple? Banayena? Who are you?" "Um, you just said Bawston" OMG get over it!! And no, I really DON'T over-pronounce words like people make fun of me for doing. If I did, I'd admit it, I promise. I will laugh with you, but the next time you bring it up, I will start to stir secret angry feelings toward you.

Yes, I will sound different than you when we speak- no matter where we are. WHY?

First, I pronounce my R's. Every. single. one. of. them. It seems once you hit Sturbrige, a town with TWO R's in its name, people in the northeast forget about that wonderful letter. Dear New England, pronunciate; and stop making fun of me. I am terrified every time I say the word "weird" that it will sound "weiehd", very Mass. I have used the word "wicked" once in my life (other than talking about the witch, or the play), and it was last week. I felt shameful. I prefer to use the adjective "really". It is very un-New England, and it allows me to use an R!! Unrelated.

Second, hard A's. I grew up in NY. For that, I pronounce A's slighter harder than those friends of mine that I met in NJ. I first faced the fact that I'd be defending my speech my entire life when I was in 6th grade. The very first time was in the locker room in the gym of our middle school. How sad. I was VERY NY. I spoke so fast, and everything typical of a New Yorker's speech patterns came out of my mouth, including too many colorful words that 6th graders should not be using. I definitely adjusted and tried to blend in, but I never lost those A's. And I never stopped being mocked.

Third, and I'm sure anyone has faced this if they have ever moved away from well, anywhere... jargon is regional. I sometimes don't understand what people are saying to me. Usually its because they are using a different term than I would have, or they are talking about something that is just plain new to me.... because its regional. "Make a left at the rotary" "OK, will I see it on the left or right?" "WHAT?" A rotary is a traffic circle (not a landmark). A CIRCLE. The only place I had seen this before was at the shore... where there are green signs, on them a big white circle and in white print it said "CIRCLE". On my second night at college, I brought the local pizza menu to my RA... and asked what a "grinder" was (the bitch trained to deal with homesick freshman had the nerve to laugh at me). What a stupid term for a sub, or a hero, or a hoagie. Any of those would have been fine. I also got so tired of explaining that when I called the Caucasian girl decked out in Tiffany a "jap", I wasn't saying she was Japanese. That doesn't even make sense. And it was one of my favorite terms, but I stopped using it.... maybe I will try to bring it back. Just for spite, hehehe.

Dude, if JT can bring random shit back, so can I. Unrelated.

Now don't get me wrong, I have naturally adjusted my speech to every place I have lived in. The accent I currently have is some weird cross between NY, NJ, CT and MA. I went to college in CT, where I was able to really tone down the NJ accent. By graduation I sounded so much different than my family and friends.. and was OK with it.

I was OK with it because I then spent a month and a half at home where I saw how life could have been/was. One parent works in sales and thinks they need to speak slowly so everyone, on any reading level, can understand- the opposite of their NY upbringing. There's the other parent who was raised in Brooklyn and upon leaving chose to create some PA/MA mixed accent as not to be associated with NY- I don't get it either. Then there are the sisters, one has a slight valley-girl tone and the other is SO NY that she gives me a headache every time she calls. I forgot what its like to speak that fast and that loud, with that accent. Obviously, I've matured in the accent department, so cut me some slack.

And yet here I am, 15 or so years after I first faced accent prejudice (?) head-on, still being mocked. Can't you just get over it? Yes, I talk funny. Yes, there are hundreds of examples of nuances in the way I speak that will spark the "where are you from?" conversation.

Fact is, as long as I pronounce the required letters in a word (of course there are silent letters), I am speaking the same language as you. Actually I am speaking a better one because when I say "bagel", I know what that should mean, same with "pizza." "Italian ice" (NEVER "slush") is a regular part of my all-season vocab, and I can clearly define the word "diner" (NO, not "dinner") for you!

Basically, just get over it! I will NEVER "pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd." So there! I win! I get allll the points!

MA's note: Once upon a time, Arielle and I were both in our first quarters/semesters at college, and one Friday I was in my required literature class and for some reason brought up the Nintendo game "Mario Bros" (cause why the hell not). The way I said "Mario" (Mary-yo) so amused my entire class that we spent THIRTY minutes of a FIFTY minute sesh talking (tawking?) about it. I was pissed. Next day I'm out shopping when I get a call from Arielle. "Brian wants to talk to you," she says. Brian gets on the phone (btw, I love that Brian was just her super good friend Brian at the time, because this was October 2001. Yays!) and is like "MA. How do you pronounce the name M-A-R-I-O?" Defiantly, I said, "MARY-YO!". "WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU JERSEY GIRLS" I hear Brian yell as he tossed the phone back to Arielle. Muahahahahahaha.

Girl Talk

So.

Last night, kind of impromptuly, I got together with a bunch of girls from school who I do not usually hang out with. Two of the ladies are quite good friends (Becky and DC Laura, as opposed to NY Laura, who is the Laura we all know and love) and the rest are definitely fun, but just not Leah, Ramona, Chelsea, etc.

Actually no etc. Just those girls. Maybe also Julie.

Point is! It was fun, and different. And so I was interested to see what went down. I mean, when I hang out with my girls, I know the SOP of our evenings/days/conversations/activities together. If we're eating something, we'll be relatively ambivalent about it, unless someone had a specific craving. Then we'll chat about what's happened to each other since last we spoke - jobs, crazy things we've seen, meet cutes, gossip we've found out about mutuals. We'll watch some TV if we're in. I'll obsess over my girl crush prof who we now all have had. We'll talk about boy updates. Alcohol will probably, although not definitely, be involved. If non c'e alcohol, probably there will c'e diet coke.

And that's about it.

Which makes us sound boring, but really? Makes me super happy. Yay friends in the District that are comfortable enough to not have to DO something all the time. But that is not that point (although ladies, I heart you a lot). Since I'm not super comfy with all of the girls I hung out with last night, it was like a social experiment to see what "girls" do.

And apparently the answer is talk about boys.

Also bitch about girls, but less so. And I want to say that this is in no way a normative judgment. I was right there, talking about boys and bitching about girls with them. But at some point one of the girls said, "do you think this is what men do when they get together? Share stories and overanalyze?" and the gen consensus was no.

Hell no.

But it was also kind of amazing. So now I know, for example, that the first time chickadee number 1 and her current bf got together, she gave him a blow job. And she was like, "I didn't MEAN to. But suddenly I was!" and DC Laura goes, "yeah, it's like, I tripped and fell into his dick with my face!" And chickadee number 2, par example, is leaving soon for Europe and at some point later in the evening finally fessed up, "it's just that I'm afraid that [her boyfriend] is going to forget about me. Like, one week apart was too much! What I am going to do for the entire summer!"

Sigh.

And it made me wonder. Was CN1's boyfriend telling his guy friends with a rueful tone that they accidentally fell into bed together? No! He was like "dudes I totally tapped that." And CN2's boyfriend - super worried about her going off to Europe? Maybe. Overthinking how much it will affect their relationship?

Maybe not.

And I don't know if I'm stereotyping all men here, and quite frankly, I don't care, but the fact of the matter is that for six hours last night I felt like the May issue of Cosmo.

In a mostly good way.

And so now I'm wondering - ladies? Is that normal? That my evening revolved almost entirely around the less-fair sex? And gentlemen - if you spent an evening at dinner, drinking too much, then moving to a gorgeous roof deck and drinking even more, what would you have talked about?

And would it have involved ice cream.

Just think of y'all as participants in my social experiment! Or think of it as an opp to anonymously bitch about your friends. Either way!

Update: the cray cray

Hey guys, I just wanted to say that I really - REALLY - love you all. Like a lot. A LOT A LOT. And maybe we should all go to Italy this weekend, no? Oh right. Not healthy. Point is, y'all rock.

I am slowly showing crazy 1 2 3 4 5 6 switch

So.

I don't know about you guys, but I am crazy. No, not certifiable (well maybe). But in a very specific way. I'm clingy, annoying, self-centered, obsessive, eating-and-drinking-my-feelings crazy. Also, sometimes? Sometimes I'm BORING. Like really boring. Because the things I care about are Harry Potter and politics and not in the super cool way, in the "let's explore the minutiae of these things that no one but me has given any thought to AT ALL!"

Man I sound awesome.

And one of the constants in my life is trying to make sure people don't find this out (uh oh. Y'all know!! We can't be friends anymore). It's like that episode of Scrubs when Carla is telling Elliot that Turk didn't find out that the reason she doesn't sit on the toilet is because she's afraid the toilet snakes will come and bite her until after they're married.

Except?

It's getting really hard with my grad school friends. This is because we've known each other for almost a year, so the chances of me getting super psycho are increasingly DAILY. Add to the fact that we are all suddenly not seeing each other day in and day out, and only talk via the internets, means that the crazy is EASILY FINDABLE. And TEXT SEARCHABLE.

Oy.

However, there's an interesting paradox here, which is that sometimes? I let the cray cray LOOSE. Like seriously loose. And I know I'm doing it, like I can watch the 16 car pile-up in slow motion, and do nothing to stop it! My therapist (I promise not to start too too many sentences this way) thinks I do it to test my friends - to see if they're truly loyal. And I'll never forget when Joey told me "sometimes you're a little crazy, but we love you anyway," even though the situation in which that was necessary is long since gone from my mind.

I think this makes me even crazier, peut etre.

Do any of you feel this way? Like half your day is covering up for the other half? The half when you told someone you loved them too soon, the half when you told someone you met three minutes before that they were your new BFF, the half when you ate ranch dressing straight from the bottle, the half when you had a contest with your 25-year-old self to see how long you could go without showering, the half when you told the story about falling down drunk and hysterical because YOU had thought it was a GREAT idea to take SERIOUS amounts of buttery nipple shots to make yourself stop sobbing at Love Actually?

Well, maybe not that last one. For YOU.

The point is, I vacillate between thinking "whatever, this is who I am, take me or leave me" and "holy shit I cannot believe I just said that." And these days, with googlechat and twitter and texting and yes, even blogging, becoming more and more how we communicate with people, the crazy escapes in longer and more permanent ways. So what to do?

Apparently tell half the world about it.

Well whatever. It was just something I've been thinking about. And you know what? If any of this sounds familiar - hey! Now we're BEST FRIENDS FOREVER ZOMG WE COULD TOTES GO AWAY THIS WEEKEND I THINK I LOVE YOU.

Sigh.

Sunny days...

So.

The reason(s) I didn't, um, post today can be found below.

So there was this:
And then this:
And of course this one:

I'll be back tomorrow, but you know. Gotta go watch Maria and Luis' wedding.

It's my party and I'll reminisce if I want to

• 1 year ago I was flying from Ireland to Italy with Gracie all the while drinking prosecco.
• 2 years ago I was at Michael's (and Alexis'!) graduation from Columbia/Barnard (roar lion roar).
• 3 years ago I was in the Dominican Republic with Becca, eating the AMAZING cake she got for me.
• 4 years ago I was singing karaoke with Joey, Maria, Anna, Dan (right?) some of the Sams, Marie, and others.
• 5 years ago Marie was telling On Again Off Again Ex to take me home and looooooooooooove me.
• 6 years ago I had a breakdown with Joey and Maria when Dawson's Creek ended the night before my teens did.
• 7 years ago Amaryllis and her mom took me out to Adobo Grill in Chicago, which made me feel fancy.
• 8 years ago I took my last AP test ever and promptly lost my virginity after our senior breakfast.
• 9 years ago I got my driver's license despite hitting the curb during my parallel parking section.
• 10 years ago I got my braces off just in time for my Sweet Sixteen.
• 15 years ago Rachel and my fam threw a huge surprise party for me at the Sports Arena in Bridgewater, NJ
• 20 years ago I had a princess party that culminated in me smearing lipstick all over my cheeks for "blush".
• 25 years ago I was very skeptical of all the people around me. But they brought cake, so I was dealt with it.
• 26 years ago, at 11:17am, after a VERY short labor (ehem, God? Genes?) and my father scaring the shit out of the OB/GYN by telling her that rather than coming to the hospital, my parents were going to go to a Cosmo's game, I made my rather loud entrance into the world.

Par for the course.

I'm really glad...

... that the day that dcblogs and the Wapo Express picked me up was the day I talked about showing my vajayjay to the world and its douchey boyfriends. I hope y'all are well! Hi to all the newbies! And thanks for the shoutout, guys, ha. I'm so pleased that Jon Favreau and Reggie Love now know I sometimes look like a homeless prostitute.

Awesome.

Bike ride of shame

So.

I love to ride my bicyyyyyyyyyyyyyycle I love to ride my bike. It is the best thing in the world, and honestly, I never thought I'd SO enjoy something that makes me sweat this much (ehem, other than sexy time). With the warmer weather, however (ps how fucking gorg was it outside yesterday), we've run into problems.

Namely, I wear a crapload of skirts.

Cause I REALLY hate shorts, and pants are too hot, so skirts it is. Or dresses. I'm none too fussed, really. But the problem with riding my bike is that I'm showing off my waxer's handiwork far more than is strictly necessary. So I've been utilizing leggings, stockings, and gym shorts to um, handle? The situation.

Except.

Friday because Leah is the best she drove me home from our exam, which was fabulous but meant that while I was supposed to pick up my bike from school and bring it home, it was still there. No prob, I thought. I was going to be back on campus Saturday, and I figured I'd grab it then. I had an interview, then a Chicago event and then a dinner so I put on a dress, some slinky shoes, shoved cab money in my purse and took off.

But I didn't go home Friday night.

So Saturday morning arrives, and while I COULD have taken a cab, it was beautiful out! And conveniently, I found myself right near my school. So I'm like - duh! Bike! I walk on over, pick it up, and start riding home.

It was at this point that I realized I had no shorts on.

Or leggings. Or stockings. In fact, what I had was a dress that was messed up, sex hair, smeared make-up, and I was riding my bike home in HEELS. But no problem, I thought. It was like 8am. Who the hell is out at 8am?

It was at this point that I ran into a girl from my program.

I can't imagine what she must have thought, me bearing down on a bike dressed like a homeless prostitute, showing off god knows what to the world, and looking so uncomfortable that I probably appeared constipated. Alas, she recognized me and waved hello, and I had to slow down to say hi. I didn't really want to linger, so I said "the problem with biking in skirts is that you're not supposed to see anyone on the way home!" and that would have probably been that if her boyfriend had not, at the same time, said "bet when you left his house this morning you thought to yourself, no one I know will be out right now."

Jackass.

So I forced a smile and then kicked off from the ground and made my way home. I got inside, washed my face and passed out. Hours later, when I showed up to school for the event I had, that girl was there.

So was her douchey boyfriend.

"Hey MA" she called, smirking slightly. "Hey you," he said. "Nice dress. Did you ride your bike here? Or is that only saved to quicken walks of shame."

Yes. That is exactly what is for. That, and singing Queen songs at the top of my lungs.

CONGRATS DANIEL

So.

My friend Dan graduates from Stanford Law this weekend. Holy shit, you may be saying. Dude is SMART. WICKED smart. (Wicked smaht?) But you don't even know the half of it. The kid was a "marshall" at my (relatively very smart, by itself) school, which means 1) that he was the best in his cohort and 2) (and more importantly) he got to wear a DIFFERENT COLORED ROBE.

Um, right.

Anyway, then he went to Oxford for a year (ehem) and then back to California for Stanford. I've often said that he's the smartest guy I know, and while that's not STRICTLY true for a few reasons, it's a way to show my love, because I had admitting boys are smarter than I am.

Girl power!

Uh, oh, this isn't about me, so let's get to the point. Daniel is one of my absolute favorite people in the world, which you would not get from reading this blog (whoaaaaa mindfuck. Some things I DO keep to myself!! Just not my deepest darkest feelings and stories). And I've heard (hehe) that this annoys him to no end. I'm not sure if it's the fact that he rarely gets mentioned, or the fact that when he DOES, it's only as a "and my friend Anna's boyfriend Dan".

Either way.

As a gift to him, celebrating his AMAZING achievement, I thought I'd write a little post telling you guys why Daniel is just so fucking fantastic. Consider it a grad gift, D. Cause your actual grad gift is kind of lame.

And away we go!

Daniel is, aside from all the smahtie pantsness, hilarious. And MY kind of hilarious. Sooooo right, judgmental snark. I know that if I need to hate on someone who probably doesn't NECESSARILY deserve it, but KIND of asked for it, I can go to him for the laughs. Also, because he's so fucking brilliant, he knows everything that is going on in the world, so if what I really need is some mocking of an idiot (fillintheblank) Republican, he is my BOY.

Well, Anna's boy. But still.

Also, he's sweet and kind and loves my friend as much (or more) than I could hope for. This is not true of many guys who are dating my friends (luckily, the ones who read this blog are the ones who succeed - I don't think it's related, but good job guys!), and I have to say that for girl friends, and maybe also sisters, that is the absolute best I can say for a person.

Not to um, make this about Anna.

Because I was friends with Dan first. Because we were co-well. That would give too much away. But we were in charge together, and let's just say, that I am a bitch to lead things with (as well as live with, dine with, have to meet on the street corner). And the year we were in charge of X together was a REALLY rough year for me. And Dan was BEYOND supportive. The only other person that year who even remotely came close to that level of support was Joey (and to those of you, ehem NY Sam and Becca, who might take offense at that statement, let's be honest, I was doing that shut-down thing I do when I'm so freaked).

And I will never, ever forget it.

Some final points: he's a competitive sports fan, ie, he likes to piss people off with his fandom. He likes Harry Potter. He hearts NY. And DC. And Chicago. He hates law firms (awww. Sucks. But I love him for it). He loves wine, has GREAT taste in it, and passes on the knowledge. And speaking of knowledge, did I mention he's effing brills? Cause he is.

And now to MAKE this about me.

The best part is, when all of this comes together in one package, people meet him, are impressed, and then are impressed with ME for being friends with him! And then, when I hate them for no particular reason, he judges them with me.

Heeeeeeeeeeee's the best.

So congrats Daniel. For Stanford, sure. But also, just for being super fucking awesome.

The Day that Music (almost) Killed ME

So.

I know I've been an awful blogger as of late, and there are several reasons I've pointed to (finals, finals, and finals) for that. And while finals certainly are kicking my ass, there's something else, something a little more tangible, that was making me feel pretty lethargic about everything. And I couldn't figure it out, until I realized.

My birthday.

Every year around the Ides of May, I get downright manic depressive. I'm super up up up, then waaaaay down down down. Remember last year? I bounced from being JUST SO FUCKING EXCITED ABOUT ITALY to zooooooooomgIwilldieALONE to sexaholic to rageaholic.

For (almost) NO REASON!

This year there are actual causes of my mood swings (which we can get into another day) that are only exacerbating the situation which is essentially that I am sobbing hysterically one minute missing (I shit you not) my HS mentor, listening to YouTube videos of (other) HS productions of my senior year musical, then stalking my nothot prof and emailing him vaguely suggestively.

I'm totally sane, I swear.

And you know what's helping? A ton? A little playlist I like to call "Summer Nights." Let me 'splain (no. There is too much. Let me sum up. POINTS TO THE WINNER!). I like to name my iTunes playlists things that don't necessarily make sense to anyone but me (actually, I like to do that with all things in my life). So, "Out Tonight" is relatively self-explanatory, but how would you know that "Dark Purple" means the kind of deep sad songs I like to listen to in the dead of winter? And that "Burnt Sienna" (they are not all colors, I promise) means the kind of songs I want to listen to when it's warm out and I'm sitting on my deckony lazily drinking lambrusco?

Right.

So the "Summer Nights" playlist is essentially music that makes me feel like it's the summer of 2002, aka, the most cliched "best summer of my life." I would never pretend that it was the best summer, because I firmly believe every year gets a little better, but the summer of 2002 was full of late nights, high school (ish) pranks, and teenagery angsty friendships.

Think, Can't Hardly Wait plus American Pie. I AND II.

Anyway, it's not songs from 2002 (for the most part. There is definitely some Dave Matthews on there though) but songs that make me feel like I'm a teenager (chock full of angst) again. Songs like Taylor Swift's "Fifteen". And Plain White T's "1, 2, 3, 4". And half of John Mayer's best songs, and some Shakira (that really reminds me of the summer of 2003, but whatever) and a little Linda Ronstadt.

I know. Why the fuck am I telling you this.

Because. Feeling like a teenager is killing me. Every single thing that happens during the day, from President Obama being 2 blocks from my house in Virginia for lunch, to turning in the last paper of the final, to the rain hitting the panes on my bedroom windows, is given about 1000X more meaning. You know what I did last night? Turned off all the lights in my room, lit 6 candles, and listened to "A little fall of rain" from Les Mis.

On repeat.

I've done that before. When I was SIXTEEN. And all tortured about High School Ex and whether or not he liked me. And I cried, and I sat there, and I cried some more, and I hated the world and I loved the world and I cried.

Again.

Last night I cried some, but mostly just sat in the dark trying to peace out, a little freaked about how affected I was by all this musicking. And then remembered that I was this time last year too, about how much I couldn't stop listening to Vanessa Carlton's "White Houses" every time the temperature went above 60. And realized my birthday is like, a week away. And cut myself a little slack.

But seriously. What is it with music that makes us... just? FEEL! So strongly! And what songs/artists are your Fifteen/Taylor Swifts? And when will this birthday-induced craze STOP already so I can put down the damn tissues and get to the business of lambrusco on my deckony?!

How boring am I

So.

I feel as though I have absolutely nothing to say. We're in the midst of finals here, and so I've just been utterly kerplunkt.

Is that a game with marbles?

Anyway - what's up with you guys? Any new relationships? New dogs? New drunk stories?