it’s a long way home

Back story: my mom woke me up Monday morning and told me we were leaving for Nashville THE NEXT DAY to get all the stuff that I left in the storage unit down there. The plan? We would fly down Tuesday afternoon, spend the night, rent a car, and drive home the next day. Which, by the way, is an 18 hour drive. I present to you:

ROAD TRIP HIGHLIGHTS!

Mix CDs You know how much I love Mix Tape Mondays – so I spent Monday night making a series of ten mix CDs for the drive back from Nashville. Mostly road trippy songs and I tried to include some music that my mom enjoys (which wasn’t that hard – often our music taste intersects). There were times I found that a song came on that just PERFECTLY fit the area we were driving through – I can’t explain it. But it was wonderful.

RAV4 To my absolute surprise and delight, our rental car was a white Rav4! It was beautiful and fun and SUCH a dream to drive. You couldn’t even tell when the car was on or off that’s how smooth it was (I’m used to my Escort shaking and rumbling when turned on). It was insanely spacious and easily fit all my stuff in it. It left me begging my parents for a Rav for my birthday, which is about as likely as me getting a pegasus for my birthday.

Moving Out The Storage Unit was absolute hell. It was 100 degrees outside and at least 200 degrees inside the unit. I had a lot more stuff than I thought I did, I had to dig through everyone else’s stuff since I had stupidly thrown stuff in the back, and I have never sweat so much in my life. And (like most people), I hate being sweaty. When it was all said and done, we walked outside and my mom gasped as we walked by a soda machine. “Oh…I thought it was a cold beer machine. That would’ve been so nice!” HAHA.

Dinner At Demos I had dinner with mom, Katelin and Blake at Demo’s and it was wonderful. I have missed their chicken fettucini so much. Almost as much as Crystal missed it last summer (every morning after a night of drinking: “I need Demos!”). Despite my ear being popped out from the plane and I could hardly hear anything, the conversation was filled with reminiscing about the past and laughing over the things I had missed since I’d been gone.

Drinks With Ian & Bonemma After dinner, Katelin and I headed over to H-ville with a 12 pack of Bud to hang out with Ian and Bonemma. I missed my husband so much! We sat around watching TV and listening to music, drinking and talking, laughing and hugging and snuggling, and it was quite wonderful. Just like old times. I miss those boys lots. We headed home around midnight, while I drunkenly forced every semi on the way home to honk their horn for us.

The Elizabethtown Soundtrack I am so stoked that I got to do this. I listened to the Elizabethtown soundtrack on the way to Elizabethtown. How cool is that? It was wonderful and went along really nicely with the trip. Although, I half expected these forces to align and Orlando Bloom to materialize next to me, so I was a little disappointed. But it was cool to do it.

Lunch At Cock & Bull / THE COV! Never thought I would be back there so quick. We got there at around 1PM, and I showed my mom around the Mainstrasse before eating at Cock & Bull, which she loved. She said the Mainstrasse was “grungier” than she pictured, which I started to defend before I realized that Covington is grungy. It was weird breezing through town without the girls and without seeing anyone at all but it was also so nice. I miss that place with all my heart.

Maggie Our trusty GPS system. She was somewhat cranky sometimes and a little bit sassy, and sometimes she even gave some really useless directions. But she was really helpful and I don’t think we would’ve been able to direct ourselves home without her.

What Is The Opposite Of Roadkill? As we were driving down the highway, I think somewhere in either Ohio or Pennsylvania, I looked out the window and saw a PUPPY wondering around the side of the highway. Lost and alone! He looked like Santa Paws! I wanted to stop and scoop him up and show him love but my mom wouldn’t stop. I was livid for pretty much the next 80 miles. Then, later, while I was driving I saw a deer laying on the side of the highway. How sad, road kill, I thought. But as I approached it, the deer LOOKED RIGHT AT ME. It was just sitting there, completely alive, chilling on the side of the highway. Yikes!

Car Crash Nightmares I surrendered the wheel to my mom somewhere in New York for her to complete the drive. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the passenger seat. But I kept having dreams of us careening off a cliff or into a semi in front of us and literally, waking up by shooting up in my seat and gasping. I think i did it at least 5 or 6 times. It was horrifying.

Arby’s We had a late dinner at Arby’s – I miss Arby’s!!

Getting Home We made it! We ended up getting home at almost 5AM. It would’ve been quicker but somewhere in Western Mass the rain started pouring really hard and we were only going about 40 on the highway, doubling our time. So we were in the car for almost 24 hours. But we made it, and I slept and napped almost all of yesterday.

I leave for Orlando on Tuesday – excited!!

PONZ

things i love thursday!

1.aunraza 2.seat42f 3.jenniferesperanza 4.martianmermaid 5.ajpscs 6.wili 7.sharonkcooper 8.icopythat 9.maximus_1 10.drp 11.jaredvincent 12.ravenu

Mombasa Mosquito Net - Most recent purchase. Check out The Attack Of The Prehistoric Creatures for the main reason why I am so thankful for this purchase. But other than the fact that it has saved me from the flying creatures that seem to sneak in through my windows, I just love the feeling of waking up inside the mosquito net. It’s so summery, and it makes me feel like a princess in the depths of a jungle in India. I also think it completely changes the atmosphere in my room, it makes it seem more elegant in some way. It’s completely wonderful.

Guillermo on Weeds - I’m not sure why, but I am completely (and very weirdly) attracted to Guillermo on Weeds. He’s hands down my favorite character on the show (besides Nancy, who I have a huge girl crush on). The thing is, he’s not that good looking! And he’s sort of short and stocky and doesn’t have a very good face. But he’s funny and I love listening to him talk and he’s a bad ass drug dealer and I am 100% attracted to him. When he was first on the show, I thought he was just going to be some random guy that was only on one episode, now he’s working his way up to a main character. I also may have recently named my car Guillermo. What?

Possession by A.S. Byatt - So, I finally just finished this book, which took me a bit of time to read. Now, while it was definitely a hard read, it was very good. I can’t believe the time and hard work that had to have gone into writing this book. The basic plot is that two historians, each specializing in a different poet, uncover this secret relationship between the two poets through letters and poems and journals. The poets are complete fictional, so not only did A.S. Byatt write the basic plot and story but she also wrote all the poems, letters, and journal entries that are referenced in the text. It’s incredible. It’s a great book, the unfolding of the story is great, and the ending was very satisfying. I hate when you read a book, and you love it, and then the ending sucks. Not so with Possession. The ending was wonderful.

Rain - Lately it’s been Rains Magee here. Not just sprinkling, but raining really hard with huge bolts of lightening and striking thunder and it’s awesome. It’s so satisfying to run outside in the middle of a storm, standing with your arms outstretched, your face towards the sky, the rain drenching you. I seriously never feel more alive than in those moments. I love the rain. I love the sounds of it, the feel of it, the concept of it – I love how it suddenly starts out of nowhere and ends out of nowhere. It’s a wonderful part of nature. In addition, I have two different rain play lists that are very delightful to listen to while it’s raining. I will send them to you upon request, so just let me know if you want them.

Dating Quiz – I recently took this dating personality quiz on line and the results were accurate. I love when quiz results are accurate. You should take the quiz here at OkCupid! So what were my results? I got The Window Shopper RGLD (Random Gentle Love Dreamer). Among other things, it says that I am “prone to sudden, ferocious crushes” which is very true. Interestingly, it says that my ideal match is someone that I have grown to love slowly. I never really thought of that. That sudden, ferocious crushes are somewhat arbitrary and based on nothing. But growing to love someone would hold so much more meaning. Unfortunately, last time I actually grew to love somebody it ended in shit. Absolute shit.

Taking walks through the city - Recently, I took the T into the city to visit Cori while her family was staying in Boston. I ended up staying over at the hotel, and the next day, on my way back to the T, I thought, “why should I just head home? It’s a beautiful day.” So I took a nice walk around the city, around the Back Bay neighborhoods, checking out the brownstones that I will never have enough money to own and just enjoying the city on such a beautiful day. I walked down Newbury St and window shopped. This is also a huge deal because I panic about doing things alone. But it was nice to walk around with only the company of myself. So, I think this might be my new thing, I might start going into the city weekly to take walks by myself. Delightful.

Gala Darling’s “How To Have A Summer Romance (With Yourself) - What an adorable article. I adore everything that she writes, but this especially caught my attention. You know they always say that you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself? So why not spend the summer falling in love with yourself so that you can open up to other people? She talks about getting to know yourself, leaning to make compromises (with yourself), and learning to listen (to yourself). It’s really a great idea for an article. So this summer, I think I will be entertaining a summer romance with myself (which leaves the door open for masturbation jokes but get your mind out of the gutter!). Read the article here.

Improv Everywhere – This is a completely awesome. They are an improv group the set up these outlandish situations in social settings that leave the people around them totally puzzled. They get tons of people (usually volunteers) involved and they pull of these great stunts. If anyone saw the episode of Law & Order SVU where all those people froze in Grand Central Station, that was based on a mission that these guys did. My favorite mission that they did was their most recent, where they got I think 8 or 10 pairs of twins and had them create a human mirror on the subway. People getting on the train were baffled and began to question their sanity when they saw the mirror. They document all their missions through video and photos so check them out here.

The Dark Knight - I finally went to see the film the other night. I loved it. I haven’t been this impressed with a movie in a long time. After it was over, Krista and I didn’t even talk to each other, we just sat staring at the screen, in awe. Besides the fact that I was completely terrified of the Joker, I cannot believe what a good job Heath Ledger did. It really made me sad, that here he was, at possibly the height of his career, just perfecting his craft, and he lost his life. But, no Debbie Downer moments. I loved that I was completely stressed through the whole movie, that almost every scene had me on the edge of my seat, and that I was maybe secretly rooting for the Joker just because it’s Heath. The movie was phenomenal.

Sushi Dates – I had the biggest craving for sushi for like 6 months, but I haven’t really had the money or the access to good sushi to actually go out and get some. The other day, I joined Krista, Katie, Meg, and Elyse at Asian C for a sushi date. Thank god! I got the Caterpillar roll, possibly my favorite sushi ever and it was magnificent. I’ve had better presentations at other places but taste wise, this was amazing. When I think about it, it’s insane that I actually consider sushi one of my favorite foods because I hate seafood. But sushi is so wonderful and tasty, seafood be damned! Tonight I’m going out with Rooney and Keryn and whoever else shows up for another sushi date, so color me stoked.

“Bases Loaded” – Dunkin Donuts is running a contest promotion where you get a prize with every iced coffee you buy. Everyone’s a winner! Mostly you get a dollar off a flat bread sandwich, but sometimes you get a free iced coffee, or a free sandwich, or other fun and useful coupons. Also, you get a code that you can enter on line to win bigger prizes. What’s fun about this is that you go on line, enter the code, and you get to choose you pitcher – Jonathan Papelbon (my love) or Joba Chamberlain (that piece of shit from the Yankees). Then you go up at bat, and if they get you out, you lose. But if you hit a home run, you win! Which, I haven’t done yet. But I’m holding out hope!

Seth Green - Well, I recently started watching my old Buffy DVDs, specifically Seasons 3 and 4, and I have reopened and obsession with Seth Green. I mean, Oz was one of the best characters on Buffy, with his trademark stoicism, and he was also so cute with Willow (until he cheated on her with another werewolf). And then of course there is Robot Chicken, and Family Guy, and everything else Seth Green has ever done and I realized yesterday that I want a boyfriend exactly like him! Then, whilst on the phone with J:10, he suggested that I check out Seth Green, which really weirded me out since I had been randomly lusting over him lately. So, Seth Green, if you’re out there reading this…I love you.

Loves it!
Ponz