Sunday, June 27, 2010

A (Justin) Long Weekend

Well, from the title of this post, you can probably gather that I didn't have the stay-in-and-have-time-to-myself-to-watch-tv-and-order-greasy-Chinese weekend that I had anticipated for myself.

Instead, I kind of made a new friend.

His name is Justin Long.

And I spent the weekend hanging out with him.


Okay, so there's a couple things you should know before we continue this post. The first is that I knew Justin was in town for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and I had been anxiously hoping to bump into him at some point. I tend to get a little (okay, a lot) starstruck, but in Justin's case I actually really am a big fan (and apparently one of the few, from people either thinking he's a jerk, which is entirely untrue by the way, or not knowing many of his movies). So, this wasn't just a case of ohmygodit'sacelebrity, but I was genuinely excited to interact with him and just get to know him as a person.

Okay. Deep breath. (I still can't believe these words as I type them.)

So, Friday night certainly began like I had imagined it would. L. and I got dinner with a couple of the alums who had trickled into town already, but most weren't arriving until about 8 or 9pm. After dinner, the boys announced they were going to do their own thing for awhile, so I said goodbye and headed back to L.'s and my room. Unfortunately, the boys did their own thing in the common room right off L.'s and my room, so I literally sat in my room, listening to them all have fun, and as the hours wore on quite honestly I was a little peeved. L. had said he'd come get me when they weren't doing their own thing anymore, but by 11pm, I had had it. I called my friend Rachel, who's from Williamstown, and asked her if she wanted to go to the bar. She picked me up and I just strolled out of my room past the guys' party and went off with Rachel. Good riddance.

Feeling happier and in control, Rachel and I arrived at the bar. She had apparently been meeting a gentleman friend there and I felt super awkward for basically going on their date, so I went up to the bar to order a drink. I asked my favorite bartender, Phil, if he had seen Justin Long yet.

"Oh, he's here right now," said Phil, nonchalantly.
"Don't lie to me, Phil," I said.
"I promise you. He's out back."

Well, that was that. Armed with my Soco and Coke and essentially dragging Rachel and her friend behind me, we sauntered outside, where I immediately spotted him, looking super casual and approachable in a denim jacket and low-tops. And then proceeded to stand in a group and nibble my stirrer nervously for about a half hour. Because that was the thing. I wasn't going to be a jerk and saunter up to him and give him some variation of the, "I'm sorry, I'm just a really, really big fan!" or "I loved you in _____" or "Aren't you Justin Long?" And I decided that if we couldn't have an organic meeting, then I didn't want to make a fool of myself by forcing one.

My friend Andrew and I had begun rapidly texting about these developing events, and he pushed me to just walk up to him and say anything, saying I'd really regret if I didn't. But I decided that I'd rather never get to meet him at all, than be completely unoriginal.

Meanwhile, L. texted me that he had come to the room to see if I wanted to come out and join the boys, only to find that I was gone, and where was I? Well clearly bigger and better things were afoot, so I simply texted back, "Justin Long!!!" L. knew exactly what that meant, and gathered up our friends Moyukh and Zeb and made his way over. At that point, Justin went back inside, and so as not to feel like a total jerk for inviting the boys to come survey the sitch with me only for them to discover there was no sitch to be had, Rachel and I went back in to see if he was still there. When he was nowhere to be seen, we figured he had left and that we had missed our chance. That is, until the boys came bounding down the stairs, all smiles.

"We just met him. I shook his hand" said L.

Of COURSE. They waltz right in and immediately get to meet Justin. (To be fair, it was in the men's room...the one place I would never, at least legally and/or sanely, be able to meet him.)

But then something wonderful happened.

Justin came back down the stairs and our little group, of which he had already met three, was fortuitously placed in the narrow walkway between the front of the bar and the outside patio. Which means he had to walk by us to get there. Which means we got introductions. We spent about 15 minutes going over the basic introductory conversation topics (what we were studying at Williams, how Justin's rehearsals were going, what we were doing this summer, etc.) Justin's really bad at names, so it was actually really funny when we threw the "Zeb" and "Moyukh" curveballs at him. The best part was that he kept calling L. "Luca" rather than "Lucas." And even though it was pretty non-groundbreaking, when Justin walked away a little while later to go say goodbye to his friends still outside, I knew Andrew was right, and I was super glad to have met him.

Our little group excitedly gathered at the end of the bar to debrief the situation and order a couple more drinks. We debated just calling it a night, since the bar was about to close, but that's when Justin came back. This time, we all hung out for a much longer period of time, and our conversation was anything but generic. We invited Justin to the party the Octet boys were throwing the next night, and he and L. exchanged phone numbers (!) so we could all meet up on Saturday. In fact, Luke even put him in his phone as "Justin Long," and Justin just said hey dude, not to be uncool but do you mind just keeping it as "Justin"? That's when we knew it was his real number.

As we were walking home that night after we had stayed with Justin at the bar until after closing (and after hugging goodbye, complete with an adorable faux-awkward inching-toward-one-another hug by Justin and L.), L. told us that at one point, while Rachel and I had gone to the bathroom, Justin had said, "Those girls are REALLY cute." L. responded, "The brunette is my girlfriend," to which Justin said, "Nice!" Cue arm-flapping, jumping up and down, and "ohmygodjustinlongthinksi'mpretty!" over and over again.

L. and I spent most of the day apart on Saturday, so I decided it would be the perfect time to order some pizza for dinner and watch He's Just Not That Into You, which I've seen before, but I thought it might be extra fun to watch my new friend onscreen. And it totally was. I had to keep pinching myself! (Oh, and in case you're wondering--Justin is nothing like his character in the movie. So much nicer.) When he got back around 7pm, we decided to text Justin the plans for the party that night. He responded almost immediately and said that he was actually thinking of stopping by another party a couple miles away, across the street from where he was living for the summer, and did we want to go with him? We texted the group to consult and decided that, even though we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into, we'd just do it. You only live once.

We all gathered around 10, after Justin had texted us that he was heading over, and got in the car to drive over. We had NO idea what to expect. We decided it could either be some sort of classy wine and cheese schmooze, or a gross smoky kegger. Or anything in between.

When we turned onto his street, we were a lot more unsure. Cars were literally lining the street across from this huge house with a dark walkway surrounded by tiki torches. We drove down the pitch-black, woodsy street looking for a parking spot for probably about half a mile, and there was not an inch of the street that didn't have a car parked on it. "What did we get ourselves INTO?" we asked one another, simultaneously nervous, awkward, and excited.

When we finally found a place to park the car and cut the lights, it was pitch black. We couldn't even see one another. More than a little apprehensive, we approached the house cautiously. It was only when we heard "Bad Romance" blaring that we decided it must be okay. As we debated whether to knock or just walk in, to our relief we noticed that the majority of the party was outside around a bonfire, and that the "house" was actually a restored barn with a super classy bar, food, and a ceiling strung with white lights. Oh, and the party was Dirty Dancing themed. In case I forgot to mention.

We spotted Justin by the bonfire (and no, by this point the excitement and the little butterflies in my stomach had not gotten old), and headed inside to grab drinks. We walked back outside and were surprised to see that for all the middle-aged people swaying around on the dance floor, there were just as many children running around excitedly. We had absolutely no idea what this party was for--but we did know that everyone else was in semi-formal attire, and we absolutely were not.

Finally, Justin spotted us and came over, sheepishly apologizing for the "hoppin'" party he had invited us to. I remarked that it felt exactly like a wedding reception, and he laughed and said I was exactly right. Somehow we all got to trading funny stories, and Justin had us dying of laughter when he told us a story about Jonah Hill, who he used to room with, and a game he likes to play called "Earthquake." Apparently, Jonah likes to go up behind his friends while they're doing their thang at the urinal, grab their shoulders, and shout "Earthquake!" while shaking them back and forth vigorously. This was all well and good, until one night when Justin and Jonah were out and Jonah thought he spotted one of their friends in the bathroom. He went up and performed the Earthquake, until the guy turned around...and it wasn't their friend at all, but in fact, Casey Affleck. I'm still so happy to have discovered what a funny and genuinely nice guy Justin is.

The party got very tired, so we all decided to head to the Octet party, and Justin and some of his fellow Williamstown Theatre Festival friends decided to go to the bar, but we said we'd meet up later. Another really great moment was when we were walking back to our cars and this guy who had been passed out upright in a chair at the party attempted to ride his scooter home. Justin tried really hard to call out to him and get him to stop when he was driving away, but all we could do was nervously watch his taillights swerve down the dark street until they were out of sight. We all felt a little uneasy knowing he was on the road, but I was just so impressed with Justin's initiative. If I ever hear anyone say anything negative about him again, which I do from time to time, this will be the first example I cite.

The Octet party was a little disjointed and awkward, so our group decided to head back to the bar. We didn't even approach Justin when we came in, opting to give him some space, and instead got a couple of pitchers and headed to a little table. It was so nice to just hang out and catch up. We joked that this experience we had had together would bond us for life. After sitting down for awhile we all got up again and at that point Justin came back over to chat. He offered to buy some drinks but I would never have let him buy one for me--if anything, I owe HIM a drink! He invited us to one more party which happened to be right in the quad with the building we were staying in, so we decided we'd check it out and then head home. When we got there, however, there was only a smattering of people scattered around the courtyard. Justin, once again, sheepishly approached us and said "Once again, I've led you astray." But in reality, it was such a beautiful night out, and it was great to just stand in a group and chat and hang out.

That's when a couple of the Octet alums decided to join us and meet Justin for themselves, which unfortunately did not go as well as it could have. We decided that the reasons we got along so well with Justin and why he enjoyed hanging out with us were because we did not talk about 1. his movies, 2. actors he'd worked with, 3. his dating life, 4. anything super generic. In fact, we traded hilarious stories and really just felt comfortable with him. Too bad the alums didn't know our unofficial rules. At one point, while Justin was clearly being a little flirtatious with Rachel (to which I say LUCKY BEEZY), one of the alums mumbled something about Drew Barrymore. The energy rapidly changed in the group as Justin snapped to him and demanded to know what he had said. He even got up really close to him. The alum tried to back out of it ("I was really drunk, I don't remember what I said,") but Justin had heard it. He turned back to us, nice as ever, but announced that it was time for him to get going. The alum-who-shall-go-nameless kept saying "I ruined it, I ruined it," but he had clearly broken one of the rules--you're just a jerk if you ask about those things, and Justin was totally right to be pissed, for whatever reason. The truth is none of them were overly enthused about Justin. They all just assumed he was another jerk celebrity, and weren't impressed--they didn't realize we had actually begun to develop a friendship with him.

Sad that Justin had been scared away but otherwise overwhelmed and happy with the way things had gone over the weekend, we all headed home. While we were debriefing in the entrance of our dorm, a group of guys overheard us and immediately began trashing Justin. I had no problem being completely cold to them and leaving. After this weekend especially, I am so sick of people who judge a celebrity by his or her roles or by the media gossip they hear about him or her. In fact, apparently one of our Williams classmates, according to Justin, walked up to him at the bar last week and told him that he was a jerk, that he probably thought he could get any girl in the bar, and that he wasn't as cool as he thought he was. When Justin, clearly puzzled since he had known this girl all of three seconds, asked where she was basing her accusations, the best answer she could come up with? "Well, you know, from your movies." To which Justin obviously replied, "Okay, but uh, you know that's...not...me...right?"

Justin's play is opening on the 8th and we're super excited to go support our new friend as he makes small-scale theatre rather than a big movie, which we totally respect. I know situations like this are going to be all the more frequent when I move to LA next year, but I'm glad that even when other people stick their feet in their mouths or are completely disrespectful to celebrities that they think they know everything about, I was able to have the chance to actually get to know a really awesome, average guy.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

SSB- Secret Single Behavior

If you're as much of an SATC fan as I am, you'll recognize who coined the phrase making up my title today. If not, don't worry-- I won't judge you...too much. There's an episode of Sex and the City where the girls talk about their Secret Single Behavior. Charlotte's is examining her pores in a lighted magnifying mirror, which she feels she can't do when she's married to Trey. Carrie's is standing in her kitchen, eating saltine crackers with grape jelly, and flipping through fashion magazines. And Miranda's is soaking her hands in vaseline and placing them in heated gloves while watching infomercials. If I remember correctly, Samantha doesn't have any secrets.

I like to think for those of us who are in long-term, live-in, or married relationships that we still have our own Secret Single Behavior...we just have to find more creative ways to go about it when there are constantly guys in our space. Since L. and I are living together this summer in a room that measures approximately 8' x 12', I have to get especially creative.

But this weekend, I have an opening. All of the alums from L.'s a capella group The Octet are coming into town for their annual Summer Reunion, along with a couple of the guys who are here this summer. At first I was a little worried because I don't know a whole lot of people on campus this summer aside from L., and I thought I'd have kind of a long weekend by myself. See, the Octet Reunion has a strict schedule of events that take place each year, and many of them are bro-only. There are, however, parties both Friday and Saturday nights that I'll be going to. But in the meantimes, from Friday evening through Saturday and Sunday afternoons, I'll have a lot of time to myself. So I got to thinking...what sorts of SSB can I engage in this weekend?

I think some of my SSBs are as follows:
  • Taking a long, hot shower, wrapping my hair in a towel and swaddling myself in my bathrobe, and eating cupcakes/pumpkin bread/blueberry muffins/other decadent baked goods while laying in my bed.
  • Ordering greasy chinese or pizza or other equally awful food, getting into bed, and watching The Hills on my laptop.
  • Okay...watching The Hills anytime.
  • Grooming myself exhaustively (plucking my eyebrows, cutting my cuticles, clipping my nails and toenails, attacking my blackheads...yup, all the good stuff)
  • Facebook-stalking...myself and L.'s old wall-to-walls and photos (we were friends for a while before we started dating so I personally think our old wall-to-walls, especially the ones from the summer before college before we even ever met (!), are hilarious. L. is not as amused).
I'm pleased to announce that this weekend, I plan to engage in nearly all of these activities. Here's what I'm thinking:

Friday after work I'll order a personal pizza and climb into bed and catch up on The Bachelorette. Then I'll use all my exhaustive grooming to get ready to party with the boys that night.

Saturday afternoon, while the boys play wiffleball and do god knows what else, I might take a hike on part of the Appalachian Trail, up either Mt. Greylock or Pine Cobble (making sure to let someone know where I'll be and when I should be returning, of course--don't be a foolish hiker!!!), and then come back, shower, and maybe peruse some of the books I just checked out from the library of literary criticism on Kate Chopin for my new thesis. (Quick update re: thesis: Saw Professor KK, aka the horrible-person-who-royally-screwed-me-over, at the Thai restaurant today while L. and I were getting lunch. A big part of me wanted to have a confrontation, but I decided to be the bigger person and just let it go.) After that, maybe I'll order some orange chicken and watch The Hills, and then meet up with the boys later.

I'm excited to have some time to do some strange, awkward, or just plain girly things without L. around to be weirded out by them!

Do you guys have any SSBs? Do you feel like there's things you just LOVE to do when your boyfriend/fiance/husband is away?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I LOVE

MY BLOG!

Not to be horribly self-indulgent, but I've been working super hard over the last couple days perusing the interwebs to broaden my Photoshop and CSS skills, and all of that has culminated in my most recent blog design, which I created 100% by myself (and the help of the friendly tech-savvy people I found through Google, especially Kevin and Amanda).

Some of the new features I'm proud to be sporting are a custom-made header (with a background from Background Labs, and the font from Dafont, to give credit where credit is due!), fun text for my post titles and dates, tabs that contain all of my posts with a certain label (this was a LOT harder to do than I would have thought!), and a cute new button for ya'll to grab. That's right, this is one time that it's not rude to be handsy.

This isn't super tech-savvy, but I also created a new "Find of the Day" section of my sidebar, where every day I'll post a new blog or site that I've stumbled across that day that caught my attention. (Unfortunately, it will only be limited to those sites with buttons.)

I also installed a live traffic feed because there's nothing more fun than getting to see where in the world people are coming from to visit you! Talk about a road (slashocean) trip.

I hope you guys like my new features! I'm aiming for two things: (1) To make my blog more aesthetically pleasing, all while building up my arsenal of web design knowledge so that, perhaps someday, I can start doing it for others!, and (2) To make the blog more interesting, streamlined/clean, and easy to read.

I wish I had taken screenshots of my blog's evolution all along! It'd be so fun to go back and shudder at look at all its past forms!

What about you guys? Have you paid someone to re-vamp your blog? Taken it upon yourself, armed with Google and Blogger/Wordpress forums? Or is your blog the same today as it was the day you first started it?

Monday, June 21, 2010

Six Layers of Irony and Our First Bed

Thursday night, L. and I had had about enough of sharing the same, old, saggy, tiny twin XL mattress. We're going to be staying in our summer dorm for 10 weeks, and while that's not forever, it's certainly long enough to be pretty miserable with the sleep we were getting. Plus, we tend to stay over a lot during the school year, and L. agreed that investing in a big bed now and carrying it over into the school year would be a wise choice.

We set out for Sleepy's, which is about a 10 minute drive from Williams, and L. tried to warn me not to get my hopes up--even if we found a mattress in our price range (which was basically as cheap as possible), it was very unlikely that we'd be able to bring it home that night. We'd be at the mercy of the delivery people. And therefore, I should expect to sleep on the saggy twin mattress for a few more nights. Naturally, I ignored L.'s warnings, and bounced up and down on the way to Sleepy's, singing, "Big bed, big bed, you will be so comfortableeee!"

We walked into the showroom and right away, the salesman descended on us. L. and I talked about it afterward and decided we both got the same vibe from him right from the get-go: used car salesman. Imagine how funny it was to find out when we were finalizing our sale (spoiler alert, I guess) that he had in fact been a used car salesman for 14 YEARS. Perhaps that can even be considered layer of irony #1. (There's a LOT of them in this story).

I've NEVER been a good haggler. I'm too sweet and nonconfrontational. At least, I used to be. Apparently now I'm hard as stone. Cold as steel. Or, just really, really, broke, and therefore no one is going to mess with me and my money. I had done some research on the Sleepy's website and found that we could get a nice full for about $330, which is what I was going off of when we first walked into the store. So imagine my frustration when the first words out of the sales guy's mouth were, "So, we're probably going to be looking around the $500, $600 range."

Uhm, negative. My back, aching from only four nights on a saggy mattress, and the circles under my eyes, clearly making me look tougher, were not buying it. I informed him that I had done my research online, and we were firmly set in our price range. He then promptly tried to get us to consider a $1000 mattress, apparently marked down due to some mysterious back-room overstock situation, and L. and I started to worry. Plus, we really wanted a boxspring/mattress set, and a frame would have been part of our wildest dreams. there was no way we could splurge on a mattress and then ALSO have to buy the boxspring and frame, not to mention the new sheets.

Then, seemingly, the tide began to turn. Suddenly, there were a bunch of universal metal frames in the back room and we could have one, for FREE. Our ears definitely perked up with that. Then, he took us to another option in the showroom: a queen sized mattress and boxspring set for...$340.

Hello?! YES and also YES! Why did you not show us this from the get-go, you sneaky, sneaky salesman?? We lay on it and it was glorious. I was beaming from ear to ear, but L. seemed less enthused. I guess he was still suspicious of the salesman, but I was ready to whip out the credit cards and get er' done. You don't look a show horse in the mouth, so to speak. The one we ended up going with was the King Koil Cascade Plush. L. was wary about the brand, since he had never heard of "King Koil" before and would have felt better about a Sealy or a Serta, but after I called him a label whore we both agreed it was more about saving money now and splurging on our more permanent mattress in California next year. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who needs a good, big, cheap mattress--even after only one night!


And then, all my dreams came true. The guy asked what kind of car we were driving, and we said that L. had a Subaru Forester. He asked if it had luggage racks, which it does. So then he asked if we wanted his help tying it to the top and taking it home that way. I just about jumped up out of my chair. L. was more bemused, but when the salesguy went off to get the mattress from the back room and told us to pull our car around back so we could tie it up, I resumed my song. "Big bed, big bedddd, you will be so comfortableeee!"

The delivery guy helped us start to get everything up on top of the car. "Do a lot of people tend to do this?" I asked him. "Oh no," he said. "You guys are one of the only ones who have been crazy enough to try it."

Well, that's great.

But when we were done, there was no way that baby was going anywhere. We happily (and carefully) drove to Wal-Mart to get new sheets to fit our new baby. After a brief disagreement on aesthetics, I finally realized that for such a temporary situation, it wasn't worth getting my decor-and-good-taste-loving self worked up about, and we settled on a nice grayish-cream 400 thread count Egyptian cotton pair. I was dying to get home, wash them up, and crawl into bed...and yes, it was only about 7:30 at this point. I didn't care. So we happily wheeled our new sheets out to the car, and got in, only to discover, to our absolute and sheer horror, that when L. turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. Well, that's actually not true; the lights and radio came on, so we knew it wasn't the battery, and there was almost half a tank of gas. So it literally seemed like the Universe had just waited for the absolute worst, most ironic time to play a mean-spirited practical joke. This was most certainly layer of irony #3.

With virtually nothing wrong with the car that we could see, L. and I just sat in shock as the details of the situation set in. We were stuck in a Wal-Mart parking lot, with a giant mattress strapped to the top of a car that refused to start. L. tried the key a few more times, but each time it just did absolutely nothing. And then, though I'm not proud to say it, the bickering began.

For anyone who might think based on previous posts that L. and are sickeningly sweet, well, let this round us out a little for you. Like any normal couple, when sticky situations go down, so does L.'s and my patience. He's going to hate me so much for saying this, but I'm actually the one who's really good at fixing things. The remote's broken? I can fix it. The bed frame is impossible to set up? I can fix it. (This comes later.) I think a lot of women are more willing to consult directions, guides, to ask questions, to do whatever to get it done, whereas men just stubbornly try the same thing again and again. Or, get angry and use force. Eventually, L. and I agreed that our best plan would be to find a friend with another car to come take our mattress, and use my AAA membership for the car itself. AAA will usually only tow a car once, to its final destination, and that was tricky for us since the car needed to go to the shop, but the mattress needed to go to the dorm. And unlike what would be the case if we were just taking the bed home, or somewhere with parking, after which we could arrange to get the car to the shop another time, we were bringing the mattress to a dorm with no parking. In fact, our summer parking is a good 15 minute walk from our dorm. (Don't even get me started.) So we needed to get rid of the mattress before AAA showed up.

L. called a couple of his fellow Octet guys, Pete and Matt, since they're usually good for coming through in a pinch--plus, since L.'s one of the few taken ones, he's a perpetual wingmanner, so therefore they owe him--but Matt didn't answer and Pete said he'd call us right back. I called a couple friends as well but the problem was we just didn't know that many people on campus for the summer. We finally decided to just call AAA and see, if we said pretty-please, if they would drop our mattress and bring L.'s car to the shop. Pretty much the second I hung up from placing the call, Pete and his friend pulled up next to us in a giant minivan, gesticulating wildly, ready to save the day. *Facepalm.* And also, cue layer of irony #4.

L. and I happily jumped out to greet Pete and his friend, who said they were going inside to grab some things, and we could start tying the mattress to their car. First L. moved the frame from inside our car to the minivan. While he started undoing the bungee cords over the mattress, I grabbed his keys and decided to give the engine just one last try.

And of course, it turned over effortlessly and started humming happily, like nothing had ever happened at all.

LAYER OF IRONY #5.

(I also really love that I was the one to get it to start, for the reasons I mentioned above. Clearly L. was not as amused.)

Not quite sure whether to be extremely pissed or to just laugh hysterically (it was more the latter), L. and I moved the frame back into the car, which we decided we were NEVER TURNING OFF AGAIN, and then L. ran into Wal-Mart to let Pete know that we were all set, and to thank him for coming, while I canceled my assistance request with AAA.

When L. came back out of Wal-Mart, he was laughing even more than before.

"What happened?" I asked.
"Well, I went in to find Pete, and guess who I bumped into?"
"Who?"
"Matt."

That's right. When L. had called Matt earlier to ask him to come help us out and pick us up from Wal-Mart, Matt didn't get the call, because he was driving, on his way...to Wal-Mart.

And that, friends, is layer of irony #6.

L. and I drove the mattress back to the dorm, where his friend Moyukh was waiting to help us carry it in, and then the boys were going to go on a beer run for when we watched Game 7 later. (LAKERS! WOOO!) (Also, just for full disclosure, I live in Boston now and I'm moving to LA next year, so I'm actually pretty neutral).

I supervised as the boys carried the mattress and boxspring into the room. We were all feeling happy and accomplished...until we turned to the frame. The boys tried for a good half hour, but they just could NOT figure out how to get it together. We called the sales guy to make sure that he hadn't forgotten to give us any screws, since they could not see it going together without them, but he said it snapped into place really easily. Mocking. Frustrated, they just moved the boxspring in, set the mattress on top of it, threw the frame in the common room and left to go to the liquor store.

I stood in the room and took one look at our beautiful new bed sitting on top of the ugly floor, and marched back out to the common room and sat down in the middle of all the frame pieces. I Googled "how to assemble a universal metal frame" endlessly, but all the tutorials I found were for frames with screws or bolts. Finally, brilliance struck. I got out our invoice from Sleepy's and looked for the name of our metal frame. It was Insta-matic. So then I went onto the Sleepy's website and searched for the frame, and pulled up a picture of it. Then, I brought the computer out to the common room and laid the pieces out on the floor exactly as they appeared in the picture. Suddenly, an epiphany hit. Everything fit together so easily, and the pegs that we were supposed to slide in and lock together were so obvious that I could not believe we didn't see it before. When L. came back down to the basement, I had triumphantly set up most of the frame, and he laughed at my stubborn persistence and helped me move the frame back into the room. If this episode should teach him anything, it should be that the first night we move into our new apartment/house down the road, I'm whipping out the hammer and the paintbrush and getting to work.

We joked that we had really, really worked hard to earn our good night's sleep. And a good night's sleep it was. Oh my GOSH it was. In fact, it was so good that I overslept this morning and was late to work. Totally worth it.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Swanktastic Hotel> Dingy Dungeon Basement Suite

This post has been on my to-do list since Monday, but this has been quite the Week In Transition for L. and I, so I'm just now getting to it. And I know that blogging should never be something on your "to-do list" since that inherently makes it rather a bit of a chore, but believe me...this post is something you guys need to see. And yes, that is me being completely obnoxious, as you'll see in a second.

On Monday, L. and I both started work in our college town, Williamstown, and we'll each be holding our respective internships/fellowships until the end of August. The only thing is, we both started work at 9am on Monday. And our dorm we're staying in this summer, which L. is getting for free as part of his fellowship and therefore I am squatting in for free since paying rent is not part of my summer finances, did not open until Monday at 2pm. So what are we to do? Well, apparently if you're L., you decide that means we get a hotel room Sunday night in Williamstown, drive right to work from there, and move in in the afternoon. L. and I are big fans of the hotel rendezvous--we like them because they're like one night vacations. We usually do them when we're traveling, and love to go out to a nice dinner, cuddle and watch a movie, and mostly sleep in a huge bed. But this was not just any hotel room. Oh no. This time L. outdid himself.Being the cheapo that I am, I would have signed us up for a room at the local HoJo's and called it a day. Or, night. But L. decided that this night was going to be special, and also a surprise. And surprised, indeed, I was when we arrived in Williamstown and pulled into the Orchards, easily one of the prettiest and swankiest hotels in town:


I squealed with delight, but L. informed me that the surprises were not over. I antsily waited for him to check us in, and he came back out with the key and an envelope with "Date Night" written on it. Then, L. informed me that he had signed us up for one of their romantic packages, which includes a three course dinner, breakfast, and an upgraded suite for the cost of the room. I was in heaven. And then, I walked in the room and saw this, and I was in more heaven:


That's right--Date Night package also included a gorge cheese and fruit platter and a bottle of Blackstone Merlot, which I'm sad to say we only got through about half of. If it had been a bottle of white, L. would have had to fight me to get some, but I can't do too much red. Here's a close up of the plate of AMAZINGNESS:


The reason L. and I are soulmates? He liked the cheddar and swiss cheeses, and I wanted the bleu cheese and goat's cheese in the center under the apple slices, which was to DIE for. So naturally, the first order of business when we got settled into the room was to break out the plate, crack open the bottle of red, and settle down on the settee in a huge fluffy white bathrobe. Which is exactly what I did:


Come on, you know you would have done the same thing.

Oh, and the room. You probably wanna see the room, too, huh? Well, look no further:


Isn't it just the prettiest little room that you ever did see? I'm usually drawn to neutrals, greens, and blues in design, but I LOVED how warm and inviting this room was, and how well it mixed modern glam with traditional elements. Look at those tone-on-tone stripes on the panels on the walls! LOVE them. And isn't a small section of fun wallpaper surrounded by crown molding a PERFECT alternative to a headboard? I think so!
But we couldn't spend ALL our time in the room-- we had a free (and by "free" I mean included in the price of the room) three-course meal to get to! So downstairs to the dining room we went, to the restaurant associated with the Orchards, Gala, where I ordered a Gala-tini (with a cinnamon sugar rim...SO good) and a tomato mozz salad to start with.


Tomato mozz salads and cheese and fruit plates are probably some of my favorite things in the world, so the evening had already reached a pretty high apex for me. BUT it was about to get a lot better...because for my meal, I ordered the steak frites, which came with a perfect little rosemary garlic butter-slathered filet mignon:


And I know it looks charred, but trust me: it was the perfect shade of pink, warm, and melt-in-your-mouth goodness on the inside.

L. had the St. Louis Style rack of ribs, which is fitting, since that's where he grew up. And I tried some, and they were delicious as well. But obviously they did not compare to my delightful little filet.

You can imagine that at this point, my little tummy was as happy as could be, with all the joys it had had in the span of only a few hours. But this was a three course meal, and by golly we were going to have our third course, and we were going to like it!

Cue the creme brule.


And yes, I forgot to take a picture until I was basically half done with it. So sue me. You better believe that when that puppy showed up at our table, I had to restrain myself not to just faceplant right into it. And the chocolate covered strawberry on the side there was SO delectable that L. wanted to order a bunch to be sent to the room, but my poor, poor tummy, which at this point had only been getting a soy protein shake in the morning, some cheese and fruit in the afternoon, and a light dinner of grilled chicken or salad, begged for a pass on more strawberries and chocolate, especially since I'm allergic to the latter. Clearly, it does not stop me.

What did I do to deserve this person who does these nice things for me? I have no idea, but I hope whatever it was is just as meaningful to him as this night was for me!

And don't worry, the bask of my pampering has already worn off, since we currently live in a basement suite of a brick building that was literally a dungeon when we moved in. I didn't even take any pictures because I would be ashamed to show you guys. But you know what? It's free, which means that this summer we can save our money so that next summer, after we graduate, we can buy the prettiest little apartment in all of LA.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Shameless Promoting, Sleepovers, and Stomachaches

That's right, this post is chock full of s-alliteration goodness. Let's get right down to it.

The shameless promoting comes in the form of me regaling you guys with C.'s and my trip to Hartford last Tuesday night, where we went to Up or On the Rocks, aka sketchiest bar ever, to see our fellow Williams boys Darlingside represent. I've posted about Darlingside before, in case you missed it. But guys. The reason I love them so much isn't even that all five of them happen to be Williams graduates, nor that all five of them happen to be alums of the Octet, L.'s a cappella group, in which he is president. They are seriously a GREAT band. They can't not get famous. (Yes, I used a double negative. So sue me.) Here's a list of the instruments they use to do their thang: vocals (obvi., being a cappella boys, there's LOTS of delish harmonies), violin, mandolin, saz (I'm not actually sure what that is), electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric/acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drums, pennywhistle, cello, electric cello. I think sometime's there's even a tambourine. Yep, that's a total of 12 instruments for 5 boys. Don't even worry about it-- I told you, they're great.

This last week was an exciting one for them, as it was the release of their first self-produced EP! Hooray! So C. and I were very excited to share in the joy with them. And it's a good thing we were, since apparently no one really goes out in Hartford on Tuesday nights to see bands play. But C. and I held down the house in the sketchiest of all sketchy bars, and clapped and cheered and supported our boys. (It helps that they're all super cute.)

One of my favorite songs from their new EP is called "The Catbird Seat." You can watch it live below, or listen to it not-live on their myspace page. (I know--does anyone even use myspace anymore?)



Cuties, huh? That's Auyon playing the violin, and Dave is singing with that sexy John-Mayer esque voice, and Don is rockin that acoustic. Harris is on the far right with his electric cello, and you can also just kind of see Sam in the back, holding down the drums. Love them!

Even though C. and I are grownups, meaning that I stay in the guest room when I visit her, my visit to see her in Connecticut from Tuesday til Thursday was very middle-school slumber party throwback, complete with eating too much ice cream and (me) suffering from an excruciating stomachache all night. Not good times. In between trips to go lay on the cold bathroom floor and cry, however, C. and I had fun facebook-stalking the Darlingside boys post-show, and giggling. What more could you ask for for any grown-up slumber party? Our biggest regret was that we didn't offer the band to come stay the night at her house before their big gig in Block Island the next day...because we all know sleepovers get more fun when you're older and you say "YES boys allowed."

C. and I also saw Sex and the City, and I have to say while it certainly wasn't as excruciating to sit through as my stomachache, it wasn't good either. Since I am a die-hard fan of the show (read: I can quote every episode pretty much), I just try to separate the two. The show's ending was perfect, and the movies clearly muck that up a little. So I kind of just pretend the movies are a separate entity, with the same characters. Yeah, I'm weird.

Today is a long day of packing and organizing, which I secretly love, and then my dad and I are hitting some balls at the driving range (he wants to get ice cream too, but my stomach would probably jump out of my body if I tried to eat it again after Wednesday) and then L. flies back in tonight (eeek!) We both start our internships (mine at the art museum, his on his science thesis research) on Monday at 9 am sharp, but because Williams can sometimes be dumber than a doorknob, the dorms don't open until Monday at 2pm. Luckily we turned a shitshow situation into a quality evening for two, complete with dinner, drinks, and swanky hotel. L. made the reservations and won't even tell me where they are! But I have an idea. I'm so excited-- pictures for sure!

Have a great weekend everyone! I'm happy to say that since I'll be doing the whole 9-to-5 thing for the rest of the summer, my posting should be a LOT more regular. Because, really, why have a blog if NOT to fill up the time at work?

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Reason #457 Why I'm a Total Geek, and Should be Kept in Academia for the Rest of My Life Away from the Normal People

This past semester I submitted my proposal for an honors thesis. The English department is pretty selective about who gets to do them, and for good reason: you get paired with an advisor, and work on this project for the fall semester, winter study term, AND spring semester of your senior year. So they're not messing around.

I worked closely with one professor, KK, while developing my proposal on Edith Wharton. I am absolutely in love with Edith Wharton and wanted nothing more than to spend my senior year reading all her novels and writing about them. After three drafts and six weeks, we had come up with what I thought was a truly great proposal. I had included direct quotes from the works themselves, ideas of critics that I disagreed with, and a whole lotta passion. I had read Hermoine Lee's biography of her. I had planned trips to the Mount in Lenox, her house that she built, which is about 3o minutes from Williams. Most of all, I had counted my chickens.

We submitted our proposals on April 26 and were told we'd hear by the end of May. I watched as all my other friends in their respective departments got their theses accepted: L. and his Chem thesis, C. and her women's rights thesis in the Poli Sci department. But no word from the English department on mine.

By the beginning of June, I was beginning to worry. And then, on Saturday, I got an email from the head of the department. I have to say I was feeling pretty confident about my proposal's chances, mainly because Prof KK had told me before I submitted it that she would be thrilled to advise it. The secret to getting your proposal passed is to have a professor on board to advise it. You can have the most groundbreaking thesis in the world, but if there isn't a professor available to advise you, bye-bye graduating with honors.

That's why I was so shocked when I read the department chair's email. He said that Prof KK had over committed herself and wasn't available to advise my thesis. What's more, no one in the department had enough Wharton familiarity to advise my proposed project. He asked if I had any other areas of interest, and right now I'm working with another professor to possibly come up with another topic. In a way I guess I'm lucky, since usually if there's no one to advise your thesis, they basically flush it down the toilet and shrug their shoulders apologetically.

But REALLY? I can't believe Prof KK did that to me. As my friend Andrew put it well, "you'd think professors would take time to advise the theses they say they will, considering it's, you know, the zenith of your undergraduate career." No kidding.

I felt pretty silly sitting home on a Saturday night, crying about not getting to spend a year writing about a dead woman that I've never met. But if anything, it let me know that my passions for literature, 19th and early 20th century American literature in particular, are far from dead. And even though it's scary, since virtually no one gets a tenure track afterward, especially in the Humanities, especially in English, and especially especially in American literature, I really do need to go to grad school to pursue my Ph.D. in English. Plus, I'm sure Berkeley has a professor on its staff who knows something about Wharton. But don't worry, Williams. Just keep hiring 15 more Shakespeare specialists and some more Victorian poetry experts. It's not like I actually wanted to pursue my interests during my undergraduate career. I guess that's all $200,000 gets you these days.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Re: Social Life (It Does Exist...Kind Of)

Here I sit, blogging, on another consecutive Saturday night. But this time it's almost justified, since I had my wild and crazy Boston adventure/sleepover with Real Life Dan Humphrey and his roommate, Tennis Guy, Thursday night, from which I'm still recovering. That's probably more interesting than why I'm home on a Saturday night (which, incidentally, has a lot to do with having gotten up at 8a.m. today to babysit a two year old, which is all cute and bubbly except if you happen, as I do, to not be so fond of the childrens), so let's talk about that.

After spending my last week and a half sitting home at night, drinking glasses of wine and watching terrible Lifetime movies with my mum about women stealing other women's babies, I decided it was due time that I got myself gussied up (read: out of my gym clothes) and went out and did something befitting of a 21 year old young, hot thing. Real Life Dan Humphrey's birthday was last Sunday, and since I was otherwise engaged then I decided to do a scandalous mid-week night of debauchery. I'm allowed to be completely irresponsible since I'm on break from college, although it's another story for RLDH, who did have work at 9am Friday morning. And I did have some freelance editing stuff that my boss had sent me on Wednesday to be completed by Friday. But work be damned, we were going to celebrate his 23rd like it was a birthday that actually mattered. (Let's face it RLDH...it all goes downhill after 21!)

So Thursday afternoon I packed my overnight bag and, after my dad questioned whether I "really felt safe with this guy" (as if A. RLDH wasn't my best friend's ex, B. RLDH wasn't one of my boyfriend's best friends, and C. wasn't one of MY best friends) and equipped me with a knife (to be fair to him, it's mostly for my car, so that I can cut my seatbelt and break the window if I ever get submerged in a body of water...yup, this is the man who also has me carry pepperspray in WILLIAMSTOWN, Massachusetts), my trusty British GPS friend and I hopped into the car and reverse commuted to Boston at 6pm on a Thursday. Since we were heading INTO the city and not OUT of it you'd think there'd be no traffic, and I told RLDH I'd be there around 6:30 (I live about a half hour outside the city.) Everything went swimmingly until I got off the highway...and then I proceeded to sit in traffic for TWICE as long as it had taken me to get there. That's right, driving the 5 or so miles to RLDH's apartment in the city took me longer than driving the 30 miles from my house to Boston. And then my GPS, who clearly enjoys seeing me sweat, commanded me to take a left in a right-turn-only area, adding another good 20 minutes of re-routing onto my route. So when I finally pulled up to DH's apartment around 7:30, we were both starving.

DH changed out of his work clothes into his "non work clothes" (I can't tell the difference; they're all varying degrees of button-down sweater-pullover belt-and-loafers-combos) and my heels and I battled the Boston cobblestones down to Dartmouth Street, where DH took me to Brownstone, a super cute classy pub type place.


DH and I decided to go all out, so I forewent my anti-carb-and-sugar diet for the night and, well, basically consumed entirely carbs and sugar. We got these cheese waffle-fries which came with actual SLICES of pepperjack cheese melted right on top. We would come to regret this decision many, many times that night. Then I got the Brownstone Burger, which was delicious. DH wouldn't let me pay, like a true gentleman (plus, his income is about 500% more than mine annually), and we went next door to Clery's, which is basically like Brownstone's Irish alcoholic cousin. (Not to say that all Irish are alcoholics, of course, but Clery's IS an Irish bar, and it in fact had TWO full "bars," as in places the bartenders stand, inside ONE actual "bar," as in place where people go to get schwastey. For any How I Met Your Mother fans out there, it basically felt like a really, really big MacLaren's. (Which, incidentally, I always thought was a real place until recently. Sadness.)


We were super excited about watching Celtics-Lakers game one. At the beginning of the night I predicted that LA would take the finals in 6. By the end of the 2nd quarter, I decided they'd do it in five. Sadly for poor Boston, there seemed to even be more Lakers fans in this Boston bar than Celtics fans! Much to his credit, DH kept his eyes mainly averted from the tv and on his lovely friend who would have been very upset if she had driven to see him only to be forsaken for a tv.

Since the Celtics weren't doing much for us, DH and I naturally turned to drinking. We each owed one another a birthday drink, so we decided he'd buy a round and then I'd buy a round. He started us off slow, with a UFO for him and a whiskey sour for me. When it came time for my round, DH said to "surprise him," so I procured two of my favorite drink for us: SoCo and Coke. Guys. This girl loves her some whiskey. Especially SoCo. I once remarked that SoCo "tasted like Christmas" (referencing, of course, its sweet, spicy taste.) A friend promptly responded that I was going to have some really sad Christmases ahead of me. Unfortunately, DH can't handle his SoCo as well as this girl, and so while I virtually sucked mine down like water, DH had half his beer and a SoCo and Coke left by the time I was two drinks in. Our "you buy one round, I buy the other" idea quickly became laughable as we planned out our next "x amount" of drinks. After discovering that DH doesn't like manly drinks (he's going to be so mad at me by the end of this blog), we decided to do a virtual 180 and order mojitos. Even though it was DH's turn to buy, he naturally couldn't order a mojito in a Boston bar and emerge without a black eye, so I went up to do it, only to find that the bartender didn't have mint. WHAT?! You're KILLING me! So I ordered a citron-and-Sprite for me, and a rum-and-diet for DH. Yeah, I hope you're laughing. I'm laughing too. My drink slowed me up a little since vodka and I aren't really good friends at this point, but somehow I made it through so I could get back to my main man: SoCo and Coke. Another of those and another rum-and-diet for DH (which I got by conveniently going to the OTHER bar-in-the-bar so the mint-less bartender wouldn't think I was a total lush...which, if we're being honest....), and we were feeling pretty good, read: drunk, at this point. Especially since all I had had earlier in the day was a soy protein shake before the gym.

We probably should have called it a night at that point, but DH's roommate, Tennis Guy, got out of work around 11:30 and decided to join us and buy the next round. If there's one thing I've learned since I turned 21, it's that you do NOT turn down a free round, so I kept my mouth shut. But when Tennis Guy asked us what we were having, and I said SoCo and Coke, he just laughed and said "I'm not ordering you that." What?! Don't deny a girl her SoCo! So TG went off to concoct a special surprise for me, and came back with, I kid you not....Hypnotiq on the rocks. I could drink SoCo until the Celtics win a finals tournament (see, it's funny 'cause they never will...get it? get it?), but throw some Hypnotiq on me at the end of a very long night of drinking and it's a recipe for disaster. I like sweet drinks, but Hypnotiq tastes like something that a drunken Willy Wonka would have created in the factory. Thank god after that we decided it was probably time to head home.

The point of all this salivating discussion of SoCo is to demonstrate that we were very, very drunkers. Well, at least I was. DH had two beers, which obviously don't count toward getting you drunkers. (I think I learned that in college.) So we stumbled back along the cobblestones and talked about procuring eggs to make brownies. When we finally got back to the apartment, TG turned in (he works from like 9am-11pm every day...poor guy), and DH and I drunkenly settled down on the couch to watch the season finale of Gossip Girl. Warning: major detour here, but GUYS?!! Did anyone else WATCH it? No spoilers, but OMG CHUCK? I FREAKED out. FREAKED out. It was really intense, maybe too much so for drunk Michelle to handle.

After GG blew my mind, it was time to call L. for our nightly good-night. He wanted to conference call with DH since they haven't seen each other for awhile, so I found DH in his room and lay down on his bed next to him and put L. on speaker in between us. I didn't remember any of this conversation the next morning, but apparently, according to him, I told L. he wasn't entertaining enough and was boring us to sleep. Poor L.! To be fair, DH and I were drunk and exhausted and falling asleep at that point. So much so, in fact, that when L. and I got off the phone, we both fell asleep right there. I woke up a few minutes later and asked DH for a blanket so I could move to the couch, but he just said "Why don't you just stay there? Let's just both stay on our sides, and it will be okay." And being as half-asleep/half-sober as I was, I said "great!" and immediately dozed off. For about five seconds. DH's apartment is HOT. I felt like my poor mother, who gets hot flashes about every .6 seconds. And suddenly all the caffeine from my SoCo and Cokes caught up to me. And....wait a mintue. Why was I sleeping in the same bed as DH? It was all very, not awkward, but definitely out of the ordinary enough for me to be unable to fall asleep, so I basically dozed on and off until about 7:30am, at which point DH got up to GO FOR A RUN. I am so impressed by that boy. When he got back I decided there was no point in my trying to get any sleep anymore, and then I remembered that Tennis Guy was up and walking around, and realized that we were in kind of a pickle. When DH got back from his run I heard TG say, "Hey, DH, where's Michelle?" And DH said, "In there." And then came into the room laughing and said that TG had given him "the look." The funniest part of all this is that when I told C. about the falling-asleep-in-DH's-bed story, rather than freak out, bless her heart, she laughed hysterically and revealed that DH had gotten "the look" quite a few times before from TG when C. had stayed over the apartment when she and DH were, let's just say, not quite together.

Exhausted but surprisingly not that hungover, I packed up my stuff and fantasized about heading home to crank up my AC and sleep the day away. I said goodbye to DH, aka my new bedmate, (we talked about how the true test of a platonic male-female friendship is to sleep in the same bed for the night and have it not be super weird), and headed home, crawled into bed, and found that sleep just wasn't in the cards for me. So I went to the gym to do some 1000-calorie damage control (I made sure I burned 500 calories Thursday afternoon as a preventative measure, but realized that was nowhere NEAR the food and drink debauchery of the evening.) Somehow I made it through the day without dying, only to wake up bright and early at 8am today to babysit a two year old boy. We can discuss that later, since this post is super long and, as I read it over, very self-indulgent. It's okay though, because let's admit it to ourselves: is there anything MORE self-indulgent than blogging? I mean, besides cheese fries and SoCo?

DH is having another party tonight to celebrate his bday (I jokingly asked him how long he was going to celebrate this thing), and I had thought about going down but driving back the same night (sharing a bed twice in a week could be a little awk), but I'm not feeling up to it tonight due to the exhaustion that comes from hating babysitting children and some bad news I got earlier today. But I wouldn't want anything to dampen the lighthearted, lushy, self-indulgent tone of this post, so perhaps the reasons the childrens and I don't see eye to eye and the bad news will come tomorrow. For now, I hope these shenanigans justify to ya'll why I'm sitting this Saturday night out.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Little Stir Crazy

Just for fun, let's compare the schedule of a typical college day (no finals), and my days now that I'm passing the time at home until next weekend, when L. flies back east from California and we both go back to Williamstown for the summer for our internships/fellowships.

Typical Day at Williams

10:00am: Wake up
10:00am-10:30am: Check my email, catch up on my blogroll
10:30am-11:10am: Shower and get ready (including picking out a cute outfit and doing my makeup)
11:20am--12:35pm: Class
12:35pm-1:00pm: Grab a quick lunch; usually don't finish it
1:10pm-2:25pm: Class
2:30pm-4:30pm: Work at my publishing internship at the art museum
4:45pm-5:45pm: Gym
6:00pm-7:00pm: Finally get to relax a little; grab dinner with L. and some friends.
7:00pm-10:00pm: Write a paper, do reading, do a problem set, etc. etc. etc.
10:00pm-1:00am: Work at my on-campus job at the student center info desk
1:00am-2:00am: Do more work, maybe catch up on an episode of How I Met Your Mother or The Office with L.
2:30am: Go to sleep.

Quite a jam-packed day, huh? Now, let's see what a typical day at home looks like.

Typical Day at Home While Between School and Internship

9:00am: Wake up
9:00am-11:00am: Catch up on my blogroll, check my email, online shop, Facebook stalk.
11:00am: Make a soy protein shake and bring it to the living room; curl up on the couch and watch Gilmore Girls on ABC Family. (Yup. This is part of my "routine.")
12:00pm-2:00pm: Go to the gym.
2:00pm: Shower, get dressed (and by "dressed," I'm having a pretty ambitious day if I actually put on real clothes and not sweats and a t-shirt.)
2:30pm-5:00pm: Watch tv, check email some more, Facebook stalk some more.
5:30pm: Mum gets home from work; chat a bit, start dinner
6:00pm-6:30pm: Eat dinner
7:00pm-9:00pm: Watch move tv with Dad. Usually something sci-fi or action. Start to doze off.
9:00pm-9:30pm: Talk to L. because starting at 9pm I have free long distance.
10:00pm: Get into bed and start drifting off, but try to stay awake for Friends on the CW at 11.
11:30pm: Fall asleep.

It looks like the same amount of activities, but guys, don't be fooled. I am one bored girl. Luckily this pit stop of sorts at home only lasts until next Friday, and then L. and I are heading back to Williamstown. And I have some fun things coming up to break it up; tomorrow I'm heading down to Boston to spend some time with Real Life Dan Humphrey (also for a time known as Couple Friend Guy when he and C. were dating, but right now they're not together), and his roommate. We'll go out for dinner and drinks and then I'll stay at their apartment and come back Friday morning. And next week, from Tuesday til Thursday, I'll be heading down to Connecticut to stay with C.

I guess I should also feel a little nostalgic about my lazy summer pitstop at home, since it's actually the last one I'll ever have; next summer at this time, L. and I will be graduating and then staying just long enough to pack up my entire room/life into our cars before we drive across the country to live in L.A. It's definitely enough to make me appreciate being home, but since I'm terrified of laziness/boredom, maybe today will be the day I actually put on real clothes...