Today was so fun. And yes, I realize that's the name of the day

For much of the day we were trying to build Charlie's monster, and he hadnt really thought it through or prepared at all so it was a big pain but somehow it got done and it looked amazing (at one point erica and i went to the art studio to get supplies and when we opened her trunk pepto bismol colored paint had spilled everywhere. that was a highlight... at least it wasn't my car).
Finally made it to fun day, it had its usual funness, but then we headed to the Tang party (which we decided should, and hopefully will, be called the Tang Bang) First, the installations were really cool. Charlie's monster rocked, obviously, but there were also these little tealight things all over the grass by the pond which gave this really beautiful etheral light (i called them fairy lights and charlie laughed at me and it took me a second to realize why), and floating glow things in the pond, and videos projected on the walls, and then a giant papier mache penis stuck in a tree--classy, i know. And we got glowstick bracelets, which made me so happy
Later Rich found a trucker hat on the ground, donned it and popped his collar and was being "a college guy." He kept yelling "COLLEGE!!!" and being like, "aw dude, my fuckin econ final..." Then someone went by and said hi lauren, and he yelled, she's taken!!! in the college guy voice. Great, especially cause the person probably didnt realize he was doing the character as a joke.

Not sure why glowing makes me so happy.....but it totally does

Rich's fog machine in all its glory

Admire it from afar. It actually got done

Pretty Terrible

That's Right. I'm Going Abroad

So in a matter of weeks I will be studying in Bath, England. That's right. I'm going abroad. Just a little late. My biggest concern at the moment? I've heard from several sources that you tend to lose weight when you do the ASE program--mainly because you're walking everywhere, but probably also because you tend to cook all your meals at home (restaurants are so expensive) and that's usually healthier. Why is this a problem you ask?
Already, I'm down to one pair of jeans that fits me well, and another that's only slightly too big. If I lose weight, I will have no fitting jeans. Still not seeing it as a problem?
Clothing in England is generally priced the same as it is in America, meaning that a $50 pair of jeans that you'd buy from a Gap in America will be 50 pounds in an English Gap. The dollar sucks right now, it's about 1.91 to the pound, so not only will anything I buy be pretty much raping me, but I most definitely cannot afford to buy jeans.
And yes, you should be thinking I'm totally ridiculous right now, either for complaining about the prospect of losing weight or for thinking this much in depth about the problem of having my jeans not fit the way I like.

Whatever. I think it's funny.

I am probably the only one who finds this amusing, but too bad. I think its great.
A girl in my class today was like, psst....how'd the book end? This is of course hilarious because its what we used to say in high school, when stuff actually happened in the books we read. The books I read for classes now? Um, how's Rousseau's Social Contract end? Pretty much about the same way it starts. How's The Book of Margery Kempe end? Uh....she flails around a lot and talks to Jesus more, like she has been the entire time.
And shut up about my nerd sense of humor.

Just...Thanks

Life is so weird. I had a great parking spot, and when I was leaving a couple hours ago, someone was right there waiting to take it. I was kinda sad about this, as you always are when giving up a great parking spot to someone else, cause even though you know it won't be there when you get back, some part of you thinks that maybe, just maybe no one else will come along. However, when I came back two hours later, I came around the corner, and the person who had taken my parking spot before was just pulling out! Sometimes life is so awesome in such a strange way....

Thank you Christine for an awesome souvenir... 

A Boston guy referring to his genitalia? (Note the "Kill Whitey" subtext) 

Yet Another Example of Why I am Crazy

So around 10:30 last night I was like, I know this isn't a good idea, but I'm gonna take a nap. And as I was laying in bed half-asleep looking up at the moon, I had this thought: "falling asleep looking at the moon! how weird. only when you take naps at random times" And it slowly dawned on me how ridiculous and sad that is. A) its just crazy B) it means my sleep schedule is SO wrong that I only sleep when the sun is up so often that the idea of sleeping when the moon is out strikes me as ridiculous. I was actually thinking it odd that the sun was not blazing on me making getting to sleep difficult. I am crazy.

Is Getting Pissed the Path to Enlightenment?

So for my history class about the Enlightenment the big project is to create a class "Social Contract." We're basically supposed to design a society....that we can all agree on. Throughout the semester we've been getting in big philosophical debates and I've been, of course, loving it cause arguing is close behind dr. pepper and sleep as the best things ever in my book. Our group had the weird task of creating a name, a motto, a flag, and a national anthem, and when I heard that I was like, are you friggin kidding me. Somehow we managed, and I am actually really proud of the drawing I did for our image (instead of making a flag we are making everyone t-shirts, and it should be cool to have the 20 or so people in my class actually wearing something I drew) Everyone liked it and then unanimously voted to accept it, which was really cool cause we were really worried that people would shoot down all our hard work. ANYway, the point is we had our first real day of debate over what's going into the social contract today, and it was glorious. There is nothing that starts your day like getting sooooo mad at your classmates that you can't stop squirming in your seat. And I'm being totally serious, I love this shit. I also got to yell at my professor, "That is THE most UNENLIGHTENED idea I've heard yet!!!" Who wouldn't love to do that??

Charlie's hero....perhaps love? 

Let it Be Known: A Cappella Sucks

So I'm in the spa with Amos, and he's like, "Let's go to Wiecking and see the Drastic Measures." And I stop. I set my cup down. And I ask him to repeat himself. And yes, he was suggesting I go see a cappella with him. And I was like wha? Does he not know that head-bopping, finger-snapping, bad-music hummers are my mortal enemies? Apparently not. Therefore, let it be known: a cappella sucks.

Thank You for Not Performing A Cappella

Duuude, its like 420....

A huge cheer just went up from the green, and i was like ? And then I looked at the time. 4:22. They're two minutes late. But then again, they are all stoners.

Oh Charlie....

So, charlie365 ends tomorrow, and we're all talking about it and having a party tomorrow to celebrate. I was going through it all, nostalgically, even though i need to be doing work SO BAD. (sidenote: i have so much stuff i have to remember to do in the next two days that i LITERALLY wrote in the margins of my hand. I am being entirely serious, maybe i will take a picture) So I got to February 10th, and read
"It was art major night at DAs downtown. Erica and Greg organized it or so they tell me and I've never seen it so packed. It was an awesome time though because you finally get to talk to all those people who live in the studio with you. Afterwards I ran all the way back to Skidmore." The context behind why this is funny is one of the funny things charlie was saying last night was how he wanted to run back to skidmore, and he kept being like, i did that once you know, i was really drunk and i decided i just wanted to run home, so i did. and i didnt even stop the whole time. i just ran all the way back. i think i might do that again. and i was like, yeah ok charlie. and then i read this, and i was like HA.

So much to do...

Horray for Julia's Birth

Thank whatever deity you pray to for Julia bein born around now, cause it led to a kick ass party. Punch with a lot of rum in it led to most of these pictures. That's the skirt Kira made for Julia on Russell's head, and that's Russell's hat on the rest of our heads. And Travis at DA's got Julia a cake for her birthday, and when last call rolled around we needed to down it quick, so we shoved the remainder in Julia's face. Happy birthday!

Sidenote:
Drunk Charlie is my new best friend. Here's the transcript from one of our conversations last night:
charlie: julia should have some apples and asparagus
me: why?
charlie: cause they're vegetables
charlie: except for apples, which are fruit
charlie: but you need many servings of both per day

Eat it!!!

Go Erika go Erika Go!

Damn ; )

Yeeeahhhh....

I can pimp with the best of em

Oh snap

Get down wit your bad self

New Haven

Visited New Haven this weekend with Amos, it was quite fun. This city apparently loves to invent food, so we had to get hamburgers at the place that invented the hamburger and pizza at a place similar to the one that invented pizza. Ok then. Basically we woke up way later than we had planned (of course), Amos' dad made us blueberry pancakes, we then immediately went and had hamburgers, then ice cream at his favorite place, then got pizza. It was a day-o-eatin. I could barely eat any of the cake that Travis brought for Julia's birthday when we went downtown. But i managed, somehow.

And we found this! How cute...

Ketchup is anathema

But the conventions of the English language are clearly of little concern to the proprietors of Louis Lunch

Part one of our tour-o-food. Supposedly Louis invented the hamburger. I don't know if its true, but their hamburgers are DAMN good, so I don't think it really matters. And this is totally Looey Lunch instead of Louis' Lunch

I may have picked the wrong college. At least based on architecture.

Yale is classy

Mystery Milkshake

At like 9:30 when i was trying to drag Amos away from computering to come to meal exchange him and basil were like, you coming to russells? and i was like i totally shouldn't, but i am. We ended up playing our sweet game again. It ruled. Probably the best card was one of mine this time: Mystery Milkshake. We're gonna make you a milkshake out of random ingredients in the house. You must drink it. Basil got that one. And we alllmost made him puke. I vetoed the worcheshire sauce though and said it had to be all somewhat sweet stuff. We ended up with goober (peanut butter and jelly), waffle mix, nesquick, sprinkles, red jello powder, peaches and cream oatmeal, sour mix, hurricane mix, and probably other stuff i'm forgetting. I tasted it, it wasnt that bad. It was as if you'd crunched up a bunch of flintstones vitamins into cherryey peanut butter goo. Delicious. Actually not, but whatever. Basil was a pussy about it and spit most of it into the sink. Rich was like, I could drink anything in this kitchen faster than you're drinking that. To prove it, he picked up the bowl of popcorn dregs, mainly a SHITLOAD of salt and pepper, and "drank it." Afterwards he admitted to it being a bad idea. But it all led to an even better bad idea. Basil's near puke experience got us on the topic of stuff spewing out of our mouths, and gave us the idea of mixing alka seltzer and coke. So Amos, Basil, and i went on a supermarket run, stopped by campus to pick up fireworks and abduct Charlie to add him to our group, (unfortunately no fireworks were employed cause some people are wusses and it was a "residential neighborhood") But we did end up spewing foam EVERYWHERE. I was the first to go with the two tablets at once approach, and believe me, trying to keep your mouth closed for any amount of time while that much foam is trying to escape from it is not easy. Charlie also poked my cheek which didnt help. The only thing i'm surprised about was that we didnt spew foam all over each other and that my clothes remained dry.... Rich also decided that any time anything was said that could be a euphemism, he would blatantly state what it was referring to: "i'll throw my weiner on the grill" PENIS!! I believe it was him yelling "BUTT LICKING" that made Charlie spit coke everywhere, the ironic part is that a mere twenty minutes before we'd all been exploding from the mouth, but him doing that was still hilarious. Charlie: "I just didn't expect Butt licking" Rich: "no one ever does..." This whole policy of course made me want to make the most blatant euphemisms ever, leading to this exchange (context was that we were grilling, there was a sausage, Basil wanted it):
Russell: I don't have any buns for sausage
me: I have some buns for sausage.
I don't think Rich even bothered to yell anal sex, come to think of it. He just slapped his forehead and decided he wanted to marry me.
We later played super pong and watched macguyver.
The End.

It almost looks like he has a weird lizard tongue...

Yum

Mystery Milkshake anyone?

Idaho's Hero 

Ok, may have to revise the saddest thing ever....

Charlie gets all the credit for finding this one. Idaho has passed a bill basically to say that Napoleon Dynamite rocks. In case you don't feel like clicking the link, here are some highlights:
14 WHEREAS, tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho's
15 most famous export; and
16 WHEREAS, the friendship between Napoleon and Pedro has furthered
17 multiethnic relationships; and
18 WHEREAS, Uncle Rico's football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics;
19 and
20 WHEREAS, Napoleon's bicycle and Kip's skateboard promote better air qual-
21 ity and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transporta-
22 tion;

It just goes on and on with the greatness. I'm kinda wondering why they think that Uncle Rico's football skills are quality though. I am led to believe that, despite what one might assume, Idaho's lawmakers did not get Napoleon Dynamite....

Now I realize this definitely seems like a joke, especially if you read the whole thing, but I just don't know. It looks so legit and the site is state.id.us, and people from Idaho I'm assuming have nothing better to do, so....

Check Out My Dad's Sweet Boots

I needed to call my dad today, and realized I didn't have his office number. So I went to his college's website and searched for him in the faculty directory. I figured it would be something like ours with just office phone number and whatnot, but it turned out to be way more cool. The sad part of all this is that I didn't know most of that stuff before. My dad's the Director of Composition? He won a teaching award? He likes contemporary poetry??
I did know about those boots though, and boy are they sweet.
For more on my dad's sweet boots and English professorness, see the February 6th post: Cowboys and Oreos. Enjoy.

You've Got Genital Warts. Lose a Turn.

Tonight was pretty amazingly awesometastic. Russell had a barbecue, and it way rocked. We grilled a fucking pie. Complete with marshmallows inserted into the center of it so they got all melty inside it. I know, it sounded like a really bad idea to me too, but it was actually really good. When it got dark it got real fuckin cold so we were all huddling around the grill, and we finally were forced inside. But then Russell introduced us to THE BEST GAME EVER. All you do is cut blank index cards in half, and you deal them out like five per person. You all get pens, and you make up your cards. So like, you draw a picture of a stick figure humping a grandma stick figure and write: you are your own grandpa, -500 points. Or you can dispense with the points all together and write: "you come out to your parents, call them RIGHT NOW and tell them" complete with a little picture of parents and a speech bubble saying "get out fag!" (Amos got that one) So yeah, you make all these cards, and there are still blank ones in the deck, so if someone gives you a "you buy a new houseboat -10,000 points cause no one likes houseboats" card, you can make a "President Studley thinks you're cool" card that gives you 10,000 points. Or make a "rip up the boob grab card" card cause you don't want anyone grabbing your boobs. What made it even more amazing was there were too many of us, so we split into two groups, so half of us were in one room playing and you'd just hear people having fake orgasms (or real ones, i guess it's a possibility) from the other room. Or they'd come in and steal a card from you and run back, or come in, be like, "I just needed to tell you all that I have flaccid genitalia," or suddenly kiss you. Like every single card we made was SO amazing, I cant even begin to tell all of them. The highlights though were probably Amos leaving his dad a message saying he was coming out of the closet and the entire other group calling this kid Kyle who was someone's friend from high school. Rich, without knowing my name at all, called Kyle and was like "This is Larry Masterson, and I just want to let you know THAT IF YOU EVER FUCKING THINK ABOUT TOUCHING MY DAUGHTER AGAIN I WILL RIP OFF YOUR BALLS AND EAT THEM WITH KETCHUP!!!!!" or something to that effect, he was yelling for much longer than that. He said that that name just sounded like the kinda name a scary dad would have...not if we're going by my dad, but whatever... (my grandfather's name was definitely Laurence...I don't know that anyone ever called him Larry, but....) But yeah, Kyle must've been pretty confused when he got like 6 people calling him within two minutes. Another good one I got was "Ballston Spa" picture of dog poop "if the Saratoga Springs card is in play" referring to a card that had a very dirty looking picture of a "spring" on it "kick Amos." So I got to kick Amos, which was rather gratifying. There are TONS more great ones, it was the most fun I've had in so long, i was literally dying like the whole time. And then we watched Killer Condom, which is a great movie I haven't seen since I used to hang out with Ryan. Its German, but set in NYC. So the whole time they're like waving American flags and talking about New York, but they're speaking German. The main character is an Italian NYPD detective named Luigi Macaroni. He's also gay, and theres an AMAZING line where someone's telling him he should try women and he yells, in German of course, "I LIKE FIRM MALE ASS" We got to see the line twice, cause the ps2 that was playing the dvd was still hooked up to the ddr pads and someone stepped on the stop button for like the twelfth time. Watching Russell try to get to the correct chapter and fast forward to the part we were at using his feet was pretty wonderful though, so it was ok that we kept getting interrupted.

Upstate New York April might be warm during the day, but those nights get chilllly. Here we are huddled around the grill for warmth. We hadn't thrown the pie on yet...