sigh…

things i wish i had my camera for today:
- santa claus, 76th and broadway
- tractor pulling 6 foot spool of cable wire, J platform at delancey/essex

TRONS.

courtesy of lucille:

none of you are as good of a friend.

nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey…

i’m usually not a big basketball person, but DAMN we’re good.

on a scale of 1 to 10 (part two)

how do we feel about the lucky star bus?

because just yesterday i was thinking to myself, self, i know you have to take the bus all by yourself tomorrow for the first time, but you know, in the half dozen or so times you’ve taken it in the past couple of months there hasn’t been a problem, so i’m sure you’re be fine.

interestingly enough, it wasn’t fine. not because of anything the bus or bus company did, it was just bad timing (a really crappy-looking accident up ahead kept us idling for 90 minutes), but i have to wonder… is it that great?

este was just saying last night that the bus is just as good as the train because it’s cheaper and it gets you there in the same amount of time. but does it? DOES IT? no, it does not! and now we have proof. not that i’m saying that things don’t go wrong with the train, but the train’s all air-conditioned and whatnot, and there’s more room for me to stretch my feet… i guess that out of all the lucky star disasters there could have been, a traffic jam isn’t the worst one, really.

i’m still going to give it a 6.5, though, because the AC was broken and the driver was a maniac, as they usually are.

note: congrats on your new nyc location, lucky star!

story time.

gather ’round, children, because this is a good one. it’s kind of old now, but the door for it has been officially reopened, so i feel like it’s okay. so let’s backtrack about a year to graduation at aib.

we go through the whole lesley song and dance, and then all the different schools get separated, so aib gets our own little room in the back. part of our ceremony was a slideshow of all the graduates’ (or who out of them wanted to contribute) work. we finally wrap things up, and my aunt amy comes up to me and asks if i know “maaaahriel r____r”. i tell her that we’re actually really good friends, and my aunt goes on to tell me that she THINKS that she used to date mariel’s father. he tells me that his name was jonathon, and was that the same person? yes, amy, it was. she asks me if it’d be weird if she went up to say hi, and i tell her that hell no it won’t be weird, and that i’m coming with her.

so we go waltzing up to mariel and her family (her dad, dad’s wife, dad’s mother and sister), with my aunt calling out “jonny?!”. he finally looks up and sort of stares at her for a minute before getting this crazy look of recognition on his face. meanwhile, i’m gesturing wildly at mariel and trying to pull her aside.

as it turns out, it was the very same “jonny” that she dated. um… what? it turns out that mariel’s father is the reason for amy’s time at brandeis. a school that she actually did not attend until years after they dated.

so the two of them are standing there talking to each other (with mariel and i looking on with horrified faces, of course), when jonathon’s mother and sister realize what’s going on and recognize amy within seconds.

crazy story, right? yeah, it’s not over. turns out, they dated for at least a year, if not more. dedicated songs, jewlery, etc, were involved, and my aunt even admits that she thought they were going to get married. WHAT?! i know.

so if we bring things back to the present day… i just got back from mariel’s dad’s house. i mentioned my aunt at one point, so mariel and i start asking her dad for stories and stuff… apparently, they “practically lived together” for a year while my aunt was actually (supposedly) living in the dorms at lesley. then jonathon tells us that he decided to go to europe for about six weeks at the end of a semester, and by the time he got back, my aunt was engaged to her now ex-husband mitch. ahhhhh! keep in mind i have heard NOTHING about this guy “mitch” with the exception of how amy told my grandmother that she was engaged. that story is not as interesting.

regardless, that’s a whole lot of insanity, and it totally blows my mind. and yours, too, right? i can tell. threshold of revelation.

hair hats

whaaaa?

click the picture for the website, and then click on each of the girls to see what the f is going on on their heads!

double your pleasure, double your fun

is that how that commercial goes? for double-mint gum? because if not… this might be weird. anyway, i babysat twins for the past few days! yes, it was crazy. but look how friggin’ cute they are!

awww. i know, right? so we basically just hung out all day… we’d do breakfast when i got there, then mommy would leave and we’d cry a little, then play with some toys, then lunch, then naptime, then toys, then a walk, then snacks, then mommy’d come home! yeah, i’m that dorky.

it’s been a long time since i’ve really babysat… technically, i babysat for these two beauties about six months ago, but it was just a nighttime thing so their mom could get a night off. they were already asleep when i got there, and when they woke up (oh, and they woke up) i would just cradle them while watching “the devil wears prada” until they fell back asleep.

but that was last fall! and before that i don’t think i had babysat since high school, maybe? there was a family with three little boys that i babysat through most of high school, but that ended pretty much completely when i left for college.

it’s obviously not hard to get back in the swing of babysitting. and no, i’m NOT going to say that it’s like riding a bike. because it’s NOT like riding a bike… it’s a lot more tiring. and way more worth it.

adventures in grunge.

we had david’s “costume” (it’s in quotes because only david and helen dressed up) going away party this past weekend. it was a bittersweet event, really, because the party was obviously really fun, but at the end we had to say goodbye. probably forever. but it seems like seattle has welcomed them with open arms, so that’s nice.

maura, este, steve and i took the bus into boston friday afternoon. i have to say, i generally hate the bus with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but when it’s practically empty, and hardly smells at all… it’s not terrible. calm down, i said not terrible, not that it was the best thing ever. geez. anyway, we got in at a reasonable hour, and then we actually all sort of split up. it was weird. maura went to meet some kids we went to high school with, steve went immediately to dan and david’s house, and este and i stopped for coffee, and then stopped for burritos, and then finally made it to katie and erin’s house; aka, three houses down from the boys. i know, weird, right?

but the party really was super fun. naturally, my camera died partway through it, but i did get a couple of gems:

but anyway, it was a great time.

so then este and i decided to come back to new york on saturday because he had to work on sunday, and i started my week of babies-sitting on monday. or so i thought. that’s right, i was supposed to start babysitting twins yesterday! a friend of a friend lives in clinton hill with her two babies and was looking for some temporary help, which i agreed to do for a week before i start at my new design position. unfortunately, the babies’ daddy is being kind of a jerk and not bringing them back to nyc in a timely manner, so we had to push it all back to tomorrow. oh well. but believe me, there will be a fantastic post about it, including pictures. it’s supposed to rain all week, so i think we might have to have some fashion shoots and whatnot. get into it.

hetero-lifemates

maura was in town last week! for those of you who don’t know, maura and i have a deep and mutual heterosexual love for one another, stretching all the way back to sixth grade. she up and moved to los angeles last year, and i’m not going to lie, it’s put a strain on the relationship. but i saw her during the road trip, and she was just back on the east coast for her sister’s college graduation. she came in on tuesday, and we did the whole dinner and drinks thing on the lower east side, and then wednesday we went up to rockefeller center to have lunch with another old friend, terry. we could only stay for a little while (although there was ample time for maura to fall in love with the city) because we left lucy at home to wait for fedex to bring my computer, and since it still hadn’t by the end of lunch, we came back to relieve her of her duties. yes, duties. but OF COURSE, just like all mail services, they totally fucked me. so we basically wasted part of lucy’s day and all of ours because for some reason fedex didn’t have the time (or decency) to update the tracking page. assholes. anyway, it came the next morning. YES. and that’s where i’m blogging from right now. that’s right, the blogging command center has been resized, rewired, and re-awesomed. UPGRADE.

so after the computer came and i plugged it in and made out with it a little, maura and i met up with steve for lunch, and then headed out to central park. maura fell in love with the city all over again (it really is amazing to watch), and i can see why. it was just beautiful out. and i have only two pictures from the whole time she was here, but i think this one sums things up pretty well.

YES, that one turtle is humping another. the other picture i mentioned is of the two of us at the big fountain thing, but it’s too dorky to post. and okay fine, you caught me, i actually have like seven pictures of the turtles, but come on. they’re adorable. and don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing.

so we mosied through the park for a couple of hours, then checked out union square where yes, you guessed it… maura fell in love again (she is NOT a slut! no one talks about my friend like that!). we ran by whole foods and trader joe’s (because we’re equal opportunity organic food shoppers), and then back to the apartment where i promptly left, and maura left shortly thereafter.

este and i have had tickets to gotham comedy club to see daniel tosh for like a month, so we headed over there. luckily, maura’s la friends were in town for a short production screening in soho, so it worked out really well. steve went with her, and then four of us met up and went to a bar in the area. good times. naturally, i only made it out until like 1230, but it’s fine.

and then friday rolled around and the four of us jumped on the lucky star and headed to boston for david’s grunge going away party. but i’ll save that for a later post so we don’t overload this one.

unsolved mysteries">unsolved mysteries

ever wonder where the food carts go at night? you know, the fun little rolling kiosks that provide us with nutritious and healthy snacks like giant pretzels, gyros, and roasted peanuts…

i guess we still don’t know where, but we know HOW! score one for us.