Summertime Adventures

 

Much has happened in the last few months. I learned that my armpits are all screwy and that one perspires more than the other (the left). I learned that pelicans are able to thrive in business parks. I learned that I should not wear high wedges while walking down a steep slope. Declivity is a game reserved only for the advanced perambulator. Central Park has poison ivy. Poison ivy is disgusting--especially if you had my reaction (fluid bubbles!). Cats do not enjoy long car rides.

However, it is important to note that I have moved to Boston. You might be thinking, "didn't she do that already?" The answer is, "sort of," but this time I mean it for realz. I have officially moved to Boston. I got rid of my old studio in the North End and finally moved all of my New York things into a real grown-up apartment with my manfriend and cats.

I felt emotions. Ugh, so many stupid emotions were felt on the day I left--a gallimaufry of inner-happenings: sadness, ambivalence, happiness?, thorns, confusion, stress, warmth (super hot that day), anticipation, dread, hunger... I don't know. At first it felt like I was making a mistake. I was leaving my friends, home, neighborhood, security guard, supermarkets, beloved house-helper, restaurants, bars, subway rats, 24-hour public transit, dog crap-smeared sidewalks, crosswalks that do not require pedestrians to push stupid buttons, Harlem miniature trash tornadoes... so many things! But when we drove up to our new home, Bostonian friends were there to greet us and carry all of our heavy stuff up to the apartment. Some of the Bostonian friends did not even live in Boston but Buffalo! Nothing demonstrates love more than voluntary manual labor. Nice work, New York and Boston Teams! I love all of you too!  I felt much better.

After the moved I immediately flew to California for one of my best friend's wedding. I was a bridesmaid (and soon my cats will have shiny new vests fashioned from a dress that looked great on camera... just kidding, Monique). In addition to wedding festivities, I got to visit dear friends (HI VANS!) and hang out with fabulous cousins. Although the overall California climate disagrees with me, there is place that melts my heart--in a good way. A place where the air smells like churros, nacho cheese, and Crocs plastic. A place where a person can show off hand-crafted family-matching T-shirts. A place where animals wear clothes and do not have disgusting butt-holes. A place where nature is carefully landscaped. A place where waffles are made in the shape of rodent heads--and you can eat as much of it as you want! A place where you can buy a bucket of popcorn. A BUCKET.

Toward the end of my trip, study buddy Olivia flew in for some fun! 

We lost...

but won in quality friendship time.

When I got back to Boston it was time for another wedding, so we drove to New York to pick up three friends--Kavita, Celeste, and Marcus--and headed out to Washington D.C. On the way to D.C. we stopped in New Jersey for lunch, prom jewelry, and lady socks. Aside from my friend John and his wife, New Jersey has little to offer. Correction--not only does Jersey have little to offer it TAKES. New Jersey is the land of poor city planning (what the hell is wrong with all of the roads?), suburbs, those orange people from the TV, sneaky behavior, and thievery. While paying a visit to one of Jersey's many shopping malls, a little panda-eating fart nugget that fell out of one of Jersey's poop ducts and his mother stole one of our friends' super important camera!

To make matters worse, the imbeciles that "secure" the mall were all like "uh, whatever, our job is to eat boogers... so... your business is out of our jurisdiction or whatever... whatever... I can blow thick Jolly Ranchers spit bubbles while watching Maury at the same time! That's how I got this job. What were you looking for again?" The gormless security idiots left us with few options... so we took justice into our own hands. Unfortunately, it resulted in Celeste harassing random people with fat children.

I suppose I covered the highlights for this summer so far...

Oh, I recently turned...

Yup.

Making Better Choices: Just kidding! It just looks that way.

I have been trying to make better life decisions, so I started eating Greek yogurt. However, I stopped eating real fruits and vegetables. Whatever, there are bits of fruit at the bottom of each Chobani yogurt-thing. The situation is pretty much a solid diet of yogurt, Luna bars, cheese, meat, and pasta. My bowels are like, "seriously?" And in response, I say, "look, I drink enough coffee to make up for all the fiber I am not eating."

Fine, nutrition still needs to be tamed. Despite my poor food choices, I am still exercising! I might not go to the gym as much as I used to, but I am taking a Zumba class once a week with my friend Julian. I did not go this week though... Anyway, Julian and I are going to be Zumba masters one day. I cannot follow along with all the moves, but if I flap my arms and spin around when feeling lost I look Zumbatic enough. While humiliating 40-60% of the time, Zumba is a great deal of fun. Our instructor even plays songs that have the word "zumba" in it; just in case someone forgets why she is there (a lot of old ladies in this class, by the way).

My body is not the only thing getting into awesome shape. My brain is doing okay as well. Olivia and I have been throwing a lot of ratchet parties... Yes, it is true. She and I party almost every single weekend. Sometimes we party during the week. We will often party for hours... like seven. Seven hours of partying sometimes. "What kind of parties?" you ask.

Study Parties!!! Olivia, who is obviously French from the accurate picture above, is a terrific study party buddy. We like to sit across from each other and work. We also like to sit across from each other and eat lunch in between morning work and afternoon work. For extra fun, we like to go to the movies and watch films that you probably have never heard of before because these films do not believe in advertising. Seriously, why don't any of these producers believe in posters? Still, they are usually majorly super nice and magical. I know that if left to my own devices I would only watch romantic comedies and romantic comedies in 3D.

Sometimes we need more than great friends, exercise, study parties, and yogurt. I needed to take care of my "spiritual self". My spiritual self was just screaming for a serious make-over. Just kidding, I really did not know that I had a "spiritual self" until James and I made a pilgrimage seventy blocks south to Radio City where Oprah is kept. Yes, James and I consulted Oprah for some life advice and a self-esteem boost.

Seriously, I went to go see Oprah. She told me that I needed to feed my spiritual self and not just my hungry self. Oprah said a lot of things that day. I know she was speaking English, but I was pretty much lost for all 2.5 hours. Many of these things just ended up jumbling together--"transcendence", "energy", "karma", "meditation", something about the past and the future and how neither is now, "judgement", etc. Regardless of how little I learned about my spiritual self that day, there was one thing I did gain...

Oprah Friendship. Oprah and I are best friends now. She learned how cool I was and wanted to read my autobiography. I didn't have a copy on me that day, so she was all like, "yeah, no worries, maybe I can pick it up from you one day when we go shopping together and do girl stuff together, like facials and whatever. I will put your book on the book club reading list and you will become famous and I will scream your name like, Caaaattthhhhheeeeerrrrrinnnnnnnneeeee!" Yes, I am awesome... Eh, well, not really. Oprah and I are not really friends. I mean, in my heart she is my friend, but that is not a real place because two people cannot sit down inside my heart and have tea. These people would have to kill me first or something, but if I am one of the people then it really is impossible. So, yeah, Oprah is not really my friend. I did not get to hold her hand as depicted in the image above. No one is allowed to touch Oprah anyway. She is made of Phoenix feathers, angel nail clippings, and that warm feeling you get when you step into Saks--mortals cannot handle that kind of tactile experience.

Before I end this post, I have one more thing to share. Here is a fun game...

Guess!

Guess!

Guess!

I might be getting...

My Winter Break: a good time.

My last post was kind of half-assed, yeah? Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, I just got back from my vacation a month ago! I am going to talk about it now. I flew out to California and Boyfriend Josh joined me... this was December. For the first time ever, our kin-worlds collided. I have never had a boyfriend's family meet my family before, mainly because most of my relationships prior to this one ended within the first few months. You are probably wondering: "who would not want to date this piece of awesome? She drools, does not know how to take care of herself, eats garbage, currently rocks a mullet, and everything." (Bow-shaka-bow-wow--sexy music).

While having the worlds collide sounds interesting, it was in actuality like fine-whatever-no-big-deal. I seriously thought there was going to be more drama for me to blog about, but... it was the most normal experience I have ever had in my life. Ever. Geez, talk about killing a potential story.

The most drama happened at Knott's Berry Farm (a Peanuts themed amusement park) with Aaron, Holly, and Daniel. Holly and I got what I think is whiplash while on the "Ghost Riding the Whip" roller-coaster. I have participated in Ghost Riding the Whip for realz back in 2008 with Monique, Peter, and Omnilust... that roller-coaster was certainly not it. First of all, you need a car. Secondly, you need to be in one of La Jolla's slightly sloped residential neighborhoods. Third, you need to be hungry... hungry for adventure! And pizza. Most importantly pizza, because that is what you eat afterwards. Yeah, I got whiplash at Knott's Berry Farm, but it was totally worth the fun we all had that day. I ate something called nachos fries out of a box with a fork.

Anyway, over the break, I realized that being treated like an adult by my parents is completely contingent on Boyfriend Josh's presence. After he left, my mom felt completely free to unleash all the mom-comments she had been holding back:

I guess some things do not change no matter how old you get... did not floss then, not going to floss now. Much like recycling, I only floss when people are watching. 

I returned to school about three or four weeks ago and immediately became swamped with work. Balancing out the work situation is the return of Tuesday Happy Hour at Sligos (and Durty Nelly's once)!

Here is something amazing--no new centipede sightings! Wikipedia and various insect annihilation websites say that centipedes are most plentiful during fall and spring, which makes me believe that I will not see any for awhile. But... where did they all go? The ones that were in my apartment are definitely dead thanks to Josh and my neighbor. Where are the other centipedes? Where are they partying this winter? Probably in that area of my pantry I never go into because it looks disgusting. There is so much yellow insulation goop in there. Does anyone know what asbestos looks like? Oh wait, I just looked it up. Yeah, the goop is not asbestos.

Okay, I really have to go some reading for class now. Bye.