Mmm Your Horchata's So Hot and Steamy

Dear Ezra,

I'm just going to come right out and say it: I love you. It's very rare to find a man who rocks flannel and argyle AND regularly showers, as well as knows the finer points of English grammar ("Oxford Comma"). You have endeared yourself to me.

I know your music isn't exactly cutting-edge. I'm sorry, but you're basically the 2000s' Paul Simon. But you're hot, and Paul is not. And your music is just so happy and vaguely preppy that I can't not love it.

So, if you're interested in a relationship with a Northwestern-er who is a fellow Lit major, please let me know. While you're getting back to me, I'll be listening to the singles from your forthcoming album, Contra.

Love,

Lara.

PS. Here is an idea for future artistic direction: do one of your music videos shirtless. It'd be really...avant-garde.

Things I Like #11

Scary (but kinda corny) Shit

Unemployment has made me a fan of Discovery Channel's A Haunting. If you've never seen it, and you've prolly not as it's on at 11am-3pm MTWTHF, it's a show that re-enacts TRUE HAUNTINGS. Usually they're American, but sometimes they jump the pond and do haunted british pubs and manor houses and Shakespearean theaters (bad accents abound).

Sometimes the re-enactments are so bad that you don't believe that the stories are real. Sometimes you REALLY believe the stories. Especially when they turn out to be NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AS TRUE, and validated by major motion picture companies producing the stories as full length feature films. Such is the case with,

A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Haunting_in_Connecticut#Specials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunting_in_Connecticut

Scary shit incidents:
house used to be a mortuary where the mortician conducted rituals with their dead bodies. fuck.

mom mops floor, mop water turns into blood.

cancer-fighting teenage son becomes possessed by the spirits of the dead people who were mutilated by the mortician.

family members don't believe him because they think he's hallucinating off his cancer drugs.

family members do believe him when they start to see a man in a pin striped suit lurking in their rooms. AGHHH. This part isn't shown in the legit movie, but according to wikipedia, is what happened in real life and is what is depicted in the Discovery Channel episode. So naturally this is the version I choose to believe.

other really gross stuff involving decaying flesh and voodoo.

Please watch these so you can freak the geek out with me when I recount the story to you on some night that I get too drunk. Because you know NoPants and I will get vodka-ed up and blerg on and on about episodes of A Haunting, and then you'll just feel awkward without your own A Haunting episode to describe. So really I'm posting these for your own sake and cultural adeptity (adeptness?).

More Good Blogs

I like arts and crafts as much as the next person (as long as the next person isn't NoPants, who likes them a lot). So I'll admit to browsing Etsy from time to time, and usually liking what I see. However, there are those times that you come accross something truly bizarr-o on Etsy. Such as a Vampire-printed reusable menstrual pad***. Ew. I'm sorry I even typed that, but the reading public must be warned.

This website gathers together the best of the worst, and it's name, http://www.regretsy.com/, really says it all. To give you an idea of the weird crafty people who exist in the world, here is a list of some of Regretsy's item categories:
Dead Things
Michael Jackson
Penises
Pet Humiliation
Self-Gratification
Twilight
Vaginas

Go check it out, if only so that I'm not alone in my horrible nightmares of this: http://www.regretsy.com/2009/10/05/fish-and-foul/ Dear Sweet Baby Jesus. No. No. No.
***And this:
http://www.regretsy.com/2009/10/20/the-curse/ (I warned you).

Nerd Alert!

I'm super-nerdy*, I like books, I like art, and I also like to travel.

Thus, I like books with/about/of maps.

Which means I need this: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2009/10/the_map_as_art.php

And speaking of maps, here's a blog about them: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/



*Shh! don't tell anyone--It's a huge secret.

Bringing it, Portland-Style

Last night I met Emily and Kelsey for happy hour at a bar called The Shanghai Tunnel, and luckilly it didn't go too overboard with its nod to Portland's illustrious past. Yes, you went down a narrow, dark staircase to get to the main bar, and yes there was red lighting and some Chinese dragons painted on a wall, but they also made my Greyhounds by squeezing a real grapefruit into the vodka, and they only charged $3. Excellent!

Next, Kells, because we wanted food. You can't really go wrong with Kells, even though it's Mecca for the fratty-bro-type (along with old people and high schoolers with fakes). Emily, Kelsey, and I commented on how Bros are far more common (and perhaps acceptable) in Portland, and most of our non-Seattle friends are not too familiar with the concept of "The Bro". We agreed that when we try to describe what a Bro is to said friends, we just end up insulting/confusing them a little. "But that's what all my guy friends are like", seems to be a common response to our explanation of "The Bro". In addition to our sharing our anthropological notes, we enjoyed hamburgers and drinks.

History Lessons

Today I went to the gym my family has belonged to for ages and ages in an attempts to feel produtive. This gym is not in my neighborhood, is downtown, is fairly large, and attracts a wide range of...athletes (worker-outers? cardioers? gym rats? gym rats). Therefore, I should not be recognized, right? WRONG. Big wrong.

Today I was recognized by no less than 4 people from my not-so-ancient past:

1. High school physics teacher. He remembered that I sucked BIG TIME at physics. I told him I haven't used it since the day I left his class. Who burned whom? I'd say it was a wash.
2. Weird guy from my dad's office. He likes to chat with me about his daughter who lives in SF, and he's very competitive about her successes as we are the same age. For many years I was one-upping her; unfortunetly, she now earns $80,000/year as an accountant.
3. A vaguely attractive in high school, now definitely attractive XC runner. He told me he has moved home, too. But he is also in law school, so...his attempts at making me feel better ended there. Although chatting about our mutual dislike of Person #1 did lessen my over-all feeling of ickiness at running into the ol' teach.
4. Annoying chick I danced with for three years. She was the type to bully her way to the front row so everyone would be watching her. Now she's taking a year off from UofO to "re-focus". Uh-huh.

Even taking into account that it's Columbus Day and many people don't have work, I'd say it's about time to find myself another gym. Or maybe I'll have to start wearing one of these to my work-outs.

OD-ing on Home

In both a means to fit my stuff in my childhood bedroom and to remain in denial about my move home, I have begun an epic task: purging 80% of the shit in my bedroom.

I have essays left over from freshman year of high school lurking in the bottom drawer of my desk. I found a collection of Lisa Frank folders under my bed (Casey and Candy the golden retreivers who frolic in the neon pink and green landscape of LisaFrankLand [apparently Tuscon, AZ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Frank). There are several tupperware boxes full of beads, buttons, and vials of sparkles. Stuffed animals take up half my closet space. I also have a huge collection of middle school-era CDs that must be dealt with. It is a fucking archeological dig in my bedroom, Gesu Cristo.

I am trying to forget my troubles by going to Greek food with Katie tonight. Ouzo and calamari will sooth my soul, right?

LaraBash

Thanks for coming so that I didn't have to get drunk by myself

Here is a link to the facebook album if you just can't get enough of these gems: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2070230&id=32402525&ref=mf

New York Pics

My dad finally updated McAfee on his precious laptop, so I'm now allowed to go online. Here are some NYC pics. They are Empire state building from Union Square, view of Manhattan Bridge from DUMBO, L and I on Brooklyn Bridge, K, me, and M on Brooklyn Bridge, Bethesda fountain in Central Park, larger than life-sized Harry Potter lego figures in FAO Schwarz, Picasso painting in The Met, and a bridge in Central Park.

If you're a glutton for punishment, here is the link to M's compliation of all four of our camera memory cards: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?id=6108406&aid=2160753

You Want Me to Be...Explicit?

Yes, Tobias Funke, I do want you to be explicit! But many dictionary editors do not.

Here is an interesting article about how dictionary editors deal with defining sexual terms: http://www.slate.com/id/2227971.

N.B. After glancing at yesterday's post, I realized that I have two titles in a row that reference Arrested Development. Proud or embarressed? Proud or embarrressed?
Proud.

The Final Countdown (Cue GOB's magician dancing)

Well Team players, this is it, my last party as a Seattle-dweller. My final weekend in the city that I have come to call home. Soon enough I will be back with my parents, paying no rent, eating good food, watching cable tv, and...being supervised 24-hours a day.

Debbie Downer.

I hope to see lots of friendly faces at my apt. tonight as I drink away my sorrows!

Best of the Best, Including Almost Meeting Chuck Bass

Great stuff I did in NYC

Friday
I went and picked up Katie from Penn station, and then we took on Bryant Park, the library, Rockefeller Center, Dean & Deluca, FAO Schwarz, Times Square, and Central Park. Central Park was much welcomed after being trampled by tourists all day long in midtown. We wandered around and watched old men play croquet on one of the lawns, and then we layed out on Sheep's Meadow until we regained the strength to subway home during rush hour. After that, we went to dinner with L & M in the West Village. If I ever make my millions, a West Village walk-up is where I will invest in real estate. PERFECTION! ITALIAN MEN SERVING ME PENNE! MAGNOLIA BAKERY CUPCAKES! GREEK BAR AND OUZO!

Saturday
L, M, K, and I got huge ass bagels for breakfast and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to go to the 13th annual DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) street art festival. One really rad element was this woman who'd laid out hundreds of paper squares for people to paint on. The paint was inside ice cubes, and as the ice cubes melted, it created these vibrant paint patterns on the squares. We came back later in the day to check out how our blobs were, and I must say that mine was quite gorgeous! If my fucking computer wasn't dead, I would post a picture of it. After DUMBO, we ventured further into the Hipster Heart of Darkness: Williamsburg. We bumbed around and looked at shops and people-watched. Then we walked back to Manhattan and went to The High Line, which is an old Elevated Train that has been remodeled into a public park: http://www.thehighline.org/.
On the way back we went through the Chelsea Food Market, then through the Meatpacking District, and then we saw Will Ferrell and Marky Mark filming a movie. RADICAL!
For dinner we went to my cousin's restaurant, Tortilla Flats http://nymag.com/listings/bar/tortilla_flats/. She was super generous and gave us copious amounts of FREE TEQUILA! Margs, shots, margs, shots, it just kept coming and coming! And then she gave us a free brownie cake at the end of the night to soak up the booze. Free tequila + brownie = true family love. My cousin is pretty much the best. It was great to walk into a Manhattan restaurant, be greeted by family, and then not have to wait to be seated, AND get a free meal. IDEAL NYC NIGHT. The restaurant is also a bar, so we didn't leave until 2, and then passed out at M's.

Sunday
Brunch at Essex House in the Lower East Side. $18 for 3 alcoholic drinks (mine were mimosas) and an entree and a huge ass breakfast roll. AMAZING. It's super trendy and young and delish. We were there for like, 3 hours, just eating and drinking. Morning drunk = you're happy all day.
After that we headed to Times Square so that we could get tickets from the TKTS booth for Mary Poppins. Yes, I am that cool. We then waited around in a tiny cafe off of Broadway until the show. While waiting, we met the famous Naked Cowboy, chatted with him while eating Black and White cookies, and then watched him drive off in his escalade. As L said, "He probably needs a car that big to fit all his underwear in". True dat. Then we saw Mary Poppins. I'm not going to lie, it was the best fucking musical I've ever seen. FIREWORKS, people! FLYING! TAPDANCING! A SEXY BURT THE CHIMNEY SWEEP! Then we got dinner at the Shake Shack and fell asleep from an all-day food and mimosa coma.

Monday
M works for a Jewish law firm, and it was Yom Kippur, so she didn't have to work! THANKS, YAHWEH!
It was BEAUTIFUL weather, 65 and sunny and not humid, so we walked to the MoMA. My favorite museum anywhere. I even like it better than the Tate Modern.
Post-museum, I went to meet up with my cousin while M and K did Battery Park and L worked (sorry L). We met at Washington Square park, by the marble arch, and then walked to the West Village where we ate lunch at a western-inspired restaurant. Catfish, corn on the cob, mac and cheese. YUM. Then we went to my new favorite French cafe, Clafe Cluny, http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/Cafe-Cluny/ (check out the image slideshow because the inside is perfection), for coffee and dessert. Cousin then took me to her restaurant, where we chatted and did the crossword puzzle and hung out with her awesome co-workers. It was such a great afternoon. I love becoming friends with my family members. We're a very close family, but it's nice for us cousins to interact with each other as friends, now that we're older, rather than relatives. Plus, no one is as weird as I am except for my cousins, so it's rather comforting to be around someone who shares all the same strange habits as me.
PS. Apparently Dan and Serena (aka Penn Badgely and Blake Lively) frequent Tortilla Flats on a weekly basis. However, the big story is that if we had gotten to the restaurant 10 MINUTES EARLIER, I WOULD HAVE MET CHUCK BASS and vanessa. I MISSED OUT ON MEETING CHUCK BASS. FUCK! MY! LIFE! But Cousin and I did sit in his booth and tried to soak up his aura. I hope none of vanessa rubbed off on me. I don't want none of that!
Garrett: I tried to go to Muji after dessert, and it was closed. FML.
Monday night we went out for a GREAT dinner at a Thai chain (except not in an Applebees-type way) called Spice http://www.spicethainyc.com/spice/. They have a couple throughout the city, but the one in Chelsea is tiny, dark, and intimate. And full of booze. We had lots of lychee martinis. The Drunken Man noodles were excellent. I said goodbye to L as she walked down the steps to the subway. So cinematic! So sad. I can now say that I've cried on the streets of NY.

Tuesday
K and I went to Billy's Bakery for breakfast http://www.billysbakerynyc.com/. We had two cupcakes each. BEST BREAKFAST EVER!
Garrett: I tried to go to Muji AGAIN and it didn't open until 11am, and we had to be on a train at 11:20. EPIC FAIL!
The weather was like, perfect fall day in NY, and we didn't want to leave. AT ALL. It totally sucked to pack and say goodbye to the city and train it out to Newark. But do you know what sucked MOST OF ALL??? When muthafuckin AirTran (never, ever fly AirTran) cancelled my flight and gave me a ticket to fly out of LAGUARDIA at 3:45. It was already 1, and it can take up to 2 hours to get to Laguardia from Newark. FUCK. My cabbie was amazing, though. I yelled at him a little through the Lincoln tunnel, and he hauled ass to Queens, man. No joke, I made it from New Jersey to Queens in 57 minutes. I counted. On the bright side, I got to drive through Manhattan and say goodbye a second time. I think it's a sign that the city doesn't want me to leave. Right???

Anyway, that was my time in New York. Sorry there are no pics. Take that up with my fucking computer. Way to die on me, Toshiba, way to die.