todd and i have procured a bottle of absente - not absinthe, but its legal and allegedly, alas, less potent cousin.  i've never had any kind of absinthe before and i'm excited.  my eager anticipation has, however,  been muted slightly reading some online reviews of its effects -or lack thereof- but i am still optimistic.

i realized i miss my hedonistic days of old, my years of hand me a glass and i'll drink it, pass me a pill and i'll take it.  fuck this being old and responsible nonsense.

i want to hang with this guy.

failing that, i want this shirt.

from: lazyrot.com

as my thirtieth birthday rapidly approacheth, it seems confusing to me that i am not reacting to this milestone with more…something. people keep asking me how i feel about it, and i feel like not having a reaction to the big 3-0 is the worst reaction of all. hallmark even apparently pays people to research the significance of these particular digits - but then again hallmark markets cards for things like "sweetest day" and "national mentoring month."

you know i have always been at battle with the idea of really being an adult, reticence to entirely give up all notions of being silly and childish and adolescent. i used to describe this as "peter pan syndrome", which i thought just meant a reluctance to grow up entirely, but wikipedia seems to define as something a lot more dysfunctional.

i perpetually think of myself in my early 20s. then i have moments of freakout driving through harrisonburg realizing the JMU students who cross in front of my car at stoplights are usually at least 10 years younger than me. my friend lisa, who is i think 36, and is pregnant with her second child, says she still doesn't think of herself as an adult half the time and recognized herself in my perpetually-college-aged scenario. weird.

a tip-off that i am no longer the girl of my youth should have come when planning birthday festivities. it's been interesting that this birthday has taken on some of the characteristics of new years' eve - the pressure to plan something fantastic so that when people ask you what you did, you have something impressive as an answer and can shrug of the screamingly loserish tones of sitting at home by yourself watching tv as the rest of the world parties. i have found myself more happy with the idea of having a couple of friends over next weekend to hang out than with throwing one of my traditional alcohol-soaked ragers i think i am more known for.

i thought the tone for the fete had been pretty well set by the participation of quinn and wendy, who will be bringing baby noah with them next weekend when they come to staunton. i figured a couple with a baby would mean bottles of wine and chatting around the fireplace, or if the weather is nice, the screened-in porch - something low-key to celebrate my passage into a new decade.

then i got a message from wendy, the afore-mentioned mama of baby noah, saying how much she was looking forward to their visit and to … taking shots together. this initially surprised me, but then excited me. my mind started racing as i began plans for drinking games and daydreaming about the apple pie shooters i used to messily mangle with alice and jenny before going to psi u parties.

i guess my inner 21-year old might not be ready to go down without a fight after all.

ah, yes.

so monday's are a magical day where we all carry ourselves out to the local dive bar, ugly's, for the $1 pbr special. none of us (except for kurt) drink the pbr, but it has been a good tradition and it somehow makes the week a little easier to slip into.

sadly, most everyone who began coming week after week has slowly found other things to do on monday nights. usually now, its just r & i plus mike and kurt. john makes it sometimes too. beyond that, not so much.

monday night it didn't matter though. i realized it was almost certainly the anniversary of the routine, meaning we have been drinking there on monday nights for a solid year now. it also turns out that the bar has been sold and will be redecorated in the next week or so.

this redecoration involves: taking all the crap off the walls, painting said walls, cutting the bar off (wonderfully, in the same place we sit) and adding dart boards there. it was a huge bummer to hear all of this — this is the closest bar to us and the threat of it turning into something horrible and lame is terrifying.

so i drank away my woes. the bartender, rachel, played a ton of metal. mike played a few songs. kurt debated whether he could tell bartender rachel that her nickname needed to be 'ugly rachel' so that we could tell rachel and rachael apart. i told him he might as well ask if her nickname could be something like 'fat ass rachel.' (bartender rachel is neither fat nor ugly, for the record. kurt tried to explain how it was ok since it would be ironic. or sarcastic. or something.)

there were 2 older women there who were batshit insane. one went into a tirade about the lack of people in the bar. kurt, from across the room, raised his hand and said 'im a person'. then she started talking about men. and asked him to come sit by her. he got frightened. of course, then he had to play pool with her a bit later. and kept running back to us, shivering because she had touched him.

during bartender rachel's songs, she played ozzy — 'no more tears'. as the song began, my rachael says 'who is this? is this the pet shop boys?'

if i hadn't been drunk, i might have been less upset. or more. i don't know. it hurt me on the inside though, badly. so much so that once we got home, i drunkenly exclaimed 'if you had asked me hours ago if i would marry a girl who didn't know the difference between ozzy osborne and pet shop boys, i would have said no!' and i meant it.

yeah, that went over well.
at least, i think it did(n't). because i don't remember a ton after leaving the bar. i know we sat on the curb near our apartment and talked for a while. and i said a lot of things i think i meant in theory but lacked the tact or intelligence to temper at the time. and then said that before sleeping.

of course, when i was reminded of this statement in the morning, i stood by it. i think i do now even.

all in all, a really fun evening and it def got me out of the tfb mood i was in prior in the day. did i miss anything guys?

chris rightfully chastised me for glossing over the bocci nazi, so i will rewind.

we sat at the end of one of the bocci courts and watched people play. this pair of girls were playing a couple. it quickly became clear that, to the guy half of the couple, this was no game. this was very very serious.

we started talking to the girls when they came down to our end, mainly to make fun of this guy. the girls had never played before, a fact lost on this guy. there were several points during the game where he actually grabbed the ruler to see whose ball was closer because he wasn't willing to concede.

chris made up a german voice for him. i can't do that accent, so i adopted a robot voice. (meg had asked me to see 'grandma's boy' (which, by the by, is bad like 'dude where's my car?') and that movie has a character who does a robot voice. i just saw it the day before, so it was fresh in my head.) we laughed at this guy's expense for the entirity of the game, something like 30 minutes.

and then he lost to these girls. we laughed our asses off.

and then the girls were tired of playing and chris and i took over for them. and then we promptly lost.

'vacation' almost over.

i flew out east for carter's graduation and spent friday in nyc before training it up to new haven on saturday. three days there and now i am sitting in the jet blue terminal to head back home. ill spend today/tonight with jason, andrea and finley. i never switched my computer time to east coast…it currently reads 3:30am. carter drove us to the airport — we got up at 3.30am. east coast time. translated, i went to sleep at 7pm and got up at midnight. yeah, i'm going to be screwed up.

a lot to think about over the last 5 days since i last posted. the reason for a lack of updates revolves around the fact that new haven has very little in terms of wi-fi. or the internet, it seems. so a lot of writing in my notebook this weekend. ill see what i can do here in talking about the highlights:

• new york, as always, was great. (and as i type those words, miles davis comes onto my ipod, which seems somehow perfect.) friday was spent in this order: breakfast at good enough to eat with rachael's family, a walk through central park where:
• we met tyghe jogging around the reservoir. seriously, i can't go into the city anymore without randomly running into someone i know. it's actually a really awesome thing but it happens enough now to freak me out.
• a quick taxi ride down to satellite records. we hadn't been record shopping in a while and it seemed like a good way to spend the afternoon. it turned out though that we arrived at almost the exact moment dj culture, true electronic dj culture, died in new york. satellite sells mostly hardware now, out of their front room. the back room, the record room, the room that should be packed with djs looking for white labels when you are in there at 2pm on a friday afternoon was empty. there was 1 other person there. the shelves were about half empty and what was hanging up was motley at best. i didn't think i would see the day that the klf's 'shag times' was hanging in a top spot there. i picked up 1 record, a house remix of 'welcome to the jungle'. considering my great love for 'appetite for destruction', it seemed fitting it would be my last record from my one-time favorite record store. chris and i were shaken.
• so we found a bar in the village with 2 for 1 margaritas. of course, it turned out the happy hour was full of inane rules (like the special was only good at the bar and we couldn't take the drinks out on their patio) and the owner seemed to be an asshole. but whatever. margaritas in the village, esp 2 for 1 ones is just the way to do things.
• we headed back to brooklyn and ate dinner and ended up at united, a pretty sweet bar — decorated like an old british study/library with several bocce ball lanes in the back. chris and i made friends with a couple of girls (who were there with their boyfriends) and then tyghe joined us for more beer and then we headed back to chris' where i fell asleep.
• saturday was spent by having brunch across from chris' place, training it to new haven and having dinner at carter's friend bethany's apartment.
• but everyone went home around 11 and i was still awake. so i decided to head out by myself and look for some adventure. and behold, adventure was found. i ended up finding the strip of clubs and bars near the new haven green. wandered into one of them, for 2 reasons: 1. no cover, 2. they were playing 'sweet home alabama'. got a beer and ended up next to a small group. the place was packed and one of the girls was looking for somewhere to put her gum. i offered the bottom of my beer glass, but it was too wet. so i found a receipt in my pocket. this led to some talking, some more talking and when they asked who i was drinking with, i said i was by myself. so they adopted me.
• there was a couple, josh and keri (the same girl who was trying to get rid of her gum), in this bigger group. i didn't talk much to the other people, but josh, keri and i hung out the rest of the night. we all skipped to another bar, where we danced and took some random pictures:
  
• josh finds a receipt at the atm that lists someone's checking account balance as $52,744.18. who does this? i mean, other than someone who doesn't understand how things like interest and investing work.
• last call, josh buys all three of us a drink, keri, drunk, flashes us and we are off to an after-hours club. except on the way, keri (drunk remember?) says some things that, unsurprisingly, upset josh. the evening goes into a tailspin of sorts, after public urination in new haven green and keri mooning us. the two of them bicker. we trade email addresses, josh's pals appear, tell me i should probably leave as the couple is 'unstable right now' and then eventually drive them home. i hang out long enough to make sure there is no drunk driving going on.
• i wander back towards carter's, stopping at louis' lunch and listen to some guy tell the best story: he is dating a girl, a nice girl. they drive 30 miles to new haven for dinner/drinks/pool at rudy's. he sends the girl up with some money to the bar to buy them drinks. she takes the money. and then keeps walking through the door, gets into her car and leaves. this poor guy is left with no money, no ride and is 30 miles from home. it is also almost 3am now. he said a taxi would be 70 bucks and i was only eavesdropping on the conversation, so i wasn't sure what i could do to help. (i had 10 bucks and my id, as carter convinced me to leave my wallet at home in case i got mugged.)
• i left and walked back. a couple of blocks later, there is a car alarm going off. i walk and walk towards it. and then realize there is someone in the car, with the alarm going off. then the alarm stops. then the car stops. i am up on it now and it pulls up to a stoplight about 30 feet from where it was parked. i keep staring, finding this all very odd. the driver notices me staring and i try to quickly memorize the license plate. the light turns and he pulls through it and then immediately over to the side of the street. i turn the corner and duck into the first alley and then walk through, coming out around the corner from where i went in. the car was gone. i call 911 and report a suspicious incident. the dispatcher tells me i dont need to stay, so i dont. its 3.30am.
• i'm also fairly certain i saw a bike get stolen. a guy is getting on a bike from a bike rack and as i walk up, was fiddling with chains. he couldn't get some off of a different bike and i could swear he said to me 'i'm going to come back and get that one.' this actually happened before the car thing and, for some reason, made me laugh a little. though i suppose it isn't actually funny.

i've been typing for 45 minutes now…and gotten through 2 days. the rest isn't exciting, but it will have to wait a while. you'll live.

r and i went to point reyes this past weekend. i decided i had to get out of town, compounded when i realized that it had been last august since i had taken a trip. (barring holiday travel to the east coast).

point reyes was beautiful and exactly what i needed. we had a wonderful room in the point reyes seaside lodge — no tv, a windowseat and a fireplace. coupled with the complete lack of cell phone signal and my leaving the laptop at home, i finally was unplugged for a few days. perhaps even for the longest amount since we went to japan a year and a half ago.

we saw a veritable menagerie while we were there: dogs, cats, many many birds (including some vultures — up close in the backyard of the lodge), cows, horses, sheep, dozens of deer, dozens more of elk, some giant slugs, a possum and even an ostrich.

we hiked, we went to the beaches, we saw the lighthouse there. we had wonderful meals and sat in the woods. we saw rolling farmland right up against a crashing ocean.

i can't recommend it enough. though r's legs killed when we got back and i woke up this morning (a full day and a half after getting back) wondering if i could still walk.

last night was spent at ugly's as most monday nights are. it was empty until about 9.30 and rachel, our normal bartender, had the night off. it's ok, because we made friends with bobbi, a nice 40 year old woman who has just moved here from chicago. she's feisty and as the night wore on, she ran with it. i won't go into too many details, but suffice to say we now know her opinions about 'licking lolli', how straight she is, how she isn't having any sexual relations with rachael or myself and various other unmentionables. all unprovoked and highly entertaining.

she traded phone numbers with r, wanting to go out to coffee. i'm excited through proxy — she seems fun and i think it'll be fun for r, especially since she is so introverted. heartless bastard i am, i'm hoping for rachael to be pulled out of her comfort zone. i do hope to hear good stories.

i ride caltrain 3 times a week up into the city. its a fine commute — long enough to be exhausting (leave the house at 7am, get back home at 7pm), but tempered by being able to relax for an hour each direction. prime gameboy/reading/writing time, esp since there is no wireless on the train. me and video podcasts have gotten pretty close too.

anyway, i ride 3 times a week. and after 6 months, i know the people who ride my train and who sit in my car. i sit in the same areas on the train everyday, as most other people do as well. it's this whole familiar stranger thing. you learn.

so there is a girl who rides my train that i think is awesome. she's like 13. you look at this girl and think 'wow, she is going to be gorgeous in a few years'. there's nothing weird or sketchy about me thinking she is cool, so let's skip that whole thing. you develop opinions about pretty much everyone you see on a regular basis, my opinion of her is just higher than most. one of the first times i rode the train, she was waiting and reading 'the alchemist' which i still haven't read, but have always heard good reviews of from people i like. so she got a point from me there. random observances go a long way towards forming opinions of strangers.

anyway. why bring any of this up, knowing my friends and the type of grief i am likely to get?

cause today she showed up to the station wearing a jean skirt with — and this is the punchline — hot pink fishnet leggings.

that matched her sneakers.

this was about an hour ago and i am no closer to digesting this article of clothes.

hot pink fishnet leggings.

hima, petunia, someone? can someone explain this to me?

it's almost like my cyclical theory of movies (a movie can be so bad, it is good again). i mean, i give this girl mad props for wearing them cause, well, how can i not? at the same time, i'm so utterly confused by them that i don't know what to think. i had to preface it like i did, because i believe that someone in middle school wearing these is different than a grown woman wearing them. but it doesn't make my understanding any more clear.

i hate hate hate leggings. but the inclusion of several other adjectives almost transforms these leggings into something else entirely. it's like mad libs or a grant morrison comic book.

can anyone help me form an opinion here?