The Taconic Tales or "Things That Could Only Happen to Me"

Alright, so this one is for you, Grandpa, the one who just laughed at me at 2:45am after I barged into your house & woke you up with tales of things that could only happen to me and who just shrugged and said, "Write it down."

So last night (Saturday), I had to travel up to Poughkeepsie for Sara & TJ's engagement meet-up at Mahoney's. I left in a good mood after an enjoyable recording of MetroBuzz. Although I was weary of making the trip up and back within the same night (I'm dog sitting again for my aunt), I was still really excited. So there I am, on the Taconic Parkway still near the Bronx/Westchester border, but on the Westchester side. Suddenly, I'm half-blind. My contact is no longer in my eye! I have really bad eye sight. Like, I'm a barely contact prescription away from legally blind. So this is not good. I find a spot to pull over. There's no shoulder on that part of the Taconic, so I pull over in the triangle shaped area between the parkway & an exit ramp. I've found my contact on my scarf, but it must have fallen out because my eyes were dry because it was rolled up and I couldn't unroll with. I tried, but it would have ripped.

I was too far along my way to turn around but not close enough to Poughkeepsie to justify driving further. I would have had to drive with one eye closed the rest of the way in the dark and then the 2.5 hours home much, much later that night. I ended up pouring water from a re-filled water bottle onto it to try to moisturize it so I could try to put it in my eye. I got it to resume regular contact lense shape, but my elbow hit my water bottle (I was too blind & anxious to get my contact into my eye that I had not put the cap back on it) and naturally, it spills directly on my iPod. Fabulous! It wasn't working on the way there, but it must have dried out while I was at the bar because thankfully, it was working again (knock on wood) for my drive home.

Sara & TJ's party was awesome. I had a kick ass time. So I was in a great mood again at 12:45am when I left to embark on my 2.5 hour drive back to my aunt's house, where I am dog sitting again this weekend. Well, my cell phone was dying. It was dying when I got to the party, but I had taken it into the bathroom with me and charged it for a few minutes here and there while I was at the party, just to buy me a little time on the way home with a working phone. I also needed gas, but was hoping that I'd have enough to make it to Queens or Long Island before having to stop. About 30 minutes into my drive, the gas light goes on (damn driving to Riverhead for work with all the stop & go traffic every day). The stretch of the Taconic I was on was unfortunately where the exits led to other highways or across the Hudson River or into Connecticut or whatever.

10 miles pass since the light goes on, it's almost 1:30am & I turn my phone on to call my dad to see if he knows anything in the area. He doesn't. I get off at the next exit, but there's nothing. Like, nothing. I keep driving & see a guy at a stop light. I flash my brights at him several times & wave my arms out the window. He directs me to "Go straight, bear left when you get to a stop sign & you'll run into a Mobile station." I head off in the direction he says, call my dad back and go, "I have no idea where I am or where this gas station is, but if you don't hear from me again soon, it's because my phone is dead & I may run out of gas so you may have to call the auto club or something. I'm by a Children's Hospital called---" Yup - that's when my phone died for good.

I found the gas station & started on my way back. Found the parkway really quickly but I'm still really friggin exhausted at this point because, well, it's late. Naturally, I'm not paying attention quickly enough and I end up going NORTH towards Albany instead of south towards New York City. The exits aren't close between (I love how Rt. 95 once you get into Delaware has it's exits corresponding with miles), so I drive a few more minutes to the Pleasantville exit and turn around to go south. Can we all guess what happens next? If you answered, "You missed the correct exit ramp & ended up accidentially traveling on the service road next to the parkway which then started to lead away from the parkway but were luckily blindly following a State Trooper who turns out was heading towards a different parkway that connected with the parkway you needed" then you guessed correctly!

So now I'm finally back on the Taconic Parkway going south. No cell phone & a half hour behind schedule. It's around 2am at this point and I'm still about 2 hours from home. My parents have no idea what's happening to me & I'm exhausted. I sped back to the Throgs Neck Bridge as quickly as I would dare to (with my luck or my level of tired, I wasn't going to push it). I made a beeline for my grandparents' house to try to use their telephone to call my parents & Jay to tell them I was okay. I should note that I was somewhat afraid that my uncle would wake up to the sound of someone coming into the house at 2:45am & come downstairs with his gun drawn on me (he's a cop). But I figured I'd take my chances and I had to pee anyway so whatever.

So that's basically where this story ends. My grandpa woke up while I was on the phone with my parents. I explained to him everything that had happened to me the entire night whining, "Why does this stuff always happen to ME? Who has a problem on the way there AND the way back?!" He just laughed at me and shook his head and said, "Write it all down." And that's what I did! My grandpa is so cool. I ended up getting back around 3:50am. I went to bed somewhere around 4:30 by the time I let the dog out and got changed and woke Jay & my parents up to tell them I finally made it home. A lovely little story about there and back again.

Baby's First iMovie

So I've been teaching myself more cool things that my Macbook can do and moved into iMovie, which completely and totally confused me haha. However, thanks to some screen sharing sessions with JJ, I've learned enough to at least imitate what he what showing me (That's what she said) and decided to take this little video we shot one day when he drove me to work while he was in New York over Christmas and make it into a 34-second feature film just for you!

I think I shall title it, "I Need to Go 70 in a 50, Motherf*cker". Enjoy, it deserves a full 5 stars!

Next stop, Hollywood, right?!

Oh this is the start of something good, don't you agree?

Okay, so the gorgeous Allison has requested I make a new blog post so that she doesn't have to see my bloody finger anymore and I kinda think she's right! So lucky for Ali and the rest of you tired of looking at my mangled claw, I've got an announcement:

I'm moving to Raleigh in the middle of February!

My last day of work is February 4 (a Wednesday) and my birthday is Sunday, February 8. I also found out as I got home tonight that Brian & Bobby got tickets to see "The Daily Show" on February 9, so I am going to go with them and then drive down to Raleigh that week and try to find a job, etc. I'll couch hop with Jay and Sara & TJ and who knows maybe Clif'll let me crash for a night. At least the slumber party will distract me from the absolute terror I have about finding a job haha. I told my bosses at work and although I was scared to do it, I was really more just sad in general. It's a nice place to work and they're really good bosses and I like the people I work with so it's kinda like I'd be losing more friends.

But anyway.

I'm really excited and really scared. I'm excited because I think that it'll be a great new chapter of my life but I'm scared about finding a new job. I accepted back in 2007 when I decided that if it came to it, I'd be the one to move that it would mostly mean giving up 90% chances of ever having a job in the fields that I have my degree in (Communications with focuses in Journalism & PR as well as a minor in English & Theatre). I worry too much and I think too much. And nothing is or will EVER be as beautiful as New York City and that's a fact. BUT I like Raleigh and even though it's clear that I will really want to end up back in NY someday, I cannot wait to start a new life there.

I'm just going to miss my friends. I'll miss Cassidy (bitch moved back from North Carolina as I was moving there), Tricia, Julia, Amanda, Amanda, Ali, Ian, Brian, Claudio, Randy, Anthony, Joe & Steph, Eddie, Bobby, and everyone around here that I know I'm not mentioning (forgive me). I'll miss the BTR crew, Annie & Jeff & Max & Maia and all of our mid-day margaritas. I'll miss Yankee games with Angri & Sabella & Storey. I'll miss my dog Strider. But most importantly I'll miss my family: my parents, sisters, grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousin. Just as way excited as I am to move, I'm just as sad that I won't get to see them whenever I want to anymore. I know that this post sounds somewhat shaky but I made this decision with both my heart and my head and I'm certain that it's the right one.

It's gonna be a big adjustment and I'm really gonna need a lot of support from all sorts of places.

Oh, and I'm gonna need a job if anyone's hiring...

Colleen Vs. the Tuna Can

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN SLOWLY IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE SIGHT (OR PICTURES) OF BLOOD, OPEN WOUNDS, OR STITCHES! Skip way ahead.

Okay, so I got an early start in 2009 with all the action. Sunday, January 4 started off as a normal day. Woke a sick Jay up at 7:30am after having gone to bed at 2:30am (Chargers game at a sports bar for Bobby's birthday then the last 2 episodes of Season 1 of Chuck did us in). Realized at like 9:30am that we didn't have to get up at 7:30am because I miscalculated what time we had to leave for the airport. Oops. We could have had a full extra hour to sleep. We were dog sitting for the weekend at my aunt's house, so we headed to my parents house for the worst bagels I've ever eaten, both in and out of NY combined.

Side note: On the drive over there, I learned that I bought the wrong version of The Sims for my Macbook. I wanted the one that went with the Livin' Large expansion pack - which I had just bought as well - but I bought The Sims 2. I don't know, I thought that The Sims 2 was the one that went with everything. I'm an idiot.

Anyway, after the crap bagels, I drove Jay to MacArthur Airport in Islip and sent him on his way. Went back to my aunt's house to clean up and basically wash everything that Jay had coughed on before going back home. My aunt also go very sick on her trip, so my grandparents were stopping by her house to leave food, etc for her. They head out the door at 2:15pm. I was waiting for the sheets to come out of the dryer and then I was going to go home. My mom wanted me back home between 3-3:30pm because as Italians, we eat dinner at like 3:30pm on Sundays.

So it's 2:15pm and Grandma & Grandpa say goodbye. I decide I don't to wait to eat dinner because I am hungry NOW. I get one of those single servings of tuna fish cans, that you peel it back to open and put it on crackers and eat. That'll hold me over. Yeah. I'm sitting on the couch, watching Supernatural on my laptop & Skype chatting with Jay, who is at the Baltimore Airport for his layover. Please note that Jay's new Blackberry had some sort of software issue that day and was not working at all. I go to peel back the tuna can and instead of peeling up evenly, it rolls up together (as in instead of an even horizontal motion, it rolls up vertically) and completely into my middle finger on my right hand. I looked down and saw immediately that it was not going to be okay. I ran to the front door and was SO lucky that my grandparents hadn't left yet. They were fixing something outside the house but had already started the car. My finger is a gushing blood like a fountain & I've got the plastic carton the can & crackers came in under it to catch the blood. By the time my grandpa got to the door 30 seconds later, there was A LOT of blood in there. I just called out from the door across the lawn, "Umm I cut my finger and it's bad."

My grandpa can't hear me and goes, "Huh?!" So I do the only thing I could do and hold it up, blood streaming and all. We go wash it out and it's evident that the bleeding is NOT going to stop and that it's really freaking deep. My grandparents place calls to my parents to tell them that someone has to come over to take me to the ER for stitches. Now at this point, I had left a very sick Jay on the computer for a good 5 minutes, probably wondering what's going on. So my grandpa types him the funniest message: "this is lou. colleen has to go to er. bye."

Yeah, I could only imagine what I'd do if I had gotten that message and had no clue what had happened and had no phone at all. So after we get my finger wrapped up, I called thru Skype to fill him in. My mom arrived and we went to the ER.

That's basically it. We were there for about 3 hours and some guy kept puking in the room across the hall from me so it smelled terrible. I didn't really cry at all BUT I did lose my cool when the doctor was pulling it apart and touching it to see if I had cut a tendon or not. And I started to shake from nerves and sweat when he put the anesthesia all around it because I could feel it going through my veins and it's just such an unnatural feeling in general. Something cold running through your veins and all. It took a good 3 or 4 minutes before it was numb. My dad had come down when he heard what was happening and he stayed in there with me because my mom's not so good with blood at all. It felt silly having both your parents with you in the ER to get stitches in your finger at 24 years old, but neither wanted to leave and I felt loved. I ended up watching him do the stitches.

Okay, so here's the gross part. I have pictures from my camera phone that I took while we were in the ER and then pictures of what it looks like now, 4 days later. I just took the badages off for the first time to change them right before I took them. I went big, huh? Gotta go big or go home. Thank goodness that I only cut my finger!

All stitched up:

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully this is the only time I'll have to post open wounds on here ever again (knock on wood).

Merry Christmas 2008 From Colleen, Jay, & the Fam

After a bit of a delay and then some lost luggage (it got delivered finally, not even 5 minutes ago), Jay finally arrived here for Christmas! We've been doing a lot of eating, drinking, and being merry. I was showing my family what my Macbook can do and we decided to do some "Merry Christmas" messages. So without further adieu, here are some holiday wishes from us:

P.S. Sorry about the bad lighting!

My First California Christmas Experience

California last weekend with Jay's family ROCKED. Seriously, I had such an awesome time. We flew in on Saturday morning, with our connecting Southwest flights meeting up in Vegas and then flying to Burbank (I had no delays getting in to Las Vegas but Jay did; we then had a bit of a delay leaving Vegas because of snow in Utah I think, but it was way better being delayed with someone!)

Anyways, here's some pictures from that weekend, with captions. There's also a video in here of Jay playing guitar off-the-cuff in the kitchen while no one was paying attention. I noticed he was and grabbed my camera to pretend to take a picture and recorded some of it before he realized what I was doing & we had to go eat or whatever it was. Enjoy some of our lame pictures from our very fun Christmas #1!

Video First:



Now the photo album:

We drink when we are delayed in airports, no matter what time of day it is.

The start of the (literally) 24-hour long game of Risk that Jay & his family played!

Taking a break to text/look at pictures. We're so technologically dependent.

Naturally, we had to take a picture of the game before we went to bed that night to make sure no one cheated over night! Jay is green.

My first time ever playing Wii bowling.

All tuckered out from my 10 minutes of Wii Bowling (plus it was like 9pm NY time...)

We played in Claire's Accessories during a quick mall-trip on Sunday, 12/14. Sylar - I mean Jay - wants glasses for some reason...

I found the pickle hidden in the Christmas tree & went to claim my prize! (Okay, maaaaaybe I had a tad bit of help from Aunt Mary & Uncle Brett...)

All set for take-off from Burbank to JFK and wearing my headband because it hurt my head when I tried to sleep :)

God, we LOVE JetBlue...

My Macbook Does Cool Things Part 2: The Sepia Diaries

I promise to stop with the lame videos soon but SERIOUSLY I haven't even BEGUN to explore everything this computer can do! Yesterday morning, I found out that I could film using different effects and backgrounds yay. So last night, I decided to once again be a tool and film in sepia. I know all these settings are old news to most of my mac-whore friends, but I don't care, I'm having a ton of fun playing around with this myself (That's what she said). I promise the videos will stop soon and life can go back to normal.

So here's Colleen featuring Jay's voice presented in sepia! Golf claps.

An Apple a Day

November 30, 2008. 11:30pm.

I finally purchased a Macbook after almost a year of computer problems.  I didn't get one of the new aluminum ones (way way cool but a little too expensive), but I got the white one and I'm really excited.  I think it was one year ago this week that I was staying with Jay at his school for the week and he tried to start the Mac attack slowly by having me use his laptop while I was there, but I finally jumped on the Apple Bandwagon over the last two months that I have been using John's iBook.  So...yay!  No more external speakers and half-working external microphones and clumsy external webcam hookups and terrible sound quality when recording podcasts!

Holler.

November in a Paragraph (or Two)

I know I've gone MI-blogging-A the last month, but I've had nothing really interesting to say. Went to Raleigh for two fabulous weekends in a row. Dog sat for my aunt last week. Workin'. Seeing movies (Loved Zack & Miri Make a Porno and Role Models, really liked Quantum of Solace). Finally finished all 4 books of the Twilight series - I hated Bella right until the very end where she got a lot more tolerable, but over all really enjoyed the second and third parts of Breaking Dawn actually. I think Eclipse and Breaking Dawn kept me interested because the stories branched out to other characters and not just Bella self-loathing and pining about Edward, which made me question how anyone could ever let their young daughters read books with such a terrible role model for a heroine. Now I'm continuing my decline into geek by reading Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli. I think it's quite fascinating though. Hung out with Ian and the newly engaged Joe Matero & Steph (and her rock). Met up with Julia, Amanda & Topher this past weekend and saw the Mepham High School's version of Dracula, which was directed by my Home Fry himself, Eddie. That's about it.

Anyway, the last month really has flown by, which is why I've had nothing interesting to really say haha. Although Jay did get me into Chuck this past month and it's awesome. Definitely check out that show (Season 2 is on hulu.com and I haven't seen Season 1 yet but it's not hard to follow at all). Anyways, I should get to work. I have to work this Friday even though only one doctor will be in, so Jay & I won't get to spend Thanksgiving together, which is a major bummer. Hopefully the next few weeks go by quickly, since we won't see each other again 'til Dec 13 when we go to California for the weekend. I'll probably get all whiney before then though.

To conclude this energized post, here's a funny cartoon from the New York Post. Dedicated to all my Mets fan friends out there:

Podcast Awards Time!

Okay boys and girls, it's Podcast Awards time! Voting opens today, October 23 and closes at the stroke of midnight on November 7 (11:59pm on November 6).

You can vote once every 24 hours per IP address or name/email (cough cough). Just go to www.podcastawards.com and vote for "MetroBuzz" in the Best Comedy category. Whether you just do it this once or you remember to do it every day, I'd be so grateful. Here's what your ballot should look like, hehe:

Thank you so much. I went to the awards ceremony last year in California with Jay and it was really cool, so it's kinda surreal that we were actually nominated this year.

Christmas in October

It's time for a happier post about my weekend, one that doesn't involve airplanes. So this weekend, I had a completely work-free weekend for once. We went to 5 Guys with Clif (as per usual), then we were going to go see "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" but the time was listed wrong online, so instead, we went back to Jay's house and watched "Casino Royale," since I've never seen it. I love action movies like that, so I really liked it a lot. Jay & I actually each bought the book of short stories that makes up "Quantum of Solace" to read on Sunday.

After breakfast on Sunday (Jay's dad cooks brunch every Sunday morning & it's so good), we did some errands and what not. Then, we went to dinner and to again attempt to see the movie. As we were finishing dinner, I got a text message from Chris in Boston, telling me that MetroBuzz got nominated for a Podcast Award for Best Comedy!!!! I'm actually really, really excited about it. Last year, when I went to California with Jay to watch him accept the award for Best Entertainment podcast, I never ever thought that we'd get nominated. I was incredibly giddy after finding this out, so naturally, a celebration was called for. Since we had already paid the bill, we decided to just go up to the bar in the restaurant and do straight vodka shots. 10 minutes later, two semi-drunk award-nominated podcasters walked into a movie theatre. We then proceeded to giggle our way through the entire first half. We had gotten popcorn and I placed it on the arm of the chair next to me. Jay for some reason decided to lift up the arm and popcorn flew everywhere, which prompted more obnoxious giggling from us, but there were like 5 other people in the theatre and we were in the back row. So whatev. (Btw, the movie was pretty good - having spent a year as an outsider in the indie music world, it was actually quite believable to me and made me really miss living in NYC even more than I already do.)

We went to the mall on Saturday, October 18. Tell me what's wrong with this picture:

Alright, gotta peace out - Time to go back to Job#2 work before I head to Job#1. I didn't say it before, but thank you so much to anyone who is reading this who helped nominate us for a Podcast Award. I'm really so excited. I'm going to be bugging everyone to vote for us, starting Thursday, October 23, 2008. You can vote once every 24 hours and I'd really appreciate it if you could do it. Just go to podcastawards.com and vote MetroBuzz in the Best Comedy category and vote for Jay's podcast, The Lost Podcast with Jay & Jack in the Best Entertainment category.

Finally, I'll leave you with another cheesy kitten video. I took this at literally 5:15am, so if I look exhausted, it's because I was. But I've already gots a boy and he was there while I filmed it, so again, whatev son! Okay, I really need to do work now :P

Oohhhh sweet child of mine

More lameness + Bad camera angle on my face + drunk eyes = word.

Calling Clay Aiken Fans.

Clif has an announcement and I drunkenly try to bring a joke back from the dead, much like the person deity it's about.

I'm not going to pretend that this is interesting, but I the battle at the end makes me giggle.

Thanks St. Anthony

I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING!!!

Where on EARTH was it? Well, here's the full story:

As you may or may not know, I lost the ring that Jay gave me two weeks ago to this day. I've been absolutely devastated and massively, embarrassingly emo about it. I've been looking and re-looking everywhere, every day. I knew that it was in my room somewhere, but it was nowhere to be found at all. The bare basics are I had it on my desk right before I went to bed. I had moved my lamp onto the ground the night before and when I woke up early that Thursday morning, I moved my lamp back onto my desk and knocked into the ring. I didn't know what fell - I just heard a noise of something hitting the ground - and when I went to put it on a few hours later, realized that's what had fallen. I had looked at the ground at the time it fell, but didn't see anything and was so in need of coffee and a good morning urination that I didn't even bother to look at the time.

When I realized what had fallen, I freaked out hard core. I couldn't find it ANYWHERE that morning. My dad was still home and he helped me look and finally, I was late to work and had to halt the search til that evening. No luck. The next day, Friday Sept 12, I had to go to my grandparents' house in Syosset to spend the night because I was driving to LaGuardia Airport early early the next morning to go to Raleigh to visit Jay. I'm not gonna lie: I seriously was on the verge of having a breakdown those few days because I was just so upset. I returned home from Raleigh relaxed and hopeful that I'd find it. But still no luck. We looked EVERYWHERE. In the sheets, in the bed frame, through the garbage (Friday was a garbage day and my mom had dumped all of the garbage from our rooms into the main trash can outside that morning), in everything under my bed, in the lamp, in every drawer - open or closed at the time - , in my closet, through every shoe, in the wall, in the pipes, in the radiator, everywhere. I'm way anal and I need to put all of my clothes away before I go to bed every night, so although there were no clothing with pockets out at the time, we still looked anyway.

Then there were a few things that I guess put this into motion from the Universe.

Last night, as I went to bed, I moved my lamp again (I've been re-creating it every morning with no luck - I'm seriously fucking crazy) and had the idea to look inside it once again. But it was on and really hot from the light bulb and it was late, so I made a mental note to look this morning. Last week - circa last Wednesday or Thursday - I declared my hatred for this lamp, which was my mom's when she was a kid & I've had forever. I think I even tried to punch it. It's a nice, ceramic lamp with roses painted on it. I even swore about 82 times that I hated looking at it, hated it, wanted it gone from my room because I blamed it for knocking my ring into oblivion.

Prior to this thought, I was doing my usual masochistic moping and decided to search on eBay for the same ring. I found it here and told Jay about it. Because it was like $50 at the time - and white gold (mine is sterling silver) - he offered to get me this one as a replacement. I decided against it, then changed my mind, then decided against it again, then changed my mind. Finally, I decided against it before we went to bed. He was wonderful as usual and said that he'd do it anyway if it didn't get crazy expensive.

So this morning, I decided to search through my parents room and then the laundry room. My sheets had been moved to the laundry room that morning that my ring was lost, before I realized it was gone. My mom, who along with my dad, has been incredibly helpful and tolerant these past few weeks, had brought the sheets upstairs to her room and carefully laid them out on her own bed in order to see if the ring was stuck there. Since probably the Monday I got back from Raleigh (Sept 15) & couldn't find it, I've been desperately thinking of places it could have been. So this morning, I looked in their room just in case it had fallen there without her noticing and I moved the washing machine and looked through it, just in case it had fallen there.

I had no luck and then I basically had an emotional breakdown. I mean, I was sobbing in the shower and on the way to work. I was talking to Jay about how it was gone and he, as my parents and grandma have maintained, said that I had to have faith and believe I'd find it. I just had a complete panic attack over it and couldn't breathe and totally lost it in a way that I hadn't before. I guess I just completely lost hope at that point. He again offered to get the white gold version of the ring on eBay and I freaked out more, saying how it wasn't mine, I wanted MINE back, I couldn't wear one that belonged to someone else. He managed to convince me that once he gave it to me, it would become mine and it would be okay. We agreed that if it stayed under $100, he would get it. He made a bid with 10 minutes left for $100 right before he went to make a presentation in class (thank you Steve Jobs for inventing the iTouch), but someone outbid him for $102 at the last minute. He was disappointed that he didn't win it, but I was for the first time, very calm about it.

Maybe it was thanks to all the crying this morning or maybe it was because I had some sense of faith finally, but I realized when I went on break and he told me how sad he was that he didn't win it that it just wasn't meant to be. I knew then that if he didn't win it, then it wasn't meant to be. And the reason it wasn't meant to be was because I'd eventually find it. That was the first time in two weeks that I came to some kind of acceptance about it possibly being gone for a long time. I still looked this evening when I got home, as I have done for the last 2 weeks, but I didn't freak out or cry at all.

I was sitting here around 11pm and saw that the top of my lamp was slightly off. Now, I've noticed this every night for the last week since I tried to take it out behind the bleachers, but been too "fuck you, lamp" to really do anything about fixing it. But when I looked at it tonight, I remembered how I wanted to search inside it again. So I looked in and saw something. It didn't look out of the ordinary, but I figured I had to fix it because it IS an old, nice lamp and I should act 24-years-old and fix it. I took the cover off and saw that this thing in there wasn't gold, like the trim of the lamp, but silver. So I took it apart further and guess what?!?!?!?!?! I knew a split second before my hand met it, but still couldn't believe it til I saw it. That's why it wouldn't fit back in the correct way last week!!

YAY!!!!!

I promptly started screaming with glee (isn't glee a great word) and danced around my house until my parents and Katelyn told me to shut up so they could go to bed. Thank you to everyone who put up with all of my incredibly emo and borderline breakdown-like behavior and texts and Twitters about this ring. Naturally, I haven't taken it off since I found it lol.

And you know what? I swear it doesn't even feel like I ever went 14 days without wearing it.

Pictures to explain. I think if you click on them, they'll enlarge:

The Ring on the Milk Carton

At least my boyfriend has a sense of humor about it, even if I don't:

How can I get this on a milk carton?

P.S. My room has become comparable to Homeland Security and/or TSA. Nothing gets in or out of it without being searched fully and routine searches and re-searches of areas of the room (aka all of it) are conducted daily. And just like in the real world, all that's come of it nothing substantial has turned up and I'm delayed getting to places I need to be.

The Universe's Easy Target

So upon waking up to learn that this is the 4th straight week that we have a problem with MetroBuzz that may require re-recording (at least it wasn't my computer this time lol), I check the weather forecast for the weekend. I'm flying out of Islip on Long Island to Raleigh late late late on Friday night and guess what? Yup, it's supposed to rain in NY, Philadelphia (where my layover is) and Raleigh, where I'm supposed to arrive at 12:19am. If I were flying from LGA, I'd automatically plan to be delayed or cancelled, but since I've yet to fly out of Islip, I'm remaining optimistic...somewhat. I tell Jay about the yet again screwed up podcast and the bad weather and - pairing this up with my still missing ring ("St. Anthony, St. Anthony, stick around...") and some other news that we got yesterday morning that bummed us out - he goes:

"I think the universe has the most fun fucking with you because you have the best reactions."

Yeah. That's probably true. I should work on that.

Drinking Water in Raleigh

Nothing better than a poorly shot video in a darkened bar. We have fun though.

Kittens at Play

I've been meaning to post these videos all week long, but haven't had a free moment to. When I was in Raleigh last weekend, I decided to go all mom on the kittens and take videos. Are they cute videos? Yes. Are they probably interesting to everyone else in the world but me? Not at all. But this is my blog and I'm apologetically showing off Ledger & Jasper the kittens. Little Zoe the kitten was camera shy (aka still sleeping). Ledge is the gray one and Jasper is the white one.



Aaaaand:

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Another Labor Day weekend has come and gone. Jay came up to NY again, just like last year, but this year, we stayed at my aunt's house on Long Island. It actually totally rocked because she's in Key West (hello and goodbye, Gustav) til next Monday, so we got to play house for a few days. In no particular order, we watched the second season of The X-Files because we're cool like that, played with the dog (I'm technically dog sitting), played in the pool, went Down Port with Ian, Matero, & Bobby, braved a trip to the Outback (which we swore off back in January after we went 3 times in one week), ate McNulty's (greatest ice cream ever), partook in a croquet battle with my family for my mom's birthday (don't ask), scared ourselves into being awake all night because we thought we heard a noise that ended up being the dog sitting down heavily at 4am, and ate an entire pizza/order of garlic knots from Alfredo's in one sitting (ugh). Dropped him off at the airport at 6am this morning, boooo. Now I don't know what to do with myself alone here for the next week, but at least I'll be in Raleigh in 12 days. Countdown commences.

Anyway, for some work anecdotes:

• A man told me last week that I look like the type of person who is "used to getting her way by charming people or by not charming people" and that he bet that I was the "youngest in my family and the only girl." Umm, that could not be further from the truth on either account. 1) I cannot look like someone used to getting my way because a) there is a reason that I am not in sales, but rather a writer and that is because I am horrible at expressing what I want while I am speaking outloud and b) That's why I get so high strung sometimes; because I don't know how to charm my way into getting what I want, so I just freak out about stuff not working out before I even give it a chance! So WHATeva playa. 2) I am NOT the youngest in my family, nor the only girl. In fact, I am the OLDEST of THREE girls and a neutered dog. Pffft. Smart ass.

• A woman who brings her mother in twice a week was talking to me about Broadway. This woman begins to tell me about the Broadway revival of "South Pacific" and then goes on to mock whisper, "It must have been GAY night!!!" Without even really giving it much thought, I kinda said to myself, "Well, duh, you went to see a Broadway musical." Then she continue, however, to declare, "SERIOUSLY, I do not care WHAT you do in your own private home but I do NOT wish to see you hold hands or do other sexual things in public!!" That was at the point where I gave up.

Okay, many more to follow, I am sure. The end for now!

California Dreamin'

I had the craziest dream last night and I have no idea what it means at all, though I should probably just take it as it is:

I was returning home to New York (JFK airport for some strange reason; I usually fly out of LGA) from what I think was Raleigh (minor detail I forgot after waking up). I had a flight that left early in the morning and the last time I looked at my watch in my dream was 6:45am. I fell asleep. I woke up and I was on a JetBlue flight (which I guess is why I was supposed to be at JFK, since it doesn't fly to LGA), but it was strangely quiet. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something. I was in the front and like, "Eff this! Let's get off this pliz-zane!" I looked at my watch and saw that it said 9pm, but thought not much of it, thinking that maybe it was 9am & my watch was just spazzing. I left the plane. It was sorta set up like the "Soarin' Over California" ride at Disneyland - very wide.

I walked off and into the airport and immediately got confused. It wasn't JFK. I kept walking, this time a little more, "Ummm WTF?!" Then I see a huge sign on the wall: "Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport."

Naturally, I'm a little bit panicked to find out that I have not landed in New York, but LAX in California.

So I run back to the plane and am magically not stopped by security or anyone and I go back to my seat, as they're in the middle of announcing that we were unable to land at John F. Kennedy Airport and had to fly to LAX instead. (As Jay pointed out when I told him this morning, "So...they couldn't land in NY, so they...flew to California?")

As one can only do in dreamland, I find a free customer service representative as soon as I get into the terminal, who looks and sounds suspiciously like my Aunt Carol, who I only see like 4 times a year. I explain to her that I'm part of the NY JetBlue flight and I needed to get home. She took me to this back door - almost secret entrance - to a ticket counter that also doubled as a line at a grocery store. Yes, it was still set up in LAX. I explained to him the situation - realize that it's actually only 6pm since it was PDT time - and he looks up my next flight options back to NY.

At this point in my dream, I'm magically also on the phone with Jay, explaining what's happening to him. It was the same situation as when I returned from Comic Con; a Wednesday and I technically didn't have anything to do until the following Monday. So I suggest to the ticket agent/grocery store clerk that I can wait til the following morning to get a flight out (hey, when in Rome Los Angeles...). Jay and the Aunt Carol look/soundalike try to shush me up, but I insist the whole time, "It's fine. I don't have anything to do the rest of this week and Jana lives in Burbank, she can maybe come pick me up! I've never seen LA!" Jay keeps insisting he'll call his Aunt Cindy or some other relative he has in LA or even Ralph & Stevi while the Aunt Carol look/soundalike is hushing me up, like I'm an idiot for not wanting to rush back to NY on a red-eye flight.

The man tells me there's a flight leaving very soon or else there's another one at 11am the next morning. I'm all about calling Jana in Burbank to show me LA/introduce me to David Duchovny ((sigh)), but just as I'm about to find out what flight I am taking, I woke up.

So, what does it mean?