Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers?

(we continue on the "recap of fall" blog series...)

I don't want to live in San Francisco long-term (short term!), but that city has some things going for it (public transport is not one of them, sadly). Namely, people are generally nice, but not in the over-bubbly SoCal way. I went on a run with Clark and we were immediately miffed when someone didn't say "hello" back to us while on the trail (they must have been East-coasters). If you say "hello" to people you run by in NYC, you either get a weird look or some sort of comment about your butt (a guy once told me I didn't need be running because I have a "luscious ass. Don't jog that off." Thanks, I know, I'm on Kayne's Workout Plan).

I digress. Things I like about the Bay Area:

• Riff and Clark


• Free vegan food (no joke - they were passing it out near the BART station in the Mission -- I don't usually jones for vegan food, but hey, good to know it's free)


• BYOB


• A "real" Macy's, open "real" late with a "real" shoe department, including a "real" nice salesman who picked out some knee-high (like almost over-knee-high) boots for me


• Mexican food


• Crazy Molly (and as an extension, tall friends)


• Access to numerous national parks


• Houses with murals of Obama on the front


• Outdoor space (all the apartments/homes I visited had a deck or garden or whatever)


• Loehmanns (we didn't find anything there, but the clothes we tried on plus the public dressing rooms = fun/disturbing)


• Drunk Riff

Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

Halloween is one holiday I truly missed while in Amsterdam (though they have Carnival). But this All Hallow's Eve we all wanted to be little Dutch girls, regardless of the costumes we were wearing.

I live next door to her, and she's harder to get into than a Pearl Jam concert.

Hello friends. Sorry for the long break. I have been busy/lazy. And it's fall. So it means there are a lot of stories.

In no chronological order, we'll start recounting them. Today: Stef gets her face melted in Pearl Jam's 2nd to last concert at the Spectrum. You sweat my seats. Big time.

Thor, mighty god of thunder!

I had a kick ass weekend.

1. The Governor and Dombro got hitched in a beautiful plantation/farm designed by Olmsted (landscape architect of central park). They are great dancers

2. I got to drive a jeep. I mean a proper, no top, stick shift jeep. If practicality were never an issue in life, this would be my car.

3. My mother now has a cat named Thor. (be scared for my children)

4. This is pretty hilarious. Check out page 13.

I hope not sporadically

Okay, I made a decision re my lack of pop-culture-ness. I will follow one new show this fall:
Gossip Girl

(don't cringe)

Fun Stef fact: I have a friend who gets a word of the day (per the title). On Saturday, that word was "defile". Let's use it in a sentence: "Team Europe defiled New York on Saturday night."

xoxo

I'm with it, I'm hip. Tucka, tucka, tucka, tucka

News flash: I do not live in 2009.

Friday night, karaoke-ing in the Governor/Dobro household, I was shamed into admitting:
- I did not know the words or tune to Alicia Keys' "No one"
- I had no idea Blink 182 was still together and that they had come out with a new album of semi-depressing punk music (which isn't to say I don't like it)
- If it had been my choice of song in the public/privacy of their home, it would have been the Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian (but I lost out to Roxette's Listen to Your Heart -- maybe the only other song I knew)

(side note: The people who designed the karaoke game, Lips, are some smart/tripped out people. In addition to the trailer being targeted at the bored-of-partying, the videos created to go with the songs - you can choose the "real" video or some cartoon mock up - are, seriously, for people on drugs only. I was sitting sober, listening to my friends break it down to John Denver's "Country Roads" while watching cartoon cobras lick and fight each other over vanilla ice cream cones that fell from the sky. It was....a little scary)

Now, who knows what year I actually live in, but there have been way too many pop reference moments lately that have gone over my head. I'm not going pretend I was always up on pop culture, but let's just say that in the Trivial Pursuit 90s game, I kick ass and take names.

Recently, Mrs. P told me that her husband has decided that is important to stay "hip" to pop culture so they are making an effort to do things like watch episodes of the new 90210 and talk about Hannah Montana (who, I have to admit, I didn't know about until she told me who it was -- I feel like Lisa Simpson in the Waverly Hills episode; does that TV reference but me any pop points?). But I'm not sure if I'm willing to go that far; I thought my interest in vampires (see prior post) was enough. Do I have to start reading US Weekly? (does US Weekly cover Hannah Montana?)

At the end, my brain's going to be worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That sounded horrible, didn't it? Bring me another maitai!

I'm about to go have a 2 or 3 martini lunch. F*ck it I say -- we're in a recession, there is limited amount of work I can bill, it's finally feeling like summer in NY (read: 90 something degrees. 134% humidity) and it's Friday.

I think I desrve my martinis for other reasons:
1) geometry scares me
2) sufficiency data problems are like reading swahili
3) I am pissed at my liberal arts education
4) I wish I was an engineer for like, just the next two months, with an engineer's brain and like, y'know, like smart
5) Wow, I'm talking as if I've alread had those martinis

The moral of the story is: Never talk to muffin trees.

Actually, the moral of the story is, standardized testing is making me feel stupid. I don't actually know how to solve for "if Fred leaves Florin at 95 mph and Tommy leaves Guilder, driving an average rate of 73 mph, what time do they meet at the Florin/Guilder border?"

(two points for anyone who gets the hidden movie reference)