Boston Babies Bathing Beneath the Big Blue Beautiful

There's a lot of frolicking goin' on in Frog Pond today in this stupendous weather.

(Perhaps Not) Mild Shopping Euphoria

I am really unduly excited about today's purchases. Ok, first off, let me tell you that not having a boss is starting to get very dangerous. All of this downtime has reacquainted yours truly with the joys of shopping. Before I became bossless, shopping really was quite the chore. I mean, I didn't want to spend my precious weekends trying on 20 pairs of jeans in a cramped changing room, listening to some girl in the next stall recount the details of her most recent makeout session. And after work, I'm already so tired of it all, the last thing I want to do is, well, try on 20 pairs of jeans and hear about someone's makeout session.

But, oh the wonders of the empty stores during the workday! Everyone seems so much more cheery! And less in my personal space! And everything is at my disposal! It is nothing less than a wonderful, merry playground full of fanciful delights. Ooooooh la la!

Yesterday, I spent my three hour lunch at Barneys, spending money I most certainly do not have. Today, I decided it probably best to notch it down a few pegs and spent the daily shopping escapade at, um, CVS. Hey, have you ever just roamed the aisles looking for fun and new things at the drugstore? You really gotta try it sometime. It is a good time. A darn good time.

Today's most exciting purchases involve a Quattro and a Spin Brush. Witness:



Are they not lovely in their loveliness and newness? Don't you just want to hold them and caress them and place them in fantastic places in your bathroom?

Humanity, I Will Save You With My Dancing

Oh yes. You will dance with me.

My boo and I went to watch X-Men: The Last Stand. Very surprisingly, I totally freaking loved it. Mutant powers are the best! The most awesome aspect is that they're all totally random and all over the place. I wish I could've been part of that brainstorming session when they were writing the script.

"Bob, what mutant power do you think this character should have?"

"Well, let's see, Ted. Maybe his mutation should cause porcupine needles to pop out of his face when he becomes excited."

"Excellent idea, Bob! What a completely inane and pointless skill!"

The boyfriend and I were so amped up by the movie, we mused on what our mutant skills would most likely be while we were waiting in the endless traffic to get out of Fenway. Sadly, we realized our skills would more than likely not be Class 5. Or Class 4. Ok, they probably wouldn't even be Class 3.

Well, let me just tell you what mine would be:
Whenever I dance, the person I'm looking at loses all control over their body and is forced to start dancing with me.

This wouldn't only be useful at the discotheque, now. Imagine if you will, at the climax of the movie, when the evil villain has finally made it into the inner sanctum of the highly classified government laboratory and is seconds away from pressing the magic button that somehow defies all physics and logic and ignites every nuclear bomb in the ENTIRE WORLD, I miraculously find him right in the nick of time. Immediately, I stare at him intently and...I...start...TO DANCE! He must dance, too! Completely against his will! We're doing the Cha Cha Cha as we save the world!!!!!

Now that would be an awesome ending.

Oh, Humanity, You Are My Nemesis

It's a game of roulette every time you step on the subway. You never know if you're going to be sitting next to Stinky Breath Person or Need To Eat Less Tacos Person or I Will Read Your Newspaper Over Your Shoulder Person or If You Move Too Much I May Slit Your Throat Person.

What a wonderous way to start a morning.

That was the most unrelaxing vacation of my life.

I'm not saying it wasn't fun. I'm saying it was too much fun. First off, I didn't know anyone on the trip. So, there was all of that anxiety about how dorky can I be, how sloppy drunk can I get without offending multiple sensibilities, etc. Ends up they were all as cool as Kool-Aid, so it was a never-ending good time. The unanimous favorite night was definitely Friday, when my boyfriend became BFF with the dj at Nikki Beach and we got invited to the afterparty, with all of the random locals our crew hooked up with in tow. There's just something special about riding home in a truck bed with a cute labrador licking your feet at 7 in the morning.

We splashed around a lot, we surfed, we kayaked, we swam up to the pool bar over and over and over again with our goofy dog-paddling, trying desperately not to get our pesos wet. All of the 5 year olds in the pool and myself swam around in goggles. There was taco noshing, World Cup watching, hot-tubbing and flagrant dancing at cheesy locales with names like Squid Roe.

All in all, a most fabulous vacation.

I got this meme from Seven Dots

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME:(middle name and current street name)
Marie Carlford
(which for the record, must be the WORST rock star name ever)

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME:(grandfather/grandmother on your mom's side, your favorite candy)
Mary Gummy Worms
(again, the WORST movie star name EVER)

3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME:(first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your last name)
C. Dan
(does this mean I'm not fly? why do my names suck so much??)

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Seafoam Slow Loris
(i'm just sad now.)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, hometown)
Marie Dallas
(enh)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME:(first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name)
Dan Ram
(also known as the idiotic character who constantly rams things with its head.)

7. JEDI NAME:(middle name spelled backwards)
Eiram
(ok, this one i kinda like)

8. SUPERHERO NAME:("The", your favorite color, the automobile your dad has)
The Seafoam Truck
(perhaps the number one reason why I'm not a superhero yet)

9. PORN STAR NAME:(first pet, street you grew up on)
Bare Fairway
(it was really Bear, but this spelling is obviously more appropriate. of course, this is the only good name. this is clearly a sign from god.)

I plan on using the phrase "loco de cabeza" at least 20 times a day.

Oh my god, I woke up at 6:30 am and jogged. Jogged! In the morning! I know, crazy talk. But I did it. And it was fab. Have I mentioned I purchased a pedometer? Even if there was no other proof that I am an old lady, this definitely closes the case. I count my steps every day. Did you know I walk about 5 miles a day? Well, now you do. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was the day I purchased it. I would look at it every 5 minutes and go, "Oooh, I've walked 8,336 steps!" 5 minutes pass. "Oooh, I've walked 8,483 steps!" 5 minutes pass. Ok, I think you get it.

Right now, I'm drinking a coke with lime to get myself psyched for my trip to Cabo (!!!!!!) tomorrow. Lime makes me think of Mexico. Not really tequila so much. Just lime...and avocados. Lime and avocados are the essence of Mexico, really. Trust me, I'm half Mexican.

And, I've eaten at lots of Mexican restaurants.

"All men desire naturally to know."
-Aristotle

Picture of the Day

1977

Who's into the World Cup?

I'm caught under its spell, but I still can't find it within me to sit down and watch a full game. After about 10 minutes, I get really bored. Maybe I should drink more. Yeah, I'm definitely not drinking enough. And I think watching with other people is probably a lot more fun. It's just the players run monotonously around and around and up and down the field. The cameras should really get up a lot closer to the players. I mean, usually they're just little running blobs on that big expanse of green. Or they should make them wear camera helmets...or feather boas...or make them have to jump through burning hoops.

Um, these ideas aren't sacrilegious, are they?

Today Fucking Rocks

Ok, A) it's Friday, and B) tomorrow's Saturday, and, even better, C) I'm going to be in NYC, and D) that makes me feel better about living in Boston. E) is for easy living and F) is for, uh, Friday again.

I'm just giddy, people.

I Don't Need to Be Taught How to Make a Freaking Frito Pie.

I want to kick Ms. Semi-Homemade Sandra Lee's ass. Food Network, are you trying to kill me softly with sloppy joes? Don't put this woman on at 5:30 pm! This is when I want to watch you and relax and pretend I, too, could make superb culinary delights, but instead you subject me to some woman using a Kraft macaroni cheese packet as garnish. I hate you! And I will never forgive you for introducing the word 'tablescape' into my vocabulary. Ugh.

Unmanly Dancer

I've got this really annoying habit at the moment in which I harass people about their dancing history. It's not cool, I know, but I just can't seem to help myself. The words are coming out of my mouth before I can catch them. That's been happening a lot in general, actually, so I'm trying to listen, but not be heard as much at social gatherings. It saves me a lot of the incessant replaying of awkward moments later on. Side note: whenever I start obsessing about an awkward moment, I find myself grunting out loud. Does anyone else do this? It's a very curious defense mechanism I've somehow adopted. I either do that or I do the snake (just with my arms). I guess I'm trying to breakdance the bad memory out of my body? Hell, I don't know, but it works.

So, for the love of god, what is up with my insatiable need to 3rd degree everyone about their dancing social history- particularly, where they dance, how often they dance, how recently they've danced, and what music they like to dance to? When written out neatly in one sentence, it doesn't seem like a meddlesome barrage of questions really, does it? But I don't just barrage them succinctly in one nice quick conversation. No, no. I do it every single time I talk to them throughout the night. Hence, I come across as a person with a one track mind. But, I'm not! No really, I'm not! I'm multifarious!!

So these dudes I hung out with last night (and never met before in my life) now think I'm some weird dance freak. Wait a second! Am I a weird dance freak? Nooooooo. I mean, no. I mean, NO. No, I am not.

Anyway, last night was the most manly night ever. It was crazy manly. We ate lots of meat and drank whiskey. And everyone was a guy. (Except me.) Of course, if being a woman didn't scream how very not manly I am, I had to talk about dance all night long. Ok! OK! I'm dropping it now. Enough! It's over, just forget it! Everyone thinks I'm a freak and there's nothing I can do about it. Except the snake. Please excuse me while I flail my arms.

My status is OFF THE HOOK, baby!

Here's the scoop: That one remaining boss I had? He straight up quit on Monday. No forewarning. No really good reason, either. He's going back to the company he used to work for, evidently. So me? I'm boss-less, which I don't know if I need to tell you, IS FUCKING FABULOUS. Today, I rolled in at 10:30-ish. I mean, I do have to make an appearance at least, right? I plan on staying for about an hour and then taking a three hour lunch. Then, probably make another appearance in the afternoon, say at 4-ish for about a half hour. I feel like Paris Hilton or something with the 'appearances.' The one big crapper about the situation, though, is all of the computers in our company are hooked up on a network. Ok, duh. But, we've got this software that automatically tells you if someone is at their computer, supposedly with the intent of letting everyone know if they can IM you or not. If you leave your desk for ten minutes, you're status switches to "away" or if you don't log on at all, the little person beside your name turns blood red and states in huge bold letters that you are OFFLINE. The bummer to this being, of course, everyone and their dog can tell I haven't rolled in until mid-morning.

However! This week, my manager (who works in Atlanta (company headquarters)), is on vacation. So, there's really no one checking up on me (that's what I'm going to keep telling myself) and I get to have a little mini-vacay of my own. Sad, sad reality will tumble back upon me on Monday, unfortunately. BUT! I'm headed to Cabo on Wednesday, so I guess I'll try to muster up some sort of work ethic for two days. Although, I think I've entirely forgotten what professional working demeanor entails. My new boss may be very surprised to find me in jams shorts and alternative indie blaring from all available computer speakers.

Or is that ok office behavior? I forget.

The night begins.

This is me wearing a funny mask.

Behold, the Nick ring.