Guitars, Tiki Bars, and a Whole Lotta Love

Perfect song on the radio
Sing along, 'cause it's one we know
It's a smile, it's a kiss
It's a sip of wine, it's summertime...

So, quite possibly the biggest and best news of the year (for me, anyway) came flying out of left field on Thursday when I found out that I got my job back for next year! The reasoning behind it is still a little shady, although I've been ridiculously excited about it since I heard three days ago. To celebrate, Marisa and I decided to spontaneously buy Kenny Chesney tickets, and went to the show with Tim and Lane on Thursday night. I've seen him live before, but it was years ago...he was incredible! Every single song was awesome, and there were STILL songs I wish he had played. Leann Rimes was supposed to open, but couldn't due to illness...as a result, Kenny Chesney played for about two and a half hours. PERFECT concert to start the summer!

"My only friends are pirates..."

Youth's the Most Unfaithful Mistress

Dashboard Confessional; The Swiss Army Romance

Tim and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Santa Barbara. It was both relaxing and overdue...unfortunately, Tim and Chris weren't able to go out on the boat, but we did have fun shopping in Solvang, seeing the new Indiana Jones, sleeping in, BBQ-ing, and eating TONS of good food.

I guess I should preface what I'm about to write with a short back-story: About a year ago, Tim and his dad went deep-sea squid-fishing. This type of trip entails a long boat ride out to the middle of nowhere, and requires participants to wake up at all hours of the night to reel lines 400 feet into the black abyss of the ocean and patiently wait for a giant squid to confuse neon rubber bait with a live meal. The trip proved successful, and since then our freezer has hosted dozens of frozen squid slabs, neatly stored in vacuum-zipped packages. The surplus of ocean meat that consumes our freezer leaves room for little else, although the only other thing we need to store in there is Otter Pops, so space-wise it works out. Anyway, last Friday Tim decided to de-frost some of the squid packages in the refrigerator. We did not eat this meat before we left for Santa Barbara, therefore it sat in the refrigerator over the weekend. Usually, this wouldn't be cause for concern, however the vacuum-seal failed to stay, uh, vacuumed. Last night when we got home (after 10:00 PM, by the way), we opened the front door of the apartment to the faint smell of rotten fish. I will admit at this point, the smell was bearable, but then I had to go and ruin it by opening the fridge door. At that moment, the wafting WALL of putrid squid juice came barreling out in a suffocating foam and enveloped our entire apartment. The juice had spread not only across the shelves of the fridge unit, but also into each of the compartment drawers. I will spare you more details, but suffice it to say I could taste the squid permeating the milk in my cereal this morning. Psychological? Possibly. Disgusting and rank? Absolutely. I have a feeling I will never be able to order calamari the same way...

The Sun Afire of Strings and Wires

Title Reference: "When I Dream of Michaelangelo" by Counting Crows

you are whatever a moon has always meant,
and whatever a sun will always sing is you...
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
-e.e. cummings

Well I Guess This is Growing Up

Title Reference: Blink 182, "Dammit"

I'm through unpacking the UCLA boxes, and I figured I'd share another daybook entry. For those of you that are unaware, "daybooks" are the name for the journals that we kept through the primary grades at my elementary school. Sometimes entries were responses to prompts, while other times we were instructed to write about whatever we wanted. Generally speaking, when our task was the latter, my go-to entry was a single sentence: "I like ___________," accompanied by a mess of crayon and stick-appendaged people. I can only assume the following entry was prompt-driven; "What is important about you?"

Ironically, I did not address why my brother ever fell down in the first place...and, unfortunately, that answer is not clear in the drawing of him crying on the bed. The picture does pose other questions, however:

1) Why do Paul and I live in a one-room house?
2) Is that a pony-tail in my hair?
3) Can Paul levitate?

* * *

Completely unrelated....we have an L-shaped couch! It's beautiful and fits multiple people comfortably, which is more than can be said for the futon that has now become the couch/bed in the guest room. AND YES, that is a sliding glass door behind the couch...double entry/exit into the apartment! We're moving up in the world.

We're Burning Down the Highway Skyline

Title Reference: The Killers, "When You Were Young"

Relics of Remembrance

Life is...only... as good as the memories we make
* * *
So long, Astoria
I found a map to buried treasure
and even if we come home empty handed
we'll still have our stories of battle scars,
pirate ships and wounded hearts, broken bones,
and all the best of friendships...

- The Ataris, "So Long Astoria"

We are officially moved in to our new apartment! I'll post pictures of our new place soon. Moving across the street is more difficult than it seems, perhaps for no other reason than the existing preconceived mind-set of, "hmm, moving 250 feet will be a piece of cake." It's not. Moving is still moving. Marisa and Lane came over for an entire Saturday to help us; thus, we are indebted to them indefinitely.

Being the go-getter that he is, Tim had all of his boxes and such unpacked and situated within the first 24 hours we were in the new place. Being the easily distracted, lazy, pack-rat that I am, my process of unpacking is still in progress. Tonight my goal was to get through all of the UCLA "memorabilia boxes." I am desperately trying to adopt my mom's newfound mentality of "if you haven't seen or used it in a year, it belongs in the trash." This is a momentous mindset for me, and not surprisingly I am having difficulty accepting the idea of pitching the majority of my "junk." Yes, I realize holding on to 200 birthday and congratulatory cards from my late-teens/early-twenties is a bit, for lack of a better term, pathetic...

While time-consuming and tedious, this process has put me back in contact with various collectibles that undoubtedly helped shape who I am today. Okay, that's melodramatic--they were funny and/or meaningful enough to shove into a box and cart with me from residence to residence. Some of my favorites:

1) About a dozen plastic Disney movie "frozen scene" pieces, such as Lady and the Tramp's spaghetti meal, Ariel's infamous song-on-the-rock, and Cinderella's singing mice friends, etc. I'm not sure if these are classified as toys or as slightly abnormal collection pieces; (they have been bagged and are ready to be given to one of Tim's colleague's kids.)

2) 14,000 (give or take) picture collages amassed with magazine cut-outs, quotes, and incriminating photos.

3) A cheap plastic alarm clock with a "UCLA swimming" inscription. Why this did not make it into the trash can (or, more appropriately, a flaming inferno) the day I was done with swimming and waking up at 4:00AM is BEYOND ME.

4) Approximately 10 "daybooks" from my Kindergarten-2nd grade days. An example entry: "Black cats are big cats and little cats are small ones." Highly intuitive and, clearly, giving profound insight into my innate critical thinking skills at an early age.


5) My class pictures from kindergarten-6th grade. In nearly half of these photos I am wearing a dress, jumper, or similar get-up that my mom MADE. Impressive, to say the least.


6)My junior high school year books. Suffice it to say I wore a t-shirt with a multi-colored "half-vest" sewn on to the front for my 7th grade picture.

7) My high school yearbooks. No further comment necessary.

8) Pogs. WTF?

9) A hockey puck used in an LA Kings game.

10) My Brownie uniform. Some sample patches I earned include: "Indian Summer Pow Wow," "Christmas Caroling," "Thinking Day," "Calendar Day," and "Water Wonders." For the record, I know my mom spent HOURS sewing each of those badges onto that ugly brown sash. Don't worry Mom, I'm not throwing it away.

11) Approximately 500 CDs. Apparently, as a teenager (and, clearly, in pre-iTunes days) I thought it was a good idea to purchase full CDs because I liked ONE SONG. Therefore, I have about 150 CDs, each costing approximately $16, that boast one song I even KNOW, let alone like. Spacehog, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and Kool and the Gang to name a few...and I wondered why my parents vehemently denied my desire to join CD clubs?

I could go on, but I'm fairly certain the previous 11 items give a clear view into the rebellious, suave, and ever-popular nature that was my childhood and adolescence. God only knows what else I'll find in the remaining half a dozen boxes...