2022 in review and 23 things to do in 2023

it feels like i say this every year, but SERIOUSLY: how is 2022 over already? i loathe the passage of time. anywho, it was a good year. a great year, even. it wasn't omg-best-year-of-my-life-all-my-dreams-came-true or anything, but you can't win 'em all. here are the highlights, and some to-dos for next year that will hopefully provide some inspo!

in 2022, i:

• resumed my tradition of winter getaways with a trip to visit my friend alissa in st. petersburg, florida, where we ate, drank, went on a museum scavenger hunt, drank coffee at cute cafes, stalked adorable houses, watched inventing anna, bought a drink for a tiktok star we saw at a restaurant, and watched the super bowl halftime show at a bar

  
  

• saw 40 artists/bands live (including 2 festivals, 16 acts i’ve seen before, and the long-awaited and twice-postponed def leppard/mötley crüe/poison/joan jett show at fenway)

• met andrew mccarthy of brat pack fame at a travel show

• spent a beautiful, perfect week in portugal

• started a substack newsletter, which will be returning in 2023; shameless plug to subscribe!

• took my first dance class (hip-hop) since before COVID!

• met my internet friend danielle IRL and had a fun-filled overnight trip in mystic, CT 

• drank frosé, people watched, and jumped around to ABBA at the tea dance in provincetown 

• enjoyed a completely idyllic weekend at a farmhouse in upstate new york with 6 other ladies for my best friend gleni's bachelorette extravaganza — we drank wine, made dinners and breakfasts and french press coffee, lounged in the pool, took edibles and sang karaoke under a blacklight, watched legally blonde, did nail art, had a coastal grandma photoshoot, and made s'mores by the fire pit

• went to brooklyn for for gleni’s wedding, gave a toast, and danced the night away

• dealt with the insanity that is salem, massachusetts on a saturday in october, but apple cider cocktails eased the pain

• reunited with my marist friend tati in vegas for a whirlwind adventure that involved a distillery, high winds, meow wolf, magic mike, and a frantic but ultimately successful search for when we were young sunday tickets after the festival was canceled on saturday

• did the stranger things thing as eddie munson with my friend cassidy (who was max) at the liberty hotel halloween party

• got a new couch!

• found out both my moon sign (aquarius) and my enneagram type (7) and have been fascinated ever since because they’re SO ACCURATE and have given me so much insight into why i am the way i am

• did barely ANY writing outside of my full-time job...for me, anyway. i've been dealing with a prolonged case of writer's block that i just can't shake, so i'm going to get my club out and chase that inspiration until it submits to me in 2023. i did manage to eke out a few pieces i tossed up on medium, though:
• mmmbye: breaking up with my favorite childhood band
• the enduring mystique of pizza hut
• searching for stars hollow

happiest moments:

• sitting for hours at a wine bar in porto, portugal with my new tour friend nolene — looking at the douro river, eating cheese and sardines, drinking wine, and chatting 
• marveling at the natural beauty of the caves on the algarve coast on a boat tour
• singing and dancing like a fool by myself at a machine gun kelly concert
• seeing a man walking his pet pig at the hollis flea market
• finding a random magic 8 ball on the sidewalk on my way to get a scone and sourdough and iced coffee on a summer sunday morning
• drinking painkillers at the treehouse bar + watching youtube videos with danielle in our b&b room in mystic
• floating in a random suburban pool cassidy and i rented through swimply
• walking 45 minutes to honeycomb creamery in cambridge and ordering a scoop of port cherry vanilla ice cream and a scoop of salted caramel crackle and walking home
• screaming "pour some sugar on me" with thousands of other people at the stadium tour
• singing karaoke for hours, watching family feud, and then sleeping in a magical canopy bed during the bachelorette weekend
• listening to "away from the mire" by billy strings several times on my solo road trip and tearing up every time
• seeing my best friend get married and dancing to the best wedding playlist!
• smoking a joint in my bathtub and listening to d'angelo on a random tuesday night
• reliving my emo glory days and catching up with tati 

pop culture favorites 

note that these did not necessarily come out this year (though some did), i just consumed them in 2022.

songs: HERE

albums:

the berries - high flying man

nilüfer yanya - PAINLESS

rolling blackouts coastal fever - endless rooms

why bonnie - 90 in november

harry styles - harry's house

momma - household name

they are gutting a body of water - s

PHONY - AT SOME POINT YOU STOP

soccer mommy - sometimes, forever

movies:

promising young woman

hotel mumbai

jackass forever

barbarian

top gun: maverick

books: 

mary jane by jessica anya blau

miss fortune by lauren weedman

in five years by rebecca serle

the paris apartment by lucy foley

everything i need i get from you: how fangirls created the internet as we know it by kaitlyn tiffany

cackle by rachel harrison

one italian summer by rebecca serle

a novel obsession by caitlin barasch

tv shows:

inventing anna

the 7 lives of lea

the sex lives of college girls

the summer i turned pretty

maggie

the bear

2022 to-dos review

well, out of 22 items, i did 11, which is kind of par for the course at this point. not bad!

visit portugal

sing karaoke

visit a friend in a different state

take a road trip

find one of the records on my vinyl wishlist out in the wild and buy it (the list includes MC5, the stooges, and crosby, stills, and nash) found CS&N at bull moose in portsmouth!

take one day off work for no reason other than to relax and recharge

see a live play/musical counting lost spirits distillery and magic mike in vegas

finish the new york times crossword every day for a week

order a cocktail that involves fire got a smoked old fashioned at two different bars, so i'm counting it

hang out on someone's boat technically, the p-town ferry is someone's boat, right?

watch a classic movie rome adventure

23 things to do in 2023

1. do a sound bath meditation

2. visit a state i’ve never been to (looking at you in may, utah)

3. dine at the olde pink house in savannah, georgia

4. go to a sofar sounds show

5. finish taking (and develop!) the roll of film on the disposable camera i bought last summer

6. take a pole dancing class

7. finally learn to parallel park and do it successfully

8. get published on one of my bucket list publications (the new yorker, the new york times, travel and leisure, condé nast traveler)

9. go to a poetry slam at lizard lounge

10. make this bourbon cheddar apple pie

11. find the acler raven midi cutout dress secondhand for less than $100 because i fell in love with it last summer at saks off 5th and have thought about it nearly every day since, but have nowhere to wear it

12. go to a GVF show with danielle because we haven’t seen them together yet (bonus points if we get barricade on jake’s side of the stage so we can realize our banger sisters/cougar dreams)

13. host a dinner party for real, for real this time

14. try a tasting menu (maybe at tasting table?)

15. go to the encore casino since i haven't been

16. make dinner using a majority of ingredients from the farmers market

17. be a guest on a podcast

18. get a cute vintage table + chair set for my dining room

19. visit montreal

20. crash. a. wedding. SOMEBODY DO IT WITH ME!

21. complete and shop around a book proposal to literary agents

22. get another eerily accurate psychic reading from raymond at the tremont tea room

23. stay at a luxury hotel or resort (thanks, heather!)

also! i decided to take a look back and note the stuff that i've had on previous lists that i eventually accomplished in a later year. this was kind of a fun exercise. there were 45 in total!

2012:

visit san francisco 2015

go to a talk show taping 2013

take a pottery class 2019

go to an open house (with no intention of buying) 2014

visit nashville 2013

go out to a sit-down dinner by myself 2015 if bar dinners count, 2019 if we're talking an actual table

take pictures in a photobooth 2016

go to tampa & st. petersburg 2022 

go to the rock & roll hall of fame induction ceremony not the ceremony, but R&R HOF in 2018

make my own bread 2015

stay at a bed & breakfast 2016

go speed dating 2017+ 2019 with two different companies, and they were each comically awful and everyone received refunds because literally 20 women and 2 men showed up both times despite the fact that you had to prepay???

ride a bike 2016

finally get my cheeseburger tattoo! 2015

2013:

see blue man group, because i've never seen it and that's just wrong 2019 and it was one of the cooooolest manifestation stories ever
visit the pacific northwest (preferably portland, OR) 2017, seattle and portland!

drink a mint julep 2017

hula hoop 2022 when my neighbors were throwing theirs out and i swiped it from the curb

play a musical instrument 2022, trying guitar again!

send a query letter to an editor or literary agent 2014
go on a picnic 2015

2014:

try air bnb 2017

get something that i wrote published on mcsweeney's 2016, 2019, and 2020!

win at pub trivia 2015

2015:

secure a book deal 2019

go zip lining 2018

relax in a hot tub 2018

get a tarot reading at the tremont tea room 2017

2016:

take a day/weekend trip to providence and/or newport, RI (i've never been, somehow??) 2018 and 2017, respectively, and then newport again in 2021

sing karaoke (preferably a rap song) 2017, but i sang harvey danger

give a toast 2022

2017:

book a trip to south america 2018

jump into a ball pit 2018 

read seinfeldia 2020 i think?

adopt a shelter cat 2020

go to a renaissance fair and order a giant turkey leg 2021

find and buy liz phair's exile in guyville on vinyl from a brick-and-mortar record store 2018

2018:

visit south america 2019

related: take a selfie with an alpaca not a selfie, but a photo with one, 2019

get my aura photographed 2019

eat fried dough on hampton beach 2019

watch an outdoor movie 2019

see the sunflower fields at colby farm 2020

(weirdly, nothing from my 2019 list)

2020:

renew my passport 2021

spend a weekend in philadelphia 2021

remembering the brendan leonard show

strange as it may sound, i credit some of my favorite musical discoveries to a bad wendy’s cheeseburger and a gang of dorky midwestern teenagers.

i don’t remember the exact date, nor what else i did that day (aside from having wendy's for lunch). i do remember, however, that it was the summer of 2003, that the weather was miserably hot and sticky, and that i'd somehow weaseled out of getting a "real" job by picking up a ton of babysitting gigs with children who pinched, tormented, and lied to me. retail probably would have been a field day. 

as babysitters went, i wasn't the greatest. sure, the kids loved me because i rapped them eminem instead of singing them lullabies and turned a blind eye and deaf ear when they traipsed around upstairs long after their bedtimes. but i also temporarily lost a pet rabbit, backed my car into a tree, and set off the smoke detector while trying to microwave popcorn. but, it got me by and allowed me to live a life of leisure for a few months.

anyway, there i was, feeling queasy on the couch at my parents' house after eating a tainted JBC. i started flipping through channels and stopped on ABC family (now called freeform or some bull). a group of awkward teenage boys who looked neither like TV stars—nor like they were acting—goofed around, ribbing each other and making bad jokes. it was weirdly, refreshingly unpolished, and if i didn’t know any better, i would have thought i was watching a cable access show. which, i found out later, was how the show began.

(this intro will forever give me ALL OF THE WARM FUZZIES and make me crack the biggest smile)

as it went to commercial break, i learned that i was watching the brendan leonard show. brendan, the son of journalist mike leonard, had parlayed his chicago cable access show into a summer slot on every teen’s favorite cable channel. like a more wholesome jackass with a quirky twist, the understated, down-to-earth nature of BLS quickly won me (and a small but dedicated legion of my peers) over. there were no special effects, the production was bare-bones, and the show relied completely on the cast members and skit concepts to make it all work. some ideas fared better than others, but it was always real, and almost always amusing; the “spatulas” bit remains one of my favorites:

the show aired every weekday for that whole summer, and many episodes had a “band of the day” whose songs provided the soundtrack for each skit. these included superchunk, jets to brazil, ted leo & the pharmacists, the promise ring, built to spill, and guided by voices. like, were these the coolest fucking high school kids ever or what? while i was familiar with a few of them prior to watching the show, every day presented the opportunity for a new, awesome band to enter my life—many of whom I still listen to frequently (arlo, the plus ones, and the long winters, to name a few). 

while many shows with great music have come and gone over the past 16 years, none aligned quite so perfectly with both my sense of humor and taste in music. it was sadly canceled after that summer (though the boys went on to do some hilarious shorts a few years later—including my favorite, "the gods of pogs," below), but the summer of the brendan leonard show will forever hold a very special place in my heart. thanks, wendy's!

revisiting the best summer of all time

i'm not sure what makes some summers more magical than others, but it's totally a thing. a delicate balance of experiences, people, and music come together and create the perfect set of memories that become what you eventually (or, now) refer to as "the good old days." and the summer of 2010, my friends, was that for me.

it began with my 24th birthday, which i inexplicably celebrated twice. once with an extremely new england family trip to mystic, connecticut filled with tons of seafood, ice cream, and beach-laying, and again with my friends. we went glow-in-the-dark bowling, and then migrated next door to rain, malden's most delightfully sketchy nightclub, where we danced—whiskey sours in hand—to taio cruz and jay sean on the light-up dance floor while go-go dancers gyrated in cages above us. clearly, things were already off to a good start. then, a couple weeks later, i went to see the backstreet boys at mohegan sun with this girl from my book club that i barely knew and who i'm pretty sure was a vampire. i wonder what happened to her...

i was also happily settled into my first job out of college as a copywriter at a travel company, writing ads and generally feeling like i had a handle on life. my coworkers were awesome, and we'd frequently go out for brazilian barbeque at this delicious hole-in-the-wall in downtown woburn or to a no-frills roast beef place we referred to as "guns and beef" because of the decor. 

plus, i was living in my favorite apartment to date (that is, until the one i just moved into last week). it was a converted attic in a huge victorian house in melrose, with a roof deck, central air, in-unit laundry, and a fucking turret in the living room. yeah, i had a roommate, but i didn't know how good i had it, man! the town was so picturesque, and i loved wandering the little downtown.

the fun continued with a ridiculous day in which my friend kari and i went to the dew tour—a less prestigious x-games—and then went to rain nightlife (again) to meet the situation from jersey shore, at which time i accidentally photobombed him.

for the 4th of july, i went to new york city—mainly because i'd won a two-night stay at a doubletree hotel at my office christmas party, and one of the qualifying properties was the one in times square. the night i got in ended up being one of the most ridiculous nights of my life, and involved a visit to all of the bars in the standard hotel with my friends jeff and jacob. there was the boom boom room, where i took a selfie on the toilet because i couldn't deal with my life, some rooftop bar with astroturf where i just sat in a lawn chair feeling extremely drunk, and le bain, where there was a goddamn hot tub with naked hipsters in the middle of the dance floor.

unsurprisingly, i paid dearly for my fabulous new york city evening the next morning, though i did have to chuckle at the fact that vomiting violently in my times square suite was almost akin to kevin mcallister gorging himself on ice cream sundaes in home alone 2. sort of. i recovered by lunchtime and went to see rock of ages on broadway with gleni, which was absolutely delightful and still among my favorite musicals. then we had dinner on the patio of a cute mexican restaurant in brooklyn.

jeff dragged me to hoboken on the actual 4th of july, which i protested vehemently, because jersey. naturally, i ended up loving it. we had a low-key gathering with burgers at our college friend's apartment with some other marist folk before going to see the fireworks on the water. i vividly remember watching/making fun of the music video for "my first kiss" by ke$ha and 3OH!3, a song that i'm pretty sure i haven't thought about since 2010 but is a total jam.

lol remember when cake boss was a thing

a few weeks later, i flew to vegas for my friend's bachelorette party, and discovered that seven girls on one trip is WAY TOO MANY. despite all of the drama, we barely paid for a thing and had some great times: hanging out in a caesar's palace pool with junior seau (RIP), partying with rich kids from north carolina (and their rich uncle), and seeing the beatles cirque show.

one of my best friends, alissa, got VIP tickets to see O.A.R., who i hate, but it was free and it was  nice night for an outdoor concert, so whatever. the best part of the show (and the only thing i remember) was when the dude-bro in front of us, high on a combination of various substances, just ralphed on himself in the middle of the show.

finally, my friend tati came up from albany to go to the something corporate reunion show with me and it was a perfectly emo evening as the summer came to a close.

now i'm about to cry because i feel old and like summers aren't fun anymore, so let's all reminisce together. 

what was your favorite summer?

the (unexpected) best part of traveling

totally bit this post idea from cup of jo, but it got my wheels turning about one of the best parts of traveling: doing nothing (or, ordinary things) in a new place, which somehow makes the experience way more magical. what are some of your favorite random travel moments?

- eating a huge dish of bread pudding in my hotel bed while wearing a plush bathrobe during a solo trip to san francisco

- using binoculars to spy on people in the apartment building across the street (and making up stories about them) with my cousin when we were staying in my aunt's parents' apartment in new york

- my roommates and i thinking the back door in our barcelona hotel room was broken until we realized it was actually a window, and laughing until our stomachs hurt about it (...guess you had to be there)

- on the same trip, my tour group was staying at place called chateau camiole in the south of france, about an hour outside of nice. before we left for the six-hour trip from barcelona, we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on meat and cheese and snacks. i'd gotten super-sick a couple days before, and it was the first day i was feeling better, but i was still pretty tired by the time we arrived in france. since we were so far from civilization and it was getting late, our tour director got all of us together in one of the flats, and we spent the whole evening snacking on our meats and cheeses and baguettes, drinking wine, and learning more about each other. it was fantastic.

- the next night, the girls in my suite and i snuggling on one bed, watching an SVU marathon that was totally in french

- riding around aimlessly at night, listening to kanye's college dropout with my childhood best friends during a trip back to my hometown of syracuse in high school

- going vintage shopping while half-drunk on hurricanes in new orleans

- singing along to zayn's "pillowtalk" in a london pub

- sitting with gleni on one of our beds in paris while she tinder swiped

- eating pizza and drinking wine with my mom on the patio of a pizza place in st. augustine as a guy covered "i am the walrus"

 - when my friend requested that "trap queen" be playing as i got into our uber in portland, maine

- eating an incredible ham sandwich at this adorable deli in the adorable town of hood river, oregon where i stopped to charge my phone (weirdly, most of these moments involve food or music)

- on that same day, sitting on the curb in portland with a new dutch friend eating a rice bowl from a food cart

- trading "that's what she said" jokes with a stranger in a SXSW shuttle van

an exhaustive list of stuff i'll miss about arlington

i'm moving in just about three weeks, and i've been getting strangely emotional about it. granted, i'm only moving across the river -- from arlington to jamaica plain for you boston locals -- but it might as well be another universe. i've long joked that "there be dragons" in JP and have only spent approximately a few hours in the area ever, so naturally it was time for me to end up there. anyways, i realized that i've been in my current apartment 4 years, which is the longest i've lived in any place with the exception of my childhood homes. i've laughed here, cried here, entertained friends here, passed out from an edible here, hosted suitors of various levels of quality here, and danced around my living room frequently here. i'm excited to explore my new 'hood, but there's definitely quite a bit i'm going to miss about the old one (mostly food-related). so, for posterity ...

- lucas at the dunkin' donuts next door who starts making my coffee as soon as i walk in/always puts my iced coffee in one of the hot cups so it doesn't sweat
- the dunkin' donuts next door in general
- my off-street parking spot
- getting pizza from andrina's/just walking by andrina's and inhaling pizza parlor smell
- the revolutionary war puns at my trader joe's:

 
- the hippie man with long white hair that has a beautiful white husky that he always lets me pet when they're walking down mass ave
- turkey subs from d'agostino's deli
- the cute old middle eastern man who works at the citgo and smiles/yells hello to me every time i pass by
- this gorgeous red victorian house on the street behind me:

- the leg lamp at the bar at common ground
- saturday mornings at kickstand cafe
- the view of the boston skyline from robbins farm park:

 
- fish tacos from la victoria taqueria
- walking through a sketchy underpass to get my scorpion maki from sono
- the 77 bus to harvard square (specifically, the fact that the bus stop is a two-minute walk from my apartment)
- the dude with epic blonde dreadlocks that lived next door when i first moved in, who i creeped on constantly
- buying shellacked decorative gourds and apple cider donuts from wilson farm in the fall
- the cross-breeze in my apartment
- my weird, dirty, inexplicable crush on the white trash guy who works at blue ribbon barbeque
- leisurely strolls on the minuteman path
- paul revere road, solely because of its name
- the now-defunct brigham's ice cream shop which probably hadn't been updated since the '60s
- related: ice cream sundae delivery from the scoop and scootery  
- saying/thinking "i see old people" every time i pass by jimmy's steer house
- the all-caps, music-themed graffiti on the sidewalk (i.e. "LED ZEP" and "ABBEY ROAD")
- getting a massive moussaka plate from the greek festival at the church around the corner every year

what are the neighborhood quirks you'd miss if you moved away?

my 20s, a-z

As of this writing, I have 10 days left until I cross the threshold into my 30s. Forgive me for being cliche, but I have to admit that 30 always did seem impossibly far away. It was an age reserved for Jennifer Garner or Katherine Heigl in some pathetic, sugary rom-com; one that even the greats like Cobain, Morrison, and Hendrix never even got to see. So, imagine my surprise to not-so-suddenly find myself standing right next to the fire. Yet, rather than let it freak me out, I'm throwing on a hoodie, cracking open a beer, and fixing myself a s'more. Okay ... maybe two s'mores.

My 20s were immeasurably impactful in so many ways. Sure, there were some major milestones: moving into my first place, losing my virginity, searching for/finding/meeting my birthparents, graduating from college, beginning my marketing career, moving 3,000 miles away from home by myself to go to grad school, getting my master's degree, traveling to many places in the U.S. and to Europe twice, and having my writing published in a couple anthologies and various places on the interwebs. Yet, when I look back on it all, some of my most fond and vivid memories stem from some unexpected, strange, or seemingly insignificant experiences. For posterity and brevity, I rounded up 26 of 'em. What are/were your favorite 20-something memories?

Attempting to drunkenly assemble a kitchen table with my roommate on the first night in our apartment in the North End of Boston, after we split a bottle of wine and cried a lot (20)

Biting into a strawberry from the Cours Saleya farmers market in Nice, France on a sunny spring day (25)

Contacting a guy through MySpace that I saw on a VH1 game show one random weeknight because I thought he was funny, and having a 2-year long-distance relationship with him (20)

Doing the dougie on stage at a club in Florence, Italy (25)

Eating the best meal I've ever had in my life, braised bison cheek with vegetables, at Chez Boulay in Quebec City (28)

Following the sound of EDM into a square in Rome and seeing Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, DJing (26)

Getting in line by myself for the reunion concert of an emo band I loved in 2005, The Academy Is..., starting a conversation with the guys standing in line behind me, and accepting a ride back to my car after the show from one of them, my now-boyfriend (29)

Having one of the most ridiculous evenings of my life in New York at The Standard hotel, during which I took a mirror toilet selfie in the insane bathroom of the Boom Boom Room, almost passed out on the rooftop bar's astro turf, and was encouraged to jump into a hot tub full of colored balls and naked hipsters that was in the middle of a dance floor (I declined) (24)

Interning at the Metro Boston newspaper, where I got to write pithy event listings, interview some of my favorite bands at the time, listen to demos, and attend a bunch of rock shows for free (21)

Jamming out to a cover of Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Workin'" that was being spontaneously performed by one of the line cooks at Robert's Western World in Nashville (25)

Kissing a WASPy dude from North Carolina named Tillery in a pool cabana at Caesars Palace during a friend's bachelorette party in Vegas (24)

Laughing with a Norwegian rock band in a South by Southwest shuttle van filled with bizarre religious paraphernalia on St. Patrick's Day ("There are a lot of Irish whores out there!") (25)

Making coffee (and change) for my high school crush, who would appear at the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru -- stoned and listening to Howard Stern -- every morning of the summer I worked there (20)


Navigating the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco on my first solo vacation, and being rewarded with this view from the end of Macondray Lane (29):

  

Ordering sea urchin at a bougie South Beach sushi spot and immediately regretting it upon the first bite (23)

Passing around a warm can of beer with short-lived synth rock band Protokoll in their van after a hipster dance party (20)

Questioning the legitimacy of a quacky doctor who claimed he could cure Alzheimer's and reverse Parkinson's disease at a hotel happy hour in Vero Beach, Florida (25)

Rapping along to Limp Bizkit and Method Man's "N 2Gether Now" with a bouncer at a Vegas nightclub (21)

Standing in my kitchen at 11pm on a summer night, eating a frangipane tart I made in my baking class, feeling simultaneously accomplished and incredibly lonely (29)

Throwing a coin in the Trevi Fountain on my 26th birthday

Urging the asshole bouncer at the Foggy Goggle to give me my fake ID back after he laughed me out of the line (I got it back for $50) (20)

Visiting a friend in Tampa for the annual Gasparilla Pirate Parade, drinking sangria from a large plastic jug, and getting a ton of beads without flashing anyone (25)

Walking barefoot with Hanson around Gillette Stadium for an African charity (22)

Xeroxing copies of the nightly dinner specials while working as a hostess at a faux Irish pub in Boston (21)

Yelling to a Tinder fuckboy that ghosted me after a not-quite friendship with minimal benefits when I saw him on the 77 bus with his new girlfriend/watching him go white as a ghost, walk back to the front of the bus, almost shit his pants, and make them get off before their stop (28)

Zeroing in on Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age when I randomly spotted him on the street in New Orleans (27)

ye olde halloween

halloween is actually my 2nd favorite holiday, right behind thanksgiving. it involves food (well, candy, which is the best food), fun costumes, and a little bit of scariness. every year, i get a bit nostalgic for the old days of trick-or-treating and coming home to sort through my loot while watching some spooky movie or tv show. below are just a handful of random things that come to mind when i think about the scariest day of the year during my childhood. what are your favorite halloween memories?

still scares the crap out of me:



a fine, fun movie:

the trick or treat accessory with the most swag:

the worst halloween candy:

the best halloween special:

essay: mustard meltdown

“No mustard on it? Does that mean you want mayonnaise?” the mystified sandwich slinger offers, holding up my roast beef sub like a newly baptized child, the slightest bit of drool gathering in the right corner of his mouth. “Nope! No mustard, no mayo. No...sauce,” I politely call back to him over the counter, as I begin to actually consider the reasons for my apparently peculiar response. For most people, condiments don’t necessarily inspire a reaction akin to someone offering them a sweat-soaked sock on a plate, but I’m truly disgusted by most sandwich toppings, with the exception of barbecue sauce and ketchup. Even then, I’ll usually order them on the side; I’m not so comfortable as to allow anyone to douse my deli meats. I’m not scared of condiments, like the chick on Maury who ran away sobbing as the producers taunted her with a heaping plate of mustard. This is no phobia, to be sure. Just pure and utter revulsion.

A summer of pool parties at Mrs. Husted’s house in the summer of ’91 meant a good two months of Miracle Whip-laden sandwiches for lunch. Since then, I’ve forever associated mayonnaise with bathing suit wedgies, mosquito bites, soggy turkey-on-wheats, and water trapped in my ear. Over the years, I’ve become skilled at recognizing the whipped abomination under all of its aliases and in all of its incarnations, including “aioli” and “remoulade.” As far as I’m concerned, you can put the mayo in the gourmet kitchen, but you can’t put the gourmet kitchen in the mayo (actually, I don’t even know what that means). 

The mustard? Well, that was a bit more traumatic. While I can’t recall the occasion—perhaps a christening or birthday party—I’ll never forget the sheer embarrassment that haunted me for years after the incident. My entire family was gathered at my aunt’s house in Syracuse, New York. Ever the weirdo that lurks around the buffet table to get the first of the lasagna at a catered event, or stalks the waiters for a fifth serving of stuffed mushrooms at a wedding, I snuck away from my happily socializing relatives and onto the enclosed front patio, towards the holy grail. I could see it from afar. A beautiful basket of chips and nacho cheese sat, untouched and uncorrupted. Mine, all mine! My six year-old eyes lit up, and I dove in, grabbing the biggest Tostito and claiming it as my own. I scooped a heaping portion of the dip, preparing myself for pure hedonistic indulgence. What I received instead was a mouthful of dijon-flavored disaster. This ain’t no velveeta, my suddenly southern mind concluded. So naturally, I reacted in the only manner that a first-grader who just had her taste buds and sensibilities assaulted by spicy mustard could.

I opened my mouth and let forth a yellow-tinged fountain of drool onto the porch. 

I looked around feverishly for napkins or paper towels. Nothing. Alone, confused, and still drooling, I suddenly heard footsteps and froze. Paralyzed with fear and rendered mute by the mustard, I slowly turned around to find myself face-to-face with a family friend/handyman/all-around random dude that had likely just wanted to enjoy some chips and was unprepared to encounter a small child that was frothing at the mouth.  His eyes widened as he took stock of the scenario before him. “We’ve got a mustard meltdown,” he shouted, to no one in particular. Curious family members began to gather, wincing and cringing as if they were watching a UFC fight. After what seemed like hours of humiliation, my mother got wind of the situation and rushed to my aid with an industrial-strength paper towel. “Oh, sweetie,” she shook her head, liberally swiping the sheet across my lemon-colored lips. “Nacho cheese,” I sputtered. She nodded towards the crowd, repeating “nacho cheese,” as if that somehow explained why her child was spewing hot mustard onto the floor. No, it certainly wasn’t my cheese. Or anyone else’s for that matter. And people wonder why I still dip my chicken nuggets in honey.

The sandwich artiste’s voice snaps me back to reality.  “...So, no horseradish?”

from the livejournal archives: on this day in 2006...

this past week has been all about nostalgia for me, man. i made a huge playlist of basically everything i listened to from 2000-2006, and called up the old livejournal the other day for some lolz. i'm pretty pleased with how thorough i was! so let's look at what happened on this day in 2006, shall we? it was kind of boring, i guess, but there are so many forgotten cultural touchstones that it's like a damn time capsule(failure to launch kind of...failed to launch, rock-a-way records is long gone, i did end up working at my dad's office that summer, i got into emerson, etc.). i'd love to hear some of your old LJ gems- that is, if you weren't too cool for one back in the day.

your mind ain't playin' tricks and neither am i

[19 Mar 2006|12:32pm]

[ mood | busy ] aaand spring break's over. school's such a drag! things i did of note this past week include going with jacob to this awesome little vinyl store in nashua, called rock-a-way records. as i put it, it was a "hidden gem in an otherwise uncultured city". reminded me of a store that would be in portsmouth or something and i loved it! i might just go back there sometime to snag a kinks or black sabbath record for decoration, unless i buy a record player. which i have been toying with, too. i'm reading an article about the guy who owns it and i guess he's only 23. keep going, man...you're rocking nashua's world! i also saw failure to launch and now am even more in love with matthew mcconaughey (i honestly have to google his name every time), and idolize zooey deschanel. aaand i rented must love dogs which was cute...i need my own john cusack!! and i rekindled my dunkin' donuts love. though i probably can never work there again, i'm truly surprised at how much MORE i go there now for coffee...i probably went almost every day during break. sad, but that's my caffeine addiction. speaking of which, i'm also trying to think once again of summer employment ideas. i was supposed to be working at my dad's office, making frickin' 15 bucks an hour or something, but they gave the job to the girl who got it last summer. AWESOME...looks like more food service/retail fun for me! so, i sent in the last form that was part of my emerson application a few days before spring break started. it's been a long time coming, but it feels good to have it finished. now i just have to wait, which isn't my forte. but, what will be will be, and i'm really just hoping it works out! i kind of want to go see adam green at the bowery ballroom in april. but i don't know if anyone else here appreciates his oddball/extremely vulgar lyrics (i.e "you know i wanna bone you!! i wanna put a hole in you!") and that's quite a tame example. listen to some of his songs, especially "no legs" for a raunchy laugh or two...i think he's hysterical. my room is freeeezing. and i need to unpack. spring is tomorrow, i think, and it better stop flurrying here so i can get excited about it.

a very macy's thanksgiving

when i tell people that i love the macy's thanksgiving day parade, they usually say, "oh, me too!" not realizing that my love is more than a passing interest. my affection for the parade is much deeper than say, when people go "i love puppies!" it's so deep that missing it on one thanksgiving about 5 years ago ruined the whole day for me, and now goes down in history as the "worst thanksgiving ever". don't mess with me and my parade, man.

11 years ago, i had the privilege of seeing the spectacle up close and personal with my family. i also had the misfortune of being the coldest i've ever been in my damn life. no joke, i swear that with the windchill, and gusts blowing through the high-rises, it must have been about -20 degrees outside. so, i naturally wrapped my wool scarf around my head like a little babushka while my mom sought shelter in the nearby mcdonald's, which was serving lukewarm chocolate because they couldn't heat it fast enough. however, my 14 year-old self was more than happy to risk hypothermia to catch a glimpse of bbmak, lfo, and aaron carter, waving on a silly float and lip-synching to their pre-recorded hits. i couldn't wind my disposable camera fast enough! i swear to god rich cronin made eye contact with me, y'all. probably because i was the only freak with a scarf around her head.

anyways, we had thanksgiving dinner that year at this gourmet restaurant, scaletta, which was absolutely horrible. i mean, sure, the meal was probably amazing by foodie standards. but the stuffing had damn raisins and apples in it. i don't care what you say, fruit does NOT belong in any stuffing of mine. i picked at it and pouted...probably thinking "if only bbmak were here". the parade was so worth it, but you'll never find me eating fruity stuffing at a restaurant on turkey day again.