I'll always see you through.

Finishing 2666 was not my only success of the weekend! I got some great shopping in, as well.

A few months ago I saw these pair of Betsey Johnson sunglasses in purple online and I wanted them soooo bad but they sold out right quick. Cut to last Saturday and I'm walking into a TJ Maxx in suburban Massachusetts with my mom and I see THESE. For $7.99. And I proceeded to purchase them, plus another Betsey pair that are huge with thin red frames in red, and another pair that were cat-eyed - a style I've been obsessed with since that trip to LA.

I also found three adorable, affordable summer dresses at the TJ Maxx; all for great prices, of course. Above is a little snippet of each. I felt really good after all my summer shopping, which didn't break the bank AT ALL. So then my mother took me to Macy's and bought me a pair of yellow wedges since she thinks I don't wear enough color on my feet...yeah...but they're awesome, dressy wedges.

I'm still on the lookout for a pair of on-the-beach, walking-around-a-beach-town wedges, though. I saw a pair at TJ Maxx that were too big! But my purchases, pretty good, am I right?!

My mother and I continued our afternoon by lunching with my great friend and former co-worker slash roommate Deidre, who lives in the area. I always love playing catch-up.

The weather this weekend was also amazing - unlike the thunder storms that woke me up at 3am last night! Here's a photo of my mom standing on a particulary picturesque lake pier on Saturday:

But I'll be honest, I love thunderstorms. I love staying in and counting the seconds between the flashes of light to the rumble of thunder. The first crack or clap of thunder always makes me jump, but I tend to smile when I realize I have goosebumps. I love being in bed for thunderstorms and awake and holding onto somebody and laughing together. Last night wasn't so fun in the middle of the night...with nobody to latch on to.

You're all over the map.

Look how dapper my man looked on his birthday!

Pretty bummed I wasn't there to share in the festivities...

This papercut skin that makes me wince.

Ah, Monday again.

Jesse's last weekend in New York was quite fun - on Friday there was a lot of friends over to play bag toss, indoor bocce, and Apples 2 Apples in a little going away shindig. It definitely was a game night of epic proportions.

On Saturday, Jesse and I had brunch with Jonah Bayer and James, and then proceeded to enlist Jonah as our personal "help Jesse ship stuff" slave. We had to get a bunch of things shipped to LA for his trip, so on the most dreary of rainy days, we trudged around Brooklyn holding a boxed-up bicycle (Jesse), a trainer and skateboard (Jonah) and a moog keyboard (me). We finally found a shipping store that was open and were so exhausted from the hours of manual labor amidst broken umbrellas and soaked jeans, we needed a drink. And Jonah informed us of Rosemary's Greenpoint Tavern around the corner, which serves huge beers in (very environmentally unfriendly) styrofoam cups for $3.50. Sold.

Then Jesse and I ate some dinner and cuddled at home with the last episode of The Wire Season 2. He's under direction to finish Season 3 immediately and send it back to me.

Yesterday we got to the airport a bit late due to a crap cab driver, so Jesse got bumped until the next flight. But, it ended up being okay because Jesse and I got to spend a few more hours together and sometimes that turns into really cute posts I read when I get home. I seem to have taught him well in the arts of internet barftime.

It was hard to see him go past security and wave and turn away, but the good news is that I am seeing him again on Friday because Motion City is playing a show in Worcester! I know, so anticlimactic, I know!! Technically, he's living in LA until July, but we are always sure to see each other as much as we possibly can. And if it's next weekend, I'm STOKED on next weekend already, of course.

Last night on the couch, Keanu and I were a little blue to not have Jesse sitting next to us. Keanu quickly fell asleep so as not to endure too much of the pain unsettling him in his consciousness - he's quite sensitive.

So for now, it's regular ol' long distance, but I have a new advocate in Fianz updates - Mark Hoppus. He twittered about working with Motion City today and posted a pic -

'Cause that's Jesse's life - today he woke up in LA, worked out, went swimming, and then went into the studio with his band and Blink-182's Mark Hoppus. Whatever. I mean, I'm here in my cubicle being just as cool. Pfft.

Sigh.

BUT TONIGHT!!!! Erica and I are going to see one of our favourite live bands, The Matches, at Mercury Lounge! YES!! I know! We'll be in the front, dancing around, like we do. And tomorrow, their lead singer, Shawn will be guest-DJing with Rob, Erica, and Baya at Trainwreck where I'll be there celebrating GABY'S BIRTHDAY! YEAH!!!

See, I have a lot of fun stuff to look forward to while the Fianz is away - not that it will detract from how much I'll miss him! But with friends like mine, I know I'm always in a good way.

He was a good man and now he's gone.

I've decided to do as my friend Liz does on Fridays, and provide a Friday Playlist. I was walking into work this morning and a series of extremely walkable music came on. You know what I mean? Like, The Killers "All These Things That I've Done" is the quintessential walking song to me, mainly because of its march-like drum beat. Not all of these have that kind of drum beat, but they have the face-up, leg-moving, maybe-you'll-smile flow. As if you've got a Sorkin/Schlamme camera set-up in front of you on a cart. (Okay, that was a mighty dorky reference - kudos if you get it.) I've rounded out the rest of the songs at work - it's Friday! Also, today's my two year anniversary of working in this place. Not too shabby!

Friday Playlist

M. Ward - Requiem (I'm kind of obssessed with this song at the moment)
Brandi Carlisle - The Story
Bright Eyes - Road to Joy
Coconut Records - West Coast
Dandy Warhols - We Used to Be Friends
The Format - Inches and Failing
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
Foo Fighters - Hey, Johnny Park!
No Doubt - Excuse Me Mr.
The Gaslight Anthem - Meet Me By the River's Edge
Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light
Ray Lamontagne - You Are the Best Thing

What are you listening to today? Anything I should be looking into? Besides Lily Allen & M. Ward's new albums, I haven't gotten into anything new. And you know I'm always on the lookout.

Finally - it's the WEEKEND!

And since Jesse left yesterday for the Midwest, I was writing him an e-mail this morning before work (during my Cheerios!) and little Keanu wanted to say hi, too. We miss him!

Piece of the puzzle, I'm your missing part.

I realize I haven't talked about this weekend yet. I had a really great time with some of my close girlfriends - The Dagger, KellsFTW, and Gaby (,Summer of).

On Friday, I left work starving and headed to Erica's office with Wendy's in hand. On the way there, a dude slipped me a business card in a very stealthy manner. I didn't understand and looked at him confused - and he kept walking past me as he said, "If you ever wanna smoke..." and then I re-looked at the card and realized he was a marijuana dealer and then I tried to keep walking like I was cool and had a secret. I have also been watching a lot of The Wire and Weeds and so I started wondering about the logistics of this young man's business. And then I realized he probably just gave it to me because I was carrying two giant bags from Wendy's for Erica and me. I discreetly disposed of the card.

After our delish meal, sealed off with a frostie, we headed to the FTW Media/Stolen Transmission offices of Ultragrrrl's and she made us lemoncellos, though she'd had a few herself at that point. Erica, Joanna, and myself were amused. Like, do you remember Danny Devito on The View? Nobody gets that reference. Anyway, same thing. She's delightful and we discussed The Verve and Monty Are I and The Fianz.

Erica and I then headed home to prepare ourselves for a night out of dancing. We obvs grabbed some Sparks. Gaby came over (btw, have you heard? It's the Summer of Gaby, get into it) and we played Mario Kart while we waited for Kells to join, then Perry, Jtj and Sean came over. We finished off some Sparks and beer and prosecco (yeah) and headed to Royal Oak for our friend Justin to DJ. I may or may not have been the L train comedienne for the ride over, as I was intensely hyper and uh, you saw me write prosecco...Anyway, I was a crazy pants and talked about lettuce and Toulouse Lautrec - whatever, old hat. At Royal Oak, Justin was not currently DJing, and sat with us as Erica and Perry drank champagne out of a paper bag. Sean and I talked a lot about The Dark Knight at this point because the DJ thought Royal Oak was a good place to play rave music. It was nearing 3 am and still the LAME DJ wouldn't let Justin DJ (and we'd already put in a few hours of requests), so we headed out. Bummer - but next time, there's always next time.

On Saturday, Gaby, Kells, Erica and I headed to Silver Spurs for a scrumptious brunch and bid adieu for a few hours...because they were obviously coming back to BK that night for more fun. At Virgin, Erica and I scanned the DVDs for some general daytime vegetation and I saw the first season of a show called Intervention for $10. I decided to get it, because reality shows are our thing and it seemed like it would just be an episode of True Life: I'm an Addict, but uh, it was far more intense than anything on MTV, ever. Apparently a lot of people have seen this show, but we hadn't and we found ourselves incredibly captivated, if not horrified by the people and the interventions staged. Yeah, there may or may not have been tears.

When Kells and Gaby joined us to break us of our omg-the-humanity daze, we watched Pretty in Pink and felt better. We went out to Greenpointe for our friend Sarah's birthday and had fun with a photobooth (pictures coming, though the one above is of Gaby and me in the booth!). There was also dudes throwing dollars down at the bar area from a balcony...hey, I made three bucks.

I got a little worried at one point, though, because apparently Jesse was trying to contact me because MCS was on a boat tour in Alaska and the boat bottomed out and keywords are barefoot, freezing, five hours, waist-deep water, shivering, tiny island waiting, and rescued. He couldn't contact me directly even, he was messaging me from Claudio's phone and then Brian was contacting Sarah to text me...yeesh! So yeah, worried. But everything was fine soon after I got home and now he's back in the continental United States, all toes intact. Phew.

Sunday was a low-key day filled with more episodes of Intervention, and Lauren (Little One, The) came over to join us on the couch. Justin, Tyler and Pete came over for a "meeting" with Dagger BigBrains and were slightly horrified by the episode of Intervention we were watching, as they weren't immediately aware of the show's intensity - it was like, "haha drugs...oh wait... wtf!?"

Then we headed to Jtj's new apartment for a surprise going-away gathering for Angela, our dear friend who's moving back to LA this week. :( It was a fun get-together of bread, cheese, chocolate fondue, fruit, veggie trays, and oh yeah, friends. In the end it wasn't even a surprise though, as Angela was cancelling on plans, and then the planners had to tell her, "Uh, it's a surprise party, just get over here!" Haha.

Back at home, we watched another Intervention (dude, A&E has an On Demand channel!!) and it was a heartwrenching one about a girl suffering from anorexia and we were in tears by the end of it, and needed something mindless so we turned on the Denise Richards Colon... show and then Denise was talking about how she needed to lose weight and she was fat and didn't want to be seen on a beach in Hawaii in her condition. W. T. F. So, we promptly turned that off because I was disgusted with the world, and we decided to play Mario Kart, which really helps take your mind of serious issues.

In fact, last night all Erica and I did was play Mario Kart and ordered Camp Rock from the Disney Channel On Demand. Also, not impressed by the Jonas Brothers - it was my first foray into any of their media besides gossip blog pics - and this Demi Lovato kid has got to learn how to control the width of her smile. Nick Jonas is extremely disproportionate and the skinny jeans don't help. The only person who actually rocked was the character played by that girl in all the Missy Elliot videos. She was bomb. Also, yeah, Erica and I are 25 and 24 respectively, and this is what. we. do.

So there's a long post! My de-stressing is going relatively well, with little bumps here and there. Tonight it's Trainwreck for another Angela farewell, and uh, have you heard? THE DARK KNIGHT ON FRIDAY!