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Of course I've had a draft of a post waiting to be completed since the weekend. But I'll just scrap it all now and start with the most important piece: THE RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!

Friends Jim, Sam, Sean, Jenny and Dylan joined Jesse and myself for Game 6. As baseball and especially Red Sox fans are wont to do, we were very superstitious. "You have an empty beer, they got a hit the last time you had a full beer, get a beer!" "They dropped that ball because you went to the bathroom before, you better wait 'til commercial!"

Normal!

In the end, victory was sweet and we were all jumping around screaming. My parents Facetime'd in and we could see we were not the only ones celebrating! My mom, dad and his playoff beard were too:

On the call, as my parents waved around their celebratory champagne, I remembered that I had bought some champagne for the same purpose! Plus, pomegranate juice to make that RED! Here's Jesse making them for us:

Here is us still being excited, you're welcome:

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I shall save my Halloween costume posting for tomorrow... since I have a promise to myself to write here every day of November, might as well stretch out the good stuff.

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If you need something scary because it's Halloween, remember I used to live in a haunted house.

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Jesse left today for a tour that will keep him away until Thanksgiving. I'm glad our last night for a while was so fun! It would have sucked if the Red Sox lost and we didn't get to watch Game 7 in the same room. He was only home for 10 days, but the fall classic was a good background to all the time we spent together.  When he walked me to the subway at 7am this morning (our little ritual on his last mornings home), we said goodbye on a high note. Still riding that adrenaline from the win!

He said I like it with a big wide grin.

I've decided to do another Friday Playlist! It's been an extremely busy week at work (it's the end of our fiscal calendar year), so I haven't had much time to devote to ye olde writing. What I've been enjoying -

Ryan Adams - These Girls
No Doubt - Sunday Morning
Rancid - Dope Sick Girl
The Donnas - Outta My Mind
Kings of Leon - Knocked Up
Damone - Out Here All Night
Regina Spektor - Consequence of Sounds
Metric - Poster of a Girl
Johnny Cash - Get Rhythm
Butch Walker - Going Back/Going Home

It's short but SWEET.

Tonight, though it's pouring rain outside, Erica, Jesse, Perry, Katie, Adam, Jim, Sean and I are heading to the first game at the Mets' new Citi Field - because they're playing THE RED SOX. I bought a red poncho during lunch for the festivities!

BASEBALL RETURNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey you with the wedding dress on.

Warning: this post is going to be completely random. I'm just writing it all out, segues be damned.

I'm still working on that epic post. It's just...I think I need to be in the right mood to press "publish."

My layout! It's different! I mentioned this a few posts back, but I think I'm pretty happy where it is right now. I may still make a header (if I find the time!), but there's nothing too drastically different besides the colors. I did add a couple of sidebar features - firstly, the "Currently Reading" box has a picture of the book I'm reading and links to the book's page on Goodreads. Right under that is the "Recently Read & Reviewed" box, which displays the last four books I read, and if you click on the cover, it'll take you to my review of the particular book. Of course all this would be easier if you just signed up for Goodreads and became my friend.

Speaking of which, yesterday I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and I recommend it to everyone. I'd heard about it for so long, and not until Jesse unpacked it from his storage space did I remember it. Inside the cover of his old paperback, a girl had written a note of passing the book on to Jesse. I asked Jesse who the girl was, and he didn't remember it was so long ago. I love finding things like this in old books. I'm going to try to write notes on the inside of books I gift to people, and maybe they...or some stranger...years down the line will remember or...wonder who that Jessica is, too. And why she loved that book enough to pass it along to someone else. The novel itself put me in a very pensive mood, and I like being in pensive moods. I'm now reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, and I'm excited as I already feel myself diving deep into another well-written book. There's a thrill there, for sure.

I really need to see Sunshine Cleaning. Perhaps this weekend.

Gossip Girl has turned from a guilty pleasure into a guilty non-pleasure. I keep watching, but it's soooo bad - my latest hour of eye-rolling was during the episode which centered on a play of one of my favourite books, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Groan. Also, just an FYI, the rebooted 90210 has actually been pretty good as a guilty pleasure - it just needed to find its stride. None of these teen dramz compare, of course, to the this-feels-a-little-too-real show of Friday Night Lights. I'm astounded by how much I'm reminded of my own high school memories from that show - not the football stuff, just the students and the relationships and interactions. Ridiculous.

Wedding planning is a-okay, but I've been having this recurring dream of eloping. Ah, simplicity.

If you live in New York, and even if you don't, check out Sweet Emily's on 51st and 8th Avenue - it's one of the most delicious dinners (and drinks) I've had in a while. Jesse found it online, and we decided to take my mom and all of her friends there. Jesse thought it would be a good fit because it's American comfort food mixed with Latin dishes. My mom and her friends are all Latinas, so the chef came out to talk to them about the arepas and how they each made them. They were delicious, by the way. Emily herself came out to wish us a good meal, and mentioned that they'd only been open a month and to spread the word. So that's what I'm doing. The atmosphere was calm and perfect for dinner conversation - not overwhelmingly loud like most New York dinner spots. I can't wait to go again!

Jesse leaves tomorrow for a couple of shows this weekend. It's been quite nice having him around and getting into a stride, as most of our relationship before this break was short bursts of his time home between long stretches on the road.

I loved I Love You, Man - and though it's in the same genre as most of those Apatow-y, same-cast movies like Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Zack and Miri, etc., I thought it rose above them. I think I probably only liked Superbad more. Okay, also, I have to make the distinction between this "crew" of comedians making movies, and the others - the older, popular "crew" of Ferrell, Stiller, etc. Apatow-y movies are different than Tropic Thunder and Step Brothers and Zoolander. So, in just the Apatow-y movies (started, I believe, with The 40-Year-Old Virgin), I would rank I Love You, Man WAY up there. Because it did manage to surprise me while making me laugh hysterically, and also, it was one of the only comedies in years that didn't really offend me as a girl. And yes, I can't deny Paul Rudd and Jason Segel's charms. Seriously. I love them. I mean, I've loved Rudd since 1995.

"I know, right?"

Also, that paragraph about the movie may not make any sense at all in retrospect. Apologies.

Hey oh, who's going to see a Red Sox exhibition game in a couple of Fridays with my friends? THIS GIRL. (IS STOKED)

Baseball games are also a sign of better weather...or the promise of, I suppose. I'm unbelievably excited for such, as I already know this summer is going to rock because of impending nuptials, but ALSO because I'm seeing No Doubt (at least) three times, we already have tickets to a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game, and Erica and I have already planned Saturday and Sunday mornings on the roof. Oh, and I'll be spending ten or so days out of the country in a tropical locale with my future husband - SUMMER 09 I LOVE YOU ALREADY! So, if you could just hurry up and get here already, thanks.