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Fifteen Years of Melodrama

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Today I turn 27, which Jill and Rebekah have called the “scary age.” I am now officially in my late twenties, which is so weird. And it sounds so much older- maybe it’s the extra syllable. I look around at the company I’ve been working at for four years, where I was one of the youngest people when I started working here, and realize that I no longer fall into that category, not by a long shot. I am still single and still struggling, but will only be a twenty-something for three more years.


Before I made public my desire to spew generational angst, I wrote my feelings down the old-fashioned way: diaries and journals. Sometimes they had locks, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes I wrote “Dear Diary,” sometimes I called my diary a name like Anne Frank called her diary Kitty, and sometimes I didn’t call it anything. Sometimes I wrote every day, sometimes I caught up later, sometimes I waited until I had some kind of deep thought and then wrote about it. In elementary school, if no significant events occurred that day (and to be clear, significant events included having pizza for dinner, getting a video from the video store, and going to the pool), I wrote, “Nothing happened.”


I’m about to move to a new apartment in the same area, and as I was moving, I found all the old diaries and journals that I saved. It’s funny looking through them now and seeing what was so important to me back then. I was so melodramatic- everything from not being allowed to carry a backpack between classes to the results of Making the Band sent me into a tizzy.


So I thought that I would summarize the fifteen years before SSTS by sharing with you one bit of overreaction for each year. Without further ado:


Age 21: Really funny in retrospect
“Editing jobs for recent college grads also don’t pay much. I read somewhere that it’s actually better to get a job in sales or marketing or something at a publishing company and switch over to editing later. Unfortunately, not only would sales or marketing bore me, I would suck at them. Like I said, my people skills leave a lot to be desired.”
(I did, of course, end up landing one of those low-paying editing jobs, but I’ve also worked in marketing and am now hoping to move into sales and then a higher marketing position eventually. Go figure.)


Age 20: Emo-Katie
“Sometimes I feel completely crazy and sometimes I feel like the sanest person in the world. Sometimes I’m totally comfortable with myself and sometimes I think there are a million things wrong with me that I need to fix.

I think I missed out on a lot of the anxieties that people have their freshman year of college, and I’m making up for that now. I don’t know where I’m going or what I want. I feel like this T-shirt Jon has: ‘I’m Confused…Wait, Maybe I’m Not!’”


Age 19: Not the holiday most people would romanticize
 “I wish we could go back to April Fool’s Day. We were all so happy then.”


Age 18: Mortal sins committed against me on AIM
“Around the time I started to realize that BQ didn’t like me, I noticed that she didn’t have me on her buddy list. I asked her if she had my screen name and she said yes. But she didn’t have many people on there, so I didn’t care too much. I only IM’ed her I think twice, both times in response to away messages saying she was upset or sick. Not long after that, I noticed that she wasn’t online anymore, but she was on C’s computer. So I figured she made it so only people on her buddy list could view her info, which is a pretty bitchy thing to do in itself. But last week I noticed that while she didn’t show up under (first screen name), she did show up under (second screen name). So you know what she did? She blocked me. SHE FUCKING BLOCKED ME!!!!! THAT FUCKING BITCH!!!!!!!!”
(Remember when life revolved around AIM? Getting blocked on AIM was the ultimate insult–even worse than being defriended on Facebook. This girl BQ (Bitch Queen) had done plenty of bitchy things away from the computer, but for some reason blocking me on AIM was what sent me over the edge.)


Age 17: College application angst
“Nothing makes me stand out. I’m not good at swimming–I couldn’t even make sectionals– I don’t have A’s in all my classes, my class rank is only 18, I’m not president of Student Council or editor-in-chief of the Voice or the yearbook, I haven’t had a lead in any of the plays or even a big part, I’m not a National Merit Semifinalist. Even my essay wasn’t that great.”


Age 16: The woes of junior year
“I have a ton of homework, AND the musical, AND track starts next week. And my English teacher is really pissing me off. She grades so hard and I’M DOING SO BAD! Plus, I have other things to worry about. Like studying for SATs, and looking for colleges, and looking for a summer job, and trying to get my writing published. I have like no time for fun anymore. Life is sooo stressful!”
(I’ll cut myself some slack on this one because junior year of high school was, honestly, pretty jam-packed. I don’t know how I ever made it through high school doing everything I was doing.)


Age 15: Reality TV angst
“THEY ANNOUNCED THE O-TOWN MEMBERS ON MAKING THE BAND!!! And one of them is Ikaika!! I can’t believe it! He’s never even there! How could he be in the band! And Bryan and Mike didn’t make it!??? I thought Mike was the one guy who was definitely in!…At least Ashley Parker Angel made it. I looove him.”
(If you don’t remember, the first Making the Band was about the making of the boy band O-Town, singers of such brilliant lines as “I’ve had the rest of you now I want the best of you, it’s time for show and tell.” For the record, Ashley was hot and Ikaika was a whiny bitch.)


Age 14: Honors class snobbery
“I really hate my health class. With honors classes you’re in with mostly nice kids. Even chorus has mostly nice kids. But in classes like gym and health, you’re thrown in with all kinds of kids. And my health class is the worst. It’s full of juvenile delinquents and druggies- how ironic. My only real friend in the class is S. I mean, there are a few nice kids in my class, but for the most part, it’s all druggies and jerks.”


Age 13: The first “horrible, tragic thing” was probably a B+
“But another horrible, tragic thing has happened. I suppose it’s not as bad as war or death or even flunking a course, but it is such a disappointment! We can’t go on the Spanish field trip. I was wicked looking forward to it, but it’s on the same day as another field trip. It wicked stinks.”
(I notice in these diaries that I used to say “wicked,” in the Bostonian sense, a lot more when I was younger. However, here I’m completely misusing the word.)


Age 12: Holy overreaction, Batman!
“We’ve got a BIG problem here. The teachers have decided that from now on we won’t be able to carry our backpacks around from class to class with us. Is that unfair or what?”


Age 11: Fuzzy math
“I have mixed feelings today. Half of me wants to shout for joy and half of me wants to cry. And part of me is confused.”


Age 10: People never even solve mysteries
“Books always tell you not to give up, and I’m not going to give up, but I won’t do well. In books, when people say these words, they always turn out not to be true. But in real life…it just doesn’t work that way in real life. Books just aren’t honest. I mean, I love books, but they lie. People never even solve mysteries. Like I said, life isn’t fair.”
(A recurring theme of my childhood– I read so much and always wanted, and in many cases expected, life to turn out the way it did in the books I read.)


Age 9: Let it snow
“Today was the most boring day. We went to Grandma’s. She wasn’t home. We went to a store. It was boring. Then it snowed. At least I can look forward to that.”


Age 8: Poor little Katie- bad haircuts will never stop sucking
“Dear Diary,
Today I went to McDonald’s. Then I got my hair cut. The great hair disaster. I look so stupid. Katie.


Age 7: Sorry, Caroline
“Nobody is any fun anymore. My dad’s on vacation so I can’t play with my friends. L. is on vacation. C’s mom is having an operation. And I hate playing with my dumb sister.”
(Note: when my dad took a week off and we weren’t going anywhere, my parents didn’t want me playing with my friends because they wanted the whole family to do things together. I was not so crazy about that idea.)

And here I am now:



Katie, survivor of a lifetime of angst and melodrama. But of course, some cool stuff occasionally happened to me, too. So I’ll leave you with a record of one of those things:


November 29, 1992
“Dear Diary,
A spaceship landed in my neighborhood. We have proof. I went bike riding. Katie.”

Filling Up the Bucket

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Today in “I’m a Moron”: you know that camera cable I was looking for so I could write this post? IT WAS IN MY CAMERA BAG. Duh.

Anyway: two weeks ago, I flew out to Las Vegas for Jon and Steph’s wedding. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I will say that their wedding was lovely. The vows they wrote were very sweet, the decor was beautiful (all in my favorite color, purple!) and the reception was just the right mix of classy and fun. They had appetizers themed after places that were significant to them (i.e. Sam Adams and Fenway Franks for Boston, Bass and mini fish and chips for London, etc.) and table numbers with numbers that had meaning to them. They also gave away flip flops to everyone at the reception for dancing and had both a photo booth and an Elvis impersonator who showed up for one song! Also, it was kind of a weird mix of people at the wedding– a handful of people I knew from college, but many more I didn’t: Jon’s friends from home, Steph’s friends from home, Steph’s friends from when she studied abroad in London, Steph’s friends from when she worked in London for a couple of years, Jon’s work friends in LA, Steph’s work friends in LA, their neighbors in LA…you get the picture. But they were all so much fun! After an awesome bachelorette party, a day spent by the hotel pool (part of it in a rented cabana), and an after-wedding trip to a club in the hotel, I made a lot of new friends. We’re all in a wedding Facebook group now and want to reunite to party again.

It was great to see Jon and Steph, whom I hadn’t seen in awhile, again. It was also awesome to spend more time with Christina- after not seeing her for almost two years, I saw her for two separate occasions in one month. We enjoyed staying in a lovely hotel, played some slots, went to a cool aquarium, and ate some great food.

Also, I crossed a couple of items off my bucket list.

You have a bucket list? you’re now saying. Why, yes, I do. Housekeeping detail: if you read this blog in Google Reader or another method that’s not directly on the site, I now have a new design (it was time for a change) and some new pages. One is on me, the other two are on my bucket list and my travel goals.

I first made the bucket list (which includes the travel goals) the summer after college, just a couple of months before I started this blog. I’ve only modified it a bit since then, and I’ve accomplished some of the items on it–living in Davis Square, traveling to places like Philadelphia and San Francisco, etc. Some items on it are totally do-able (taking a Spanish class, joining a book club, spending the whole day reading a novel); others are harder (becoming a best-selling author, attending an award show, owning a boat). The travel goals range from typical (London, Paris, Rome) to more quirky and Katie-specific (Washington Depot, CT, which inspired Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls, and Quechee, VT, where I used to go skiing, in the summer rather than winter). As my life progresses, I will update you on which items have been accomplished.

So, what’s now been crossed off the list? Traveling to Vegas, first of all. But also?

I WENT TO A CELINE DION CONCERT.

…I KNOW. You’re jealous, right? Well, you should be!

Okay, in all seriousness, I know that it’s not a concert most people would make it a life goal to see. She’s not, and never has been, what the cool kids are listening to. Some guy wrote a book about her that’s subtitled “A Journey To the End of Taste.” Ana Gasteyer did a famous parody of her on SNL. Most people roll their eyes at the mere mention of her name.

You know what? I DON’T CARE. I’ve been a huge fan of hers since I was twelve. There is nothing the least bit ironic or guilty-pleasure-ish in my love for her. I genuinely enjoy her music. I love the things she does with her voice. I love almost all of her songs, from “Where Does My Heart Beat Now” to “Taking Chances.” I love that she seems like a genuinely nice person, and that while people sometimes trash her music, I’ve never heard about her doing or saying anything bitchy or controversial– and with her level of fame and the kind of celebrity culture we live in, the press definitely would have jumped on any story about that. I love that she takes her singing seriously, but not herself or what other people are saying about her, as you can see in these videos.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEggoXwoXEY]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7sTDpAtjEo]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pytrKPnhwlA]

And if you don’t believe me? Believe Michelle Collins (thank you, Megan and Rebekah, for introducing me to her brand of hilarity). She will never apologize for her Celine Dion love and neither will I!

The tickets were an early birthday present from my parents. The seats were awesome and did not disappoint. (They didn’t allow photos in the theater, so I have no pictures from the actual concert.) I could see her really well, and she sounded fantastic. She did a lot of covers, which surprised me- it was about half and half her own stuff and covers like Journey’s “Open Arms” and Janice Ian’s “At Seventeen.” One of my favorite songs she did was actually a French song called “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” I don’t speak French at all, but this is a sad love song, and she cried while singing it- it was surprisingly very moving.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxjYv0N6PoQ]

And of course, the finale was “My Heart Will Go On,” a favorite of mine since my days as a Titanic fangirl. It was amazing, and I didn’t stop smiling all the way to the airport.

What’s next to be crossed off the list? I don’t know, but I’m ridiculously glad to have checked these things off my list. What an awesome trip this was.

Coll-EGE!

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In the past year and a half, I’ve started watching and enjoying How I Met Your Mother. That deserves a whole post in itself, but one of the many things I appreciate about the show is its ability to coin terms that sum up common experiences of yuppiehood—like “graduation goggles” = the nostalgic feeling you suddenly get when something you didn’t like, i.e. high school or a bad relationship, is ending, and “couples coma” = inability of long-term couples to leave their house to go out like single people.

Two weeks ago, I attended my five-year college graduation, and two terms from HIMYM kept coming to mind. One, my personal favorite, was “woo girl.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NIAYG0-a7M]

Not going to lie—sometimes I am a woo girl, and I definitely was for all of reunion weekend.

The other was “revertigo.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BTr0evZSis]

Because that’s what the whole weekend was—revertigo to when we were back in college.

Now, if you haven’t figured this out yet, I loved college. LOVED. To the point where I sometimes worry about coming across as one of those obnoxious people who’s obsessed with her alma mater. It took me years to stop regretting that it was over. I loved the classes, I loved the dorms, I loved the parties, I loved having all my friends in one place.

And you know what? So did everyone else in my class. I was once asked to sum up BC students in one word, and what I came up with was “enthusiastic.” Whether it’s sports, music, academic research, political activism, religion, volunteer work, or just having a good time, everyone at BC is excited about something. And everyone is excited about being there. Whenever I started telling people from work how excited I was about my college reunion, they would look at me like I was nuts. Most colleges do not have three-day reunion weekends that involve large nighttime parties and staying in dorms. But most colleges are not Boston College.

Things started for me the Wednesday before, when Christina flew in from California to stay with me for a couple of days. I had not physically seen her in almost two years, so being able to hang out with her again was amazing.

I took a day off work on Friday, and Christina and I grabbed our suitcases and hopped on the T to Chestnut Hill. We checked into the dorm, which happened to be Edmond’s Hall (the apostrophe usage is correct there—the hall is named after a guy named Edmond Walsh), where I’d lived both my sophomore and junior years. These dorms fit four people in two bedrooms and have common rooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. We had a large group going—thirteen people in all—so while we weren’t all close together, most of us were on the same floor. Christina got lunch at Flat Bread’s, a place she went to so many times when she lived here that the owner immediately said upon seeing her, “Hey! Where’ve you been?”

Then we went to an official BC event, the lobsterbake, and caught up with some old friends who had lived on our floor in Loyola Hall freshman year. After the lobsterbake, we headed to Cleveland Circle to buy some booze and snacks for an unofficial event that night—our friend Carr’s birthday party in the dorms.

I saw people at that party whom I hadn’t seen in years. There was all kinds of what we called “nostalgic alcohol”—all the crappy stuff we used to drink. Beer like Keystone and Natty Light, and Smirnoff Ices, which was what my junior year roommates, who hadn’t yet developed a taste for most alcohol, spent the whole year drinking. We started the party with a Power Hour to a nostalgic playlist—songs from the 90s to 2006—and we reminisced about when life revolved around AIM and everyone used to put up R. Kelly as an away message: “It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby, I’m about to have me some fun.”

Around eleven, we headed down to the Edmond’s lobby, where the residential life staff (current BC students working there for the summer) was making us soak-up-the-alcohol pancakes. Yes, really—I love that they even thought of that. Later that night, I went to hang out in another room where there was a game of Kings going on and caught up with Bridget, in from DC.

And although I wasn’t there for this, Erin and Lindsey tell me that as they had just stopped talking and laid down to go to sleep that night, they suddenly heard a voice outside the window yell, “CLASS OF 06, BITCHES!” Which, along with the numerous shouts of, “Coll-EGE!” I heard over the weekend, became our catchphrase.

The next morning, I’d signed up for an alumni 5k, but, as I expected, I didn’t get up in time. So later, my friends and I headed over to another official event, a barbeque for the 5-year and 10-year reunion crowds. I saw my friends Nico and April, who were married last fall and now live on Long Island, for the first time in a long time. The food was good but I ended up with a bit of a necklace tan—awesome.

After the barbeque, Jackie and Lindsey and I decided to take a spin around campus. The dustbowl, where we used to sit under trees and read like the kids on the brochures, is sadly a thing of the past as the college starts its latest construction project.

Gasson Tower, our signature building, is looking good, though.

I bought some BC sweatpants, went to the Saturday night alumni Mass, and then headed back to Edmond’s, where Christina, Lindsey, Erin, Jackie, Bridget, and I had decided to settle the Presto’s/Pino’s debate once and for all. Presto’s and Pino’s are two New York-style pizza places a few doors down from each other in Cleveland Circle. Their pizzas are very similar, and people have been debating which one is better pretty much since they’ve existed. So we ordered one from Pino’s and one from Presto’s and decided to taste test.


Pino’s came first, although we’d ordered from them second. Considering one notorious incident in college when Jon (absent from the reunion due to his upcoming wedding) bitched them out for taking ninety minutes and delivering the wrong order, that was pretty impressive. Presto’s also came on time, and rather than making us go to the lobby, they delivered it right to the dorm room.

In the end, Lindsey, Erin and I voted for Pino’s, Christina and Bridget voted for Presto’s, and Jackie remained undecided. So Pino’s was the narrow winner.

I don’t know what I was laughing about in that picture, but I look really happy. Even though everyone thinks of crazy parties when they think of college, some of my favorite moments involved my friends and I hanging around the dorms with takeout (freshman year, we used to discuss the meaning of life while eating Chinese), so I’m glad I got to experience that again.

Then came the weekend’s main event: the class of 2006 party in the Mods. The Mods are two-story townhouse dorms for seniors notorious for being the party dorms. (They were originally constructed as temporary housing—that was back in 1970.) If people were going to only one official event, this was it. There was a cash bar and a DJ in the Mod lot, and despite the lack of some favorites played, lots of dancing and picture-taking and having a good time.

After that, we all headed back into Edmond’s to continue the partying. Not only was Res Life serving pancakes again, but this time the BC police were helping them.

We played some Beirut like old times, and then everyone on the ninth floor dragged their kitchen tables out to the hallway so we could start a massive flip-cup game.

Yeah. Revertigo. And it was awesome.

I talked with people I hadn’t seen in a long time until four in the morning. The next day, we got up and headed to another official event, a jazz brunch. Most of the rest of the class of 2006 had decided to sleep in, so it was largely us with a bunch of people at their 30-year and 40-year reunion.


The last event, after we checked out of the dorms, was a Red Sox game against Oakland. This event had sold out quickly, so it ended up being a date for me and Erin.

Sox won!

Christina stayed with me for another night, headed down to Fall River for a few days to visit some of her friends there, and then came back up for a night to have dinner with Julie and me and then catch her flight home.

It was seriously one of the best weekends of my life, and even with all these details, I feel like it’s hard for me to convey just how awesome it was. And the thing is, it was an entirely mutual feeling—EVERYONE had a great time. EVERYONE was smiling and getting into everything. EVERYONE came away wishing they could go back to college, as we’d just squeezed all of the best parts of it into one weekend. I guess that’s just the enthusiasm that BC students are known for.

Song of the Moment: “Fly Like an Eagle”

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There is a LOT going on with me lately. I bought a new laptop (yea!), decided I’m not renewing my lease but will hopefully be staying in Davis Square(currently debating the pros and cons of getting a studio apartment vs. living with a roommate), will be leaving for Las Vegas on Thursday morning to attend Jon and Steph’s wedding, have run a couple of road races and am thinking about doing more later this year, and bought two gorgeous dresses on sale at Lord & Taylor (seriously, I was really happy about that!).

The most awesome thing of the last couple of weeks, though, was my five-year college reunion. That deserves a proper post of its own, which I’ll get to soon. For now, though, I’m just going to dedicate my Song of the Moment to it.

At BC orientation before freshman year, everyone is given a yellow “Superfan” shirt to wear to sporting events. This helps create a noticeable student section at games, and on the back, each shirt has a phrase that reflects your year of graduation. They’re things like “Go Eagles,” “Eagles on the Warpath,” “Always Believe in BC,” “Take It to the Heights,” etc. Our class had the best one, though—“Fly Like an Eagle.”

At the second night of the reunion, we had a big class party in the Mods (senior townhouse dorms) with a DJ, and Erin wanted the DJ to play “Fly Like an Eagle.” Unfortunately, he didn’t, so here it is as the Song of the Moment.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1f7eZ8cHpM]

Runner-up: “Living On a Prayer,” which they did play. I have never been to a BC party where “Living On a Prayer” wasn’t playing.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk]

Princess Me!

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Two weeks ago, I was here:

If you couldn’t tell from the picture, “here” was Disney World. Specifically, for the Princess Half-Marathon!

Last year, my sister ran the Boston Marathon. I am not quite that crazy, but I thought a half-marathon might be something I could manage. When Caroline mentioned that the Princess race would take place during her spring break from law school, I hesitated at first. “I don’t know if I have time to train.” “It’s in Florida- it will be hot.” But then I looked at the half marathon training schedule and realized that it was completely do-able. So I was in.

I am amazed that I actually managed to stick to the training schedule, which involved four days of running per week, including one long run over the weekends. While I do like to run, and like other forms of exercise as well, I have a tendency to be lazy. I have a whole gamut of excuses for skipping the gym—everything from “It’s raining” to “I don’t want to miss The Office.”

Furthermore, if you haven’t been paying attention to the weather in Boston, we’ve gotten snow up to Shaq’s earlobes this winter. This meant running on the sidewalks involved getting my feet soaked in frozen puddles, trying not to slip on ice, climbing over snowbanks to avoid stepping on puddles or ice, trying to squeeze around people when the sidewalks were too narrow from the snow, being stopped dead in my tracks when I realized that a sidewalk hadn’t been shoveled and having to figure out how to get off the sidewalk without stepping in knee-deep snow…you get the picture. After awhile, I started longing for Florida just so I could run a long distance without being interrupted by the elements.

We had to get up at 3 in the morning for the half-marathon to be on the bus by 4 and start the race by 6:30. And so my sister and I, along with 13,000 other runners (mostly women, and many of whom were wearing tutus, tiaras, or princess costumes) ran 13.1 miles.

Along the way, we saw all kinds of Disney characters and entertainment:

And when it was over, we spent the rest of the day in Disney World!
I love Disney World. I had been twice before, once when I was eight and once when I was thirteen, and I think I was just as excited this time. We covered a lot of ground in one day- we got to the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), and World Showcase in EPCOT on a one-day pass.

The day after that, we headed to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was awesome. We went on all the rides (Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is maybe the best ride I’ve ever been on ANYWHERE), hung out in the wand shop and Honeydukes, and had ourselves some butterbeer.

And what’s next? Well, I think I’ve caught the running bug. I still don’t want to run a marathon (I don’t like running that much), but I think I’m going to sign up for some 5ks and possibly another half marathon.

I don’t think any other race will give me a number like this, though:

Putting the Passport to Use

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Remember back in December of 2007 when I first got a passport?

It finally has a stamp on it.

Yep, a few weeks ago my family and I went to Aruba! It was the first time I’d ever left the country or been anywhere tropical. And what an awesome trip! I spent most of the week lying on a beach reading. And the beach there doesn’t have anything you hate about the beach in New England—no seagulls, no seaweed, no screaming little kids, no bottom you can’t see, no freezing cold water. It was just gorgeous. See for yourself:

Aside from the obvious reasons of enjoying my trip to Aruba, I’m really happy to have left the country, finally. Sometimes I just feel like so much of my life has been defined by what I haven’t done. I haven’t lived anywhere but the Boston area. I haven’t had a boyfriend. I haven’t been in love. It had always really bothered me that I’d never left the country.
But now I have. It might be just a stamp on a passport, but to me it’s what it symbolizes as well as the fun trip that put it there that means so much to me.

With Open Arms

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A few weeks after Christmas this year, I got a late present—the one I’d gotten myself.

Yep, I got myself a Snuggie.

And because I am, in fact, one of those obnoxious people who’s obsessed with her alma mater, it’s a BC Snuggie.

 

(Yes, my head is cut off deliberately. I have a bad feeling that putting a picture of myself in a Snuggie out on the Internet is going to come back to haunt me.)

It’s kind of funny—at first, it seemed like the Snuggie was going to go the way of the fanny pack and the scrunchie, things you can no longer wear even ironically. Those ridiculous commercials like the one below made it seemed destined for mocking by pseudo-celebrities when VH1 does I Love the 2010s.

But a funny thing happened—all of a sudden, a Snuggie became something desirable. People were excited about getting Snuggies for Christmas. Facebook statuses like “My roommate and I got each other Snuggies for Christmas!” and “Snowing out…drinking wine and watching a movie in my Snuggie” started popping up. The commercials even started making fun of themselves.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeM4GMGWInY&hl=]
Here’s my theory: if the Snuggie were a band, it would be Journey—so uncool it kind of became cool. 80s power ballads are as easy a target as blankets with sleeves, and as recently as 2004, you had characters like Luke on Gilmore Girls declaring that Journey freaks him out. But eventually, the backlash developed backlash. Journey was Ryan’s favorite band on The O.C. Dave Eggers reminisces about singing along to “Any Way You Want It” in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. “Don’t Stop Believing” has shown up on the Glee pilot, the Sopranos finale, and every major sporting event in between. At this point, if someone dares to be snobby about Journey, you find yourself looking at him with pity. Really, don’t you feel bad for someone who’s never sung a Journey song at the top of his or her lungs?

Just like I now feel bad for anyone who hasn’t curled up on the couch to watch a movie with a cup of hot chocolate and a Snuggie. All hail blankets with sleeves! Don’t stop believing.

They’re Not Quite Gods, But…

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My neighborhood is full of churches and dentist’s offices. There’s one church that has a marquee board that’s usually pretty interesting. One recent item on it read, “God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.” It also usually has the minister’s name up there.

This week, I noticed a new message on the marquee board:

The name of the minister is conspicuously absent. Makes me wonder if the sermon will be given by the ghosts of recently deceased celebrities.

Or maybe (although this wouldn’t explain Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon), there’s some truth to that joke about how God is Michael Jackson.

This Is Where I Used to Live

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A few weeks ago, I moved to Davis Square, and I’m absolutely loving it. I have a great new apartment, very cool new roommates (going to see Cirque du Soleil with them next month!), an absolutely fantastic new neighborhood with everything I could want (all kinds of restaurants and stores, a movie theater, some cool bars, a cupcake place, a library, a park, everything!), and a commute to work that’s less than half what it used to be when I lived on the Green Line. My co-workers are probably very relieved that I no longer come in bitching about the T, and the move is probably going to cut down majorly on my “the-T-sucks” posts.

My lease started August 1, but my lease on my old place didn’t end until August 31. I moved into this new place on August 18, but this week is the first time in two years that I don’t officially live in my first apartment.
And this is where I talk about it a little. As much as I love my new place, that first apartment is always going to hold a special place in my heart. For one thing, it was far from the crappy first apartment that most people have. I lucked into a great place that was very reasonably priced and HUGE. And I had some terrific times there—watching movies with friends, decorating for the holidays, sitting on the balcony reading the Sunday Globe, and having some amazing late-night conversations with Christina, the best person in the world to talk to at three o’clock in the morning.
I started this blog from my old apartment. I watched the fourth season of The O.C. there. I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows there. I watched the Sox win the World Series from there. I had some great roommates there—Christina and Chris, and then Stephanie after Christina moved out. I also went through some very difficult times that were too personal to write about here, and as tough as those times were, I’m glad that while they were going on, I had a great place to come home to.
So, here are some pictures to remember my wonderful old apartment by:




Non-Spoilery Harry Potter Post

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I turned 23 on July 20, and just for this year, my birthday was an international holiday. Christina and I went to Potterpaloozza in Brookline before we went to get our books.

I had my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finished by 7:00 PM on July 21st, and because I’m a complete nerd, I’ve since re-read the whole thing. I won’t spoil those who haven’t finished it yet except to say that I loved it and I think it’s my favorite of the HP books.

But I’m still a bit let down. This is really the end (well, except for the encyclopedia J.K. Rowling says is coming out eventually). Not only will we never have another Harry Potter book to anticipate again, but I have a hard time imagining any book that could cause people to unite the way the HP books do. What other book could cause concepts like the Sorting Hat to become so well-known in the mainstream, or inspire “Republicans for Voldemort” bumper stickers? What other book could lead people to stand in line at midnight dressed in costume? What other book could appeal to so many people—elementary school students and senior citizens, lifelong readers and people who’ve never read for fun in their lives, fantasy nerds and those who never read anything outside of fairy tales that had to do with magic? What piece of fiction could get so many people debating who would survive the last book or what side Snape was on?

It’s amazing, too, because I’d been afraid for a long time that reading for pleasure was a dying pastime. Books only tend to get widespread attention if Oprah’s involved (even better if you write a memoir of questionable authenticity) or if they’re written by a plagiarizing Harvard undergrad. When I worked at a pool, all the little kids would be bouncing off the walls when a new HP book was about to come out. I always used to get made fun of for reading when I was in elementary school. I wish Harry Potter had been around when I was little.

My parents were recently talking about how they remember seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and were saying that there won’t ever be anything again that could be so universal, that everyone would be so obsessed with.

I said, “Yes, there is. And it’s even British.”