Sing it loud so I can hear you

So, as previously posted, Maria & Casey got married on May 23rd.  There was a lot of pre-wedding preparation and craziness beforehand, but it all fell into place and was fun and lovely.

Last minute prep, as Liz & Thomas scan photos for the slideshow.

And we transport the flowers to the hotel.

And Amee does Maria's hair for the rehearsal.  I like how Thomas got roped into helping with Maria's hair.

Later at the church, Aneil got some blurry pics of our practice walks.

Rehearsal dinner was delicious!  Steaks and salads and tarts, oh my!  Seriously, Cafe Eccell's strawberry tart is a thing of beauty.  Sorry in advance to anyone in my wedding party, as we cannot afford to provide you with a steak dinner.

Then on the big day,  I gave my digital camera to Aneil so all my preparation pics are on my Kodak Funsaver.  I will have to get them developed and get back to you.  We'll see how those turned out.  Thomas kept calling it my "old-timey" camera.

Here's the ceremony:

Seriously, Maria's nieces and nephew are the cutest kids around.

Liza & Julian.  Check out the look on the old lady's face to the left!

Liz & Brian.

Me & Matt.  My mom worries that I will be making this "silly" face throughout my own wedding.

Amee & V.  Amee looks real princess-y in Indian clothes.

Neha & Sean.

Bree & Travis.

The Bride!

And the newlyweds!

The reception was a 2-parter.  There was a lunch reception, with a full buffet, the couple's first dance, and the cake cutting, etc.  The highlight for me was Julian's charming best man speech, which included a lengthy discussion of the movie "Heat."  

We thought the 2 babies on the right looked like miniature versions of Maria and Casey.  Also, that's Leela on the left.  She is Maria's niece, and a dancing fool!  I love her so.

Best friend photos were mandatory.

Maria changed into a gorgeous sari, for what seemed like all of 2 minutes, then the reception was over!

We showered and changed and relaxed before the nighttime reception/dance party.  Aneil, Amee, and I went to the Freebird's on Northgate and it was extremely nostalgic.  Gig them!  Needless to say, we did not eat many hors d'oeuvres at the reception.

Dance party was awesome.  Started out as a baby dance off.

Lily won the dance-off, mostly because she did a crazy pull-up-the-skirt move.  Here she is in action.

Thomas actually did a dance very reminiscent of my brother's patented "squat and stick out your tongue" dance, prominently featured in our infamous dance-a-thon home video, circa 1986.  Apparently the classics never die.  Thomas just does it with more style.

Thomas won over all the ladies, including Neha.

The night eventually devolved into this (of course):

Our faces are nuts here.

Check out the color coordination!  Also, I am madly in love with Maria's dress.

We took Amee to Northgate for all of 1 hour, and all of her Aggieness apparently was reawakened.  She did the darling Shiner Tattoo move at least twice (that I remember).

I love how serene Aneil looks, as he is oblivious to Julian's shenanigans.

I feel like this photo sums up Maria and Amee's relationship.

At times we were cute.

Other times, not so much.

These two were cute entire day.  Lub.

Eventually we were drunk and emotional and gave the couple a mini send-off.  Note Julian's single tear.  Bye bye friends!

I continued crying for a good solid half hour (Aneil says it was an hour) after we got back to the hotel room.  I will miss my Maria and our constant hanging out over the last few years.  I know I already moved to Austin a couple of months ago, but after the wedding it really did feel like the end of an era.  The end of our single days of studying and shopping and missing boyfriends and chatting for hours.  New York is awful far away, but we've got to visit sooner rather than later!

Check out a million more photos at my shutterfly site.  It was a labor of love to upload those, so enjoy them or else!  

PICTURES!

Maria & Casey!

Just Married!



True Love.



More to come.

xoxo

M-A-L-F-E-A-S-A-N-C-E

Quick post before I head to Colsta.

I am 9 kinds of sore from the "Everlast Shadow Box" class yesterday.  I woke up making sad sounds and basically couldn't flip over in bed.  Plus I had to suffer the indignity of watching myself punch the air in 360 degrees of floor to ceiling mirrors.  I am no Rocky.  Aneil says the soreness is good because that means "it's working" but whatevs.   I am pathetic.  I hurt and no one was even punching me back!

Also, we heard about the Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee from our friend Logan, and decided to check it out.  It's an annual event to raise money for the library.  Turns out there are some hardcore spellers living in Austin!  There was this one guy named Geoff, who was trying to intimidate people by wearing his National Scrabble Championship t-shirt.  And apparently he's won the Spelling Bee 3 times before!  It's fine.  We were way out of our league.

There were about 300 people to begin with, and we had to take little spelling tests where we identified the misspelled words.  Words like bellwether, pastime, liaison, etc.  Along with 48 others, I made it to test 2!  Then we got words like pulchritudinous, scleroderma, oeuvre, etc.  And along with 21 others I made it to the stage and the actual spell-out-loud bee!

I was really nervous.  And of course I messed up my very first word, MALFEASANCE.  Not particularly difficult, but after "M-A-L" I pretty much blanked.  Ha.  Oh well, Aneil got an exceptionally blurry photo of my making my be debut.

Look how scared I was!

Yet, excited (the beer probably didn't help my chances)!

I feel like the blurriness here really represents my state of mind in the moment.  Honest to God, I could not spell my name at that point.

It turns out I was way out of my league anyway.  Before we started there was a debate amongst contestants about which established set off bee rules we should follow.  And it turns out the Scrabble champion guy could deliver the goods, spelling ONOMATOPOEICALLY and some other weird word correctly for his 4th win.  Dude was amazing.

Seriously, this guy was a spelling machine!

All in all, a strangely fun night with a quirky word-loving subset of the Austin population.  Reminded me of the movie "Wordplay" which you should all check out if you can.  It's about the national crossword championship and it features all sorts of celebs and crossword lovers talking about crosswords.  Amazingly entertaining.

Anywho, peace out and enjoy the long weekend!

This week I love:  word nerds, salads from Wendy's, and imminent friend reunion.  This week I hate: VCRs, the SAT essay section, and the way I look punching the air.

Blog Makeover

Okay, so the blog needed a little TLC, so check out the new template and updated links!  

New photos are definitely on the way.  I've figured out how to get photos onto the Mac, so expect some Maria wedding pics soon.

Anyone catch the American Idol finale?  Did you record it in any format that can be transferred to yours truly?  My previous post about surviving without cable should be edited to say that I am not faring as well without Tivo.  We have a VCR (that's what pre-dated the DVR, for all you kids out there) and I set it to record my beloved Idol finale so I could go practice for my SAT tutoring interview (I have to teach a class...scary.).  Well, Aneil got home before me, and found that the VCR ate the tape (it did this to another tape last week, but we wrote it off as a fluke).  Luckily he was able to record the last 15 minutes for me, but apparently I missed appearances by Cyndi Lauper and Lionel Ritchie!  Nooooo!  Weirdly, reality show full episodes don't really show up online the way normal tv shows do (anyone want to school me on copyright laws for reality tv?) so I caught a little bit of grainy footage on youtube, but it's NOT THE SAME.  I am one sad pop- culture-deprived-bunny.  I feel like newly crowned American Idol Kris Allen's face really expresses my disbelief that I missed out on  most of the extravaganza:

Apparently this is what I missed:

KISS!  Cyndi!  The dude married to Nicole Kidman!  And...Jason Mraz?  Meh.

Anyway, it's fine.  The entertainment blogs have freakishly detailed descriptions of everything that went down, so it's almost like I was in the Nokia theater myself.  Almost.

On that note, I strangely love TV watcher blogs, so next season I'm going to add a TV Watch feature to my own blog!  Vote in the comments for what show you would like me to recap.  Here's what I watch regularly:  Lost, American Idol, Gossip Girl, and Mad Men.  I used to have a ton of cable reality shows on that list, but the one benefit of my no-cable lifestyle is that I have managed to drop them off my radar (goodbye Real Housewives!  nice knowing ya!)...so yeah, vote below.  Also suggest stuff I may have left off the list that you know I secretly watch anyway (The Bachelor comes to mind).  I am thinking of adding Glee to my repertoire as well.  (Have you seen it yet?  Love!).

The great Atlas Shrugged attempt 2009 has commenced.  This year is interesting because while babbling on about how I will never know who John Galt is, Aneil mentioned that his BFF John's middle name is Galt.  Dude is freaking named after John Galt!  (btw Aneil had no idea that this had any literary significance.)  At any rate, I am only 100 pages in, thus still shy of last year's record 151 pages.  We'll see how it goes this time around.  Oh how I love reading about railroads!

Job prospects not great, but hopefully this SAT teaching gig will work out okay.  I have what is basically a teaching audition on Tuesday, so wish me luck!  Would I be a good teacher, or as Aneil suspects, will I sort of hate high school students?  Discuss!

Anywho, I am off to a workout class intimidatingly titled "Everlast Shadow Boxing".  Scary.  I do this in honor of the fact that I am missing out on this weekend's Master Pancake: Rocky IV edition.  It will probably be worth it to see my lovely brown friend get hitched.

 In the meantime, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!

2 Months Without Cable Hasn't Killed Me Yet

Austin has been kind to me for the past couple of months...here's the latest:

The job "search" has gotten depressing.  There is a slim chance I could get a pitiful full time job, doing budgeting for government projects, or inspecting pipelines, or something like that, none of which sound appealing, so it's looking like I need a career makeover.

In the meantime, I am training to be an SAT prep course instructor.  Which means I have to take the SAT again (not officially, but my score will determine whether I get hired)!  I mentioned this in casual conversation at a bar the other night, and this girl at our table looked at me like I was either a) the most haggard-looking 16 year old she had ever seen, else b) some sort of diabolical genius that managed to earn an engineering degree without ever taking college admission exams.  Oy.  At any rate, the next 2 weeks will include lots of critical reading and geometry.  On the plus side, they pay really well (albeit at part time hours), and if I like it, hey, maybe I will become a bona fide teacher after all!  

Aneil still rocks.  He is fun and we play lots of Scrabble and chit chat and watch movies starring Cher.  It rules.  I cook him dinners and he dotes on me a lot, and he doesn't mind that sometimes I eat stinky foods or dote on the webkinz to a ridiculous degree.  We need more space than this tiny apartment, so we are looking at houses soon (hopefully starting tomorrow!).  I have no idea how to buy a house, but hopefully it will all work out.  Then we can have barbecues and get a dining table and all will be right with the world.

Wedding planning is moving right along.  I still need a cake and flowers.  Otherwise we've got a place, food, musicians, engagement pics, plus I have a dress.  We are well on our way, I think.

So I joined the 24 Hour Fitness and actually manage to go about 4 days per week (which is pretty impressive for me).  The main draw is that most of the time at least one of the tv's is tuned to "Golden Girls" and I need my fix, since Lifetime and WE don't beam into our digital converter antenna box.  Also sometimes VH1 Classic is on the tv near the ellipticals.  And on Sundays you can bet that you'll see Bravo's Law & Order: CI on at least 2 tv's!  This place is cable tv heaven!  Aneil says I can't just do cardio all the time (although that's the only way to watch tv) so he went with me on Saturday to act as my very own personal trainer in the weight room area.  

In pop culture news, every TV show is in finale mode.  Here are the ones I care about:

1) Hopefully the Gossip Girl spin-off about 1980's era Lily Rhodes will get picked up.  The quasi-pilot was adorable, and included Andrew McCarthy as the dad, and Libby from "Lost" as the mom, plus lots of Veronica Mars alums.  With a fun soundtrack and lots of neon.

2) What's up with "Lost"?  Honestly I can't even tell if I enjoy it anymore, but I have a compulsive need to watch.  Jack is extra-annoying this season.  So is Locke.  I am weirdly fond a Miles, the ghost whisperer guy.  That's about it.  Allegedly this week we find out about "The Incident".  I hope it puts us back in a normal timeline.

3) I have little to no interest in who wins Idol this year.  Sad!

Otherwise, lately I love:  new Andrew Bird , new Bird and the Bee.  

Star Trek (joy!) >>> Wolverine (blah!).    

I want to include more photos, but it is cumbersome (read: I dunno how to) with Aneil's computer, so I'll save that for next time.

XOXO,

Shells

Yes!

This movie looks like it's going to be wonderful!  I can't imagine how they are going to make "Where the Wild Things Are" into a feature length film, but I'm willing to check it out.  Apparently the trailer (set to "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire) is coming out next week.  Eep!

Yakkety Yak

I don't feel like going to the gym, as it is too rainy outside, so I am going to blog instead!  Yay!

1) Being unemployed isn't too bad so far.  I mean, yeah, the lack of income is sort of sad, but I get to see Aneil EVERY DAY.  Which is totally worth it.  Plus, I'm becoming very domestic.  I cooked fish yesterday!  I cooked!  I rule!

2) Daytime tv totally sucks.  Instead, I am watching these Battlestar Galactica dvds that were loaned to me like, 6 months ago.  Anyone watch this show?  I can't decide if I like it or not.  It's so DRAMATIC.  I like the sassy pilot, and I caught myself saying "frak" the other day, so maybe it is growing on me, I dunno.  I loves me some Edward James Olmos, so I guess I'll stick with it.  My only issue is that these people are not from Earth, but like, they use the same words that we do, like a "phone" is a "phone" yet sometimes they have their own special words for things.  I don't really get it.

3) I hate applying for jobs.  I am not getting too down about it, because according to the news, it's not me, it's the sucky economy, but it's still hard to not take it personally.  I got a reject from a job I didn't even want, and it made me sad!  What's the world coming to?  Instead, I am thinking about just spending a bunch of time volunteering, since I can technically afford it for now.

4) Did you see Jon Stewart take down Jim Cramer?  It was intense!  I sort of felt weirdly bad for Jim, as he just had to sit there and take a beating.  Then I realized that he is annoying!  I used to hate how U of H's business school played Mad Money on the big tv's in the lobby all the time.  Jon Stewart rules!

5) Speaking of Jon's...As if Jon Hamm could get any dreamier, there is video of him as Lex Luthor, asking the government for a $100 billion bailout so he can kill Superman.  This guy is funny too?  It's almost too much to take.  Here's the link: Jon Hamm, I love you so.

6) The way the Austin weathermen are SO EXCITED about our 3 days of rain is pretty adorable.

7) George Clooney back on ER last night reminded me why that show used to rule.  And Nurse Hathaway still loves him!  And Benton is still annoying/awesome!  Man, I used to love that show.

8) Had fun playing poker last weekend, and apparently I get to play mahjong tomorrow, so I am one happy game-playing camper.

9) Still no wedding dress.  It's fine.

Love to all!

Shells

This is not my beautiful wife!

So I decided to go ahead and join a 24 Hour Fitness here in Austin, my new homeland.  I guess technically I was a Bally's member back in H-town, but I sort of stopped going after a while.  But kept the membership.  Why do people do that?

Long story short, I am getting married, and my mother thinks it would be a great idea for my to lose 40 LBS! by the time I get married (on 1/9/10 for those of you counting down).  I mean, that's a lovely thought, and 40 LBS! would get me down to the smallest I've been in my adult (read: post high school) life, but it seems daunting.  Mom keeps reminding me that I have "totally done this before" and that she knows I've "got it in me", but she doesn't realize that the time I did this before, I had a boyfriend who gave me such low self esteem, I HAD to work out and diet or I would just cry all the time.  Literally, on days I would have to skip my workout I would have little anxiety attacks and obsess about it all the live long day.  But I mean, I was a size 6 so I probably should have been happy about it.  

Now I have this nice boyfriend who loves me a lot.  If I told him that I decided to wear a white trash bag to the wedding, I bet he would say he would still marry me.  And he would mean it.

But I figure I will at least try it anyway.  If I lose let's say, 10 lbs before the wedding I will be pleased.  Maybe 40 LBS! can be a hypothetical goal.  I will keep you posted.  If I get really ambitious maybe I can make a pie chart.  Mmmm....pie....

Today I actually did go to the gym.  I've decided that the biggest perk of the gym is that they have cable tv (unlike Aneil, and I guess now, me!) so I can watch The Daily Show in the mornings.   Today was one of those bizarre Tori episodes of Saved by the Bell.  Have you guys read Chuck Klosterman's hilarious Saved by the Bell essay in his book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs?  It addresses "The Tori Paradox".  You should check it out.  

But okay, I wonder what part of my day will make me happier?  My 40 minute, 400-calorie burning workout, or gorging on crepes with my insanely beautiful friend Kat later today, or when my cutie boyfriend gets home later and gives me hugs...hmmm.

I am going to a "Girls Night Out" tonight with new girls I don't know very well plus all their friends.  Pray for me.

XOXO,

Shells

Who watches The View?

I mean, I know I am a stay-at-home cutie now, but I seriously can't make it through more than 20 minutes of that show.  The women are just too irritating!  I do love Ellen, though.  Maybe if Barbara Walters and Whoopi had some sort of charming dance like Ellen's it would help?  Nah, probably not.

The geniuses over at my former place of employment accidentally paid me for 6 weeks of unused vacation rather than 3 weeks.  Is it any wonder this place is in the red?  When I called to correct it, there were no, oh wow thanks for pointing that out, man, you are great!  Rather, it seemed like they were annoyed that they had to do more work, and asked me to cut them a check (for way more than I owed them!).  What idiots!  Ugh. Lucky for them I have the sweetest, most honest fiance in the world, who convinced me that yes, I should inform them of the mistake, else I may have just kept it.  My dealings with all things HR or Payroll since the end of my stay have been nothing but irritating.  I have to channel all my happy memories with my delightful coworkers to even remember why I worked there in the first place.

End of rant.

In pop culture news, I am perplexed by the American Idol "wild card" announcement last night.  The only real bright spot was that Anoop (my personal fave!) got a spot.  Anyone have any Idol opinions?  Anyone watch this show other than me?  Anyone else shocked that someone actually covered "Mandolin Rain" by Bruce Hornsby and the Range on Tuesday night?  I mean, Bruce Hornsby, really?  Really?  Whatevs, I'll keep watching, of course.  I'm pretty sure that my bizarre need to watch AI is probably Aneil's least favorite aspect of our co-habitation.  Oh well, too late, sucka!

Thanks to Amee I am obsessed with "The Daily Plate", this food journal application within the Livestrong website.  Their database is INSANE.  Much better than any other I have seen.  You basically look up whatever you ate (and can rest assured it's in there) and click "I ate this" and it logs all your calories for you.  Since I'm supposed to be Bride dieting, it should come in handy.  Check it out if you love obsessing and/or calorie counting.

Has anyone tried this Paperback Swap website?  It seems cool.

More soon,

Shelley

Anyone still out there?

Hi, sorry about the demise of blog.  Things got sort of nuts after Bonnaroo, apparently.  Here's the rundown since then...

1)  Bonnaroo was simultaneously fun and exhausting.  I did not shower for like, 5 days.  The sets were extra-long and the festival grounds were great.  But yeah, never doing it again.

2) Then we went to Chicago to visit Amee and take her to Lollapalooza, which was wonderful.  First, we saw Amee.  Second, we ran into Wayne Coyne in the street!  Plus, the festival was lovely and fun and the weather in Chi-town in the summer is awesome.

3) We also visited Val in Philly.  Liberty Bell, water ice, cheesesteaks, Andrew Bird, joy.  We also hooked Val up, so there was also romance in the air.  Lub.  Since our trip, she has actually moved back to Houston, so Texas has definitely cheered up.

4) I left my job downtown to go work at the Channelview plant, which I actually liked, other than the fact that my Nomex was pretty snug after 3 years of cubicle life.  I only lasted 2 months before I left, though.  Because...

5) Aneil and I got engaged in December.  He totally surprised me, but I said "no doi."  Seriously, that's exactly what I said.  He was cute.  Things are looking up.

6) Decided to end my mid-life crisis by quitting my job (which, if you were to ask Barack Obama, was a stupid idea), and moving to Austin.  I am on Day 2 of Real Housewife of Travis County life, and it's okay so far.  I probably need to get a job ASAP, but am sort of enjoying this mini-vacay.

Okay, that should bring the blog up to speed.  Promise to post more soon.

XOXO,

Shells

ROOOOOOO!

3 DAYS UNTIL BONNAROO!

(i am so excited)

Here we are now, entertain us

This weekend marked the debut of darling brown boy’s 90’s cover band, My So-Called Band. Niiice name. The first show was a Memorial Day pool-side BBQ at the drummer’s apartment complex. Here is my attempt to chronicle the event. Keep in mind I have piss-poor photography skills.

Check out the setlist (which I got autographed). Lots of rockin’ oldies but goodies. Strangely, “Bombtrack” turned out to be the biggest crowd pleaser, especially among the 40+ demographic. Interesting. My take on it is that it was obvious that the band loved playing that song the most. And lil Amy, the singer, managed to scream “Burn Burn!” with admirable gusto.
I gotta say, I did not know all of these songs by heart. During the 90’s I was sort of really poor and couldn’t afford cds, thus managed to miss out on the bulk of the grunge movement. My friend Lauren and I would check out 60’s and 70’s cds from the library and make tapes of them (ah, tapes). I think this explains my love of classic pop, my bubbly demeanor, and my obsessions with David Bowie and The Beatles. Ha. At any rate, if I was in a cover band I would either choose 60’s all-girl or 70’s glam rock. Comment below on your cover band of choice. But this isn’t really about me, is it?

Moving on, here is a pic of Sommer, the hot chick bassist. She is not intimidated to play bass in a band with Aneil, so you gotta give her props for that. Plus she’s real nice to me so we must love her.

Sommer is married to Jim, who is a much much better significant other than yours truly. He had a fancy camera (a la Bo) and ran about getting artsy camera angles. Here is a shot of him taking what is likely a far superior photo than I could take. Think of this as a photo within a photo. Like Hamlet’s play within a play, but more grunge. Although, if you think about it, Hamlet is pretty freaking grunge. Oh, the angst!

To reiterate Jim’s superior husband skills (I almost typed husbandry and it made me think of A&M’s excellent ag dept), here is a link to the website (!) he made to put all his superior photos. There are some really charming shots of Aneil, so it is worth a click if only for that. Well, I guess the whole band is attractive, but like how we all have a favorite New Kid on the Block (mine? Jonathan. I know, lame in retrospect, right?), Aneil is obviously my favorite My So-Called Band-er.

Click here for much better photos.

Here is my completely non-artsy photo of Aneil, in which he smiles at me. It reminds me of the time me and the brown gals went to New York and Maria, fresh out of a photography class, kept getting annoyed with Neha for making us smile and wave in front of landmarks rather than taking candids. This photo does not necessarily represent the essence of the band, but I like to think it expresses Aneil’s undying devotion and constant willingness to amuse me and/or humor me.

Here is the only decent photo of John that I took. He has one of those slick yet disconcerting electric drum kits. I’m not sure if Fro approves of those, but will ask him next time I see him. At any rate, John is Aneil’s BFF and he is real cutie and funny and managed to survive a Spinal Tap moment during setup when a pillar fell from the apartment staircase and almost crushed him. Scary.

Kenneth plays lead and he is also one of Aneil’s close friends. He actually showed up to the show wearing a cropped sleeveless Megadeath tshirt, so I dunno why he changed. Didn’t get a photo of the original outfit (sorry ladies). Kenneth is lovely and likes to hug and makes me laugh a lot, so he gets a thumbs up from this critic.

Amy is the hot singer girrrl. She has one of those husky slightly affected voices that I really wish I had rather than my limp Jewel-like instrument. She held her own on the mostly boy music that was played (apparently the Lillith Fair did not occur according to this 90’s band…good/bad? Discuss.) Plus she is wearing shorts with roses and skulls on them and that’s pretty rock n’ roll.
Here is a pic of a dude who came out on his balcony to check out the band. At first he seemed confused, but he sort of got into it. A fan!
Here’s some of the crowd around the pool.

Also, I kept making fun of a couple of dudes who kept eating kielbasas, like the entire afternoon. Seriously every time I saw them they were getting more food. I thought this was freakish until I was later told that they had competed in a triathalon earlier in the day. Ha. I’m such an asshole sometimes.

Sadly/awesomely, some cranky neighbor called the cops and the show got shut down with only 2 songs to go. Doh. I think the band felt validated in a way, so that was good. Plus the cops were very nice about the whole thing.

Most of the rest of my photos are blurry, so that's it from me. If I wouldn’t have been so delirious from the heat, I would have thought to get everyone together for a band photo, but alas, we will have to wait until next time.

XOXO, Groupie Girl

"I Believe" that "This Is My Now" because in "A Moment Like This" I wonder, "Do I Make You Proud?"

Hi there Upper East Siders,

Today my coworker and I could not stop talking about the stellar American Idol finale and our weirdly overwhelming crush on the winner, David Cook:

Seriously, this dude started the season with a strange comb-over hairdo (I believe streaked with magenta?) and a sad lil soul patch and now he's Dreamy McDreamerson. It's amazing what a decent haircut and growing a beard can do for you. Plus he loves crosswords. At any rate, my American Idol loves are typically not everlasting (i.e. I never actually purchase any of their post-Idol records, albeit I downloaded at least 3 Kelly Clarkson songs back in the day). But I dunno, I spent all night fantasizing about my dream wedding to David Cook (obviously he would serenade me with his strangely awesome cover of Mariah's "Always Be My Baby"). Ha.

Not to be outdone, Aneil pointed out that he is a better boyfriend than the Idol ever could be, as he has never had an ugly haircut, and his beard is far superior (both true):

I guess he has a point. Besides, based on the Idol's profile, he loves Our Lady Peace (ha) and he sang that stupid "Dare You to Move" song as his singer's choice, so obviously he has questionable taste in music. Aneil trumps him on that too. Ha. (No doi, Aneil, I love you the most!)

The other highlight of this week was getting to see Amee (!) and her sis Megha (now a doctor) and her friend Tianna. I had been yeaaarning for girlie hanging out time, so Monday was ideal. We feasted at Lupe Tortilla, talked smack about our frenemies, giggled, then came to my house for Abita! Strawberry beers and the premiere of "The Bachelorette." I was so excited!!! I miss Amee so.

Also I worked out 4 times this week already...am still averaging a 13 minute mile, though. i.e. sloooow. I had to start icing my leg...running sucks.

In other news, this weekend I will be in Austin for hanging out fun times, a birthday party, Aneil's mom's Indian chicken (yum), and the debut of Aneil's 90's cover band, brilliantly named "My So-Called Band". I'm ready to get my jam on!

In summary, this week I hate: my stupid apartment and its stupid noises, Algebra II, and no "Lost" this week.

This week I love: the new American Idol (le sigh), Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Scrabulous, and cookies.

XOXO,
Shells

No way you're never gonna shake me

I think I am having a mid-life crisis...it's one of those disconcerting times when I can't figure out what I'm doing with my life. Not panicking yet, but mostly just restless. It's time for a change.

Not to worry, for now I am coasting along and keeping myself more-than-occupied with the backlog of novels and movies that I neglected during those 2.5 years of business school (it is so weird that I am already done with that!). Nonetheless, this can only last a little while longer before I start needing some forward momentum. Presumably, that would include living in the same town as my brown boy, but we are at an impasse right now (who moves?), so I am trying to not fixate on that aspect of life. Maybe I just watch too much "Made" but I kinda want to try something new...

Enough of that, though. In maintaining the status quo news, I have been reading trashy fiction (mostly) devoid of literary value, watching lots of tv (well, mostly "Idol" and "Lost"), and trying to make a dent in my Netflix queue. The running is not going well, as I sneeze constantly if I go outside (nerd alert) and I run like a duck on the treadmill. I can go about 4 miles...that is very very short of the 13.1 I need to do. Ugh.

My lovely bff's birthday was last week (huzzah!) and brown boy's is this Friday, so there's lots to celebrate lately (thank God those 2 were born!!!).

At any rate, I am out of charming things to say...hopefully your comments can add to the substance of this entry until I get around to more meaningful topics. In the meantime, here is my week in review:

This week I hate: my upstairs neighbors and/or most things about my current apt although I appreciate the fact that there are no bugs, the information-overloaded NFL draft coverage, and family dramarama.

This week I love: Ben from "Lost", David C. from "American Idol", Aneil from "Austin, TX" and oreos from "Nabisco".

You know you love me,
S

Hi I'm Back.

I decided to re-open the blog to the internets (it got me in a lil trouble last month). So hope you enjoy the more ambiguous info to come.

In recent news, brown boy and I are going to Lollapalooza!!! We are really excited, not to mention getting to visit my lovely Amee in Chi-town (yes, I insist that we refer to it as Chi-town).

Hope you are all doing well, and expect more posts soon.

xoxo,
S

The World That I See Is Beautiful

Hi bunnies!

Just got back from Austin, and had a wonderful impromptu SXSW weekend. Maybe it lacked the star-power of my momentous 2002 experience, but it was just as delightful in many ways.

I sort of gave up on SXSW a couple of years ago when Amanda and I attempted to go to some shows, but were turned away in favor of badge-wielding hipsters (in their defense, we were badge-wielding hipsters back in 2002). So this year, I really only planned to hang out with Aneil and maybe try to get into one low-key show. (Thus I did not bother to bring my camera, so no photos…I will simply borrow Pitchfork’s show pics for the blog).

Back in maybe 2003, I bought a charming LP by a completely random band based on a quick sampling at Good Records in Dallas. Band was called Snowglobe, and they were vaguely Elephant 6-ish, thus fitting right into my genre of choice. I wasn’t sure where they were from or why they never toured, but I loved the album, and went on to put one of their songs on the first mixtape I made for Aneil (to dazzle him with my indie cred). He later managed to find a used copy of another of their later albums, but to my knowledge, none of our friends had ever even heard of these dudes. Much to our delight, they were playing a SXSW showcase this year, plus it was at Opal Divine’s, which was far enough down 6th street to not draw crazy crowds. Our enchanted evening started off with shockingly easy-to-find parking, easy-to-get-into show, and chit chat with the adorable band. It turns out they are roughly our age, and are essentially just like our friends. Ha. They even told us that they don’t tour because one of the guys is in med school, so apparently med school DOES ruin everything for everyone! And we purchased their other LP and the bassist was so glad that we were fans that he went and got the rest of the band to sign our copy. Plus they kept chatting with Aneil (he is real normal and charming with bands, whereas I am slightly nuts). It was a really satisfying experience.

The singer looks an awful lot like the lead singer of The Shins, no?


Aneil charmed the bass player:


Then Saturday we had a charming picnic with friends at a park along the water. I convinced Aneil that Popeye’s chicken is the quintessential picnic food (seriously, my family always did that!) and we bonded with one of Aneil’s BFF’s girlfriend (she is adorable) and several of her friends, all of whom were incredibly nice. Then we decided to walk over to this free Garden Party at the French Legation (some random historical area). They has $1 cans of PBR and free popsicles, and we got to hear 3 decent shows. (Sadly we didn’t know that one of my random bands of the moment, Noah and the Whale, played a few hours earlier, but ah well.) We got there in time for Thurston Moore, She & Him (Zooey Deschanel’s band), and Okkervill River (Aneil loves them). Was laid back and fun, and it was sort of cool to see indie screen goddess, Zooey D. take the stage, seeing as I consider myself a super-fan after sitting through all 6 hrs of “Tin Man” (for the record I love her minimalist AM pop collaboration with M. Ward). We topped off the afternoon with Freebirds, so I was a happy bunny indeed.

She & Him



The Him


The She - Man, is she adorable or what? That's it...I am going to have to grow out my hair and get me some adorably 70's style chunky bangs.


Our plan was to head back downtown to catch a free Snowglobe show, but we were awful tired after our day of fun in the sun and we didn’t want to push our chances at snagging another great parking spot, so we just headed to a random bar on Congress with Aneil’s bandmates (they are a 90’s cover band named “My So-Called Band”) to watch some random tribute bands and hang out. The Beatles tribute band threw me over my Beatles cover limit (after last week’s lame American Idol theme night) but I really enjoyed the delirious commitment of the Devo tribute band that played later. Ha.

So that was my weekend in Austin. Lots of sunshine and hipsters and music and fun. Just gave me more reasons to want to move there (besides the fact that darling brown boy lives there). We’ll see how that goes…

In the meantime, hope you all have fun this week…it’s almost spring!

This week I hate: Houston traffic (I hate this all the time, but it was particularly annoying last week), George W.’s apparent loss of his remaining grip on reality (did you hear about his strange Western sing-along last week?), and my apartment’s cell phone reception (yes friends, this is why I don’t tend to call you back or catch your calls for that matter).

This week I love: that a fun weekend could make me forget the previous week’s crankiness, free music, dancing, and mac n’ cheese.

xoxo

Sea of Love

So the Valentine's party was a success. Sadly, our co-hostess Maria caught the flu, so there was a clear drop in the level of sass at the party, but it was still fun. Even Sean commented that he initially thought the idea was stupid, but was real excited about his goodie bag. An excellent variety of cards, play-doh, candy, etc. Plus everyone played along and seemed to have a fun time. We even got to meet new friends, and all was glorious. I love parties! No, I didn't take any pictures, but Sean did so I will try to retrieve them soon. I have been pathetic about picture-taking lately, not sure why.

I was down in the dumps last week, as I saw no friends all week, and essentially watched American Idol then went to sleep every night. By Thursday I hit my limit, and just yearned to have a conversation with a best friend. It seemed like so long since I just dreamed up theories and thoughts with someone and didn't bother with exhausting discussion about our love lives or futures or careers or whatever. I dunno, maybe that's why people start book clubs. Heh.

At any rate, I am feeling much better now, and am embracing my American Idol lifestyle this week. Anyone watching it? There is this incredible 16 year old kid that is just so talented and utterly adorable, he makes me giggle incessantly. It's sort of amazing. Everyone else is meh.

Quick thoughts about the Oscars:

I love Jon Stewart.

I can't get over how beautiful Marion Cotillard is.

My only moment of genuine excitement was when Marketa and Glen from "Once" won for best song. I was happy to see that the soundtrack is the top album on iTunes now. Also, did those songs from "Enchanted" suck, or what?

James McAvoy is tiny and has the same accent as Fran from Travis. Cutie.

"No Country for Old Men" was excellent, to be sure, but it made me feel blaaaah. I actually liked "There Will Be Blood" and "Juno" better, although "Once" was definitely my favorite movie this year.

Is it lame to think George Clooney is hot? I dunno, he's so Cary Grant-ish. Dreamboat.

At any rate, that's about it for this week, gang. I apologize for being boring, but I am just laying low for now. It's actually not too bad, but I am so used to being constantly busy and tired that it's just sort of strange right now. I am trying not to be restless. I can do this. Luckily I have approx. 26 hrs of Idol to watch per week, plus 1 hr of "Lost". Couch potato. Actually, I look like a lil red potato when I run, so maybe it's a theme.

Thanks for reading this drivel.

This week I love: home-cooked meals, surprise presents in the mail (lub-dub!), and girl scout thin mints.

This week I hate: achy shins, the complete lack of CampFire girls in the Houston area...I'd rather support them than our rival Girl Scouts...my "Camp Fire" secret name was Re-Mi-Ho...I can't remember why.

I'll try to be more charming next week. There will be Rodeo BBQ, Wilco shows, etc to talk about!

XOXO

I love the Power Glove. It's so bad.

Hello friends.

Big news of the week: I met childhood crush FRED SAVAGE. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me, as Aneil told me he wouldn't be there. Jealous much? Ha.

We went to a screening of the 1989 classic Nintendo movie, "The Wizard" starring Fred, Christian Slater, Beau Bridges, and the adorable Jenny Lewis. Remember this one? Emotionally disturbed little brother is awesome at pretty much every Nintendo game so he travels with his brother and a cute redhead to California to compete in Video Armageddon. And there was the evil kid with the Power Glove? And they premiered, wait for it...Super Mario Bros. THREE! At any rate, the director, the actor who played the "wizard" himself, and Fred were at the screening and did a Q&A (sample audience question: "Who was a better kisser? Jenny Lewis or Winnie Cooper?") and autograph signing. Needless to say, I made Aneil wait with me in line so I could meet Fred and get my poster signed. (Yes, I bought a glow-in-the-dark Wizard poster.) He was really nice and adorable and essentially looks exactly the same. Seriously. I got real nervous and could barely speak to him but I did say that I loved him all through grade school. Aneil asked him whether Rilo Kiley came to be because Fred knew Jenny Lewis and his brother Ben knew Blake Sennett from Boy Meets World, but sadly it was not true. It did make him laugh though, and I'm pretty sure I swooned. Ha.

I didn't realize how super-fan I was, but apparently I was the only person in line who could even remember the name of his short-lived sitcom, "Working" and had seen "The Boy Who Could Fly" about 50 times.

In other "the more things change the more things stay the same" news, apparently it's not just Fred Savage who looks the same after all these years. About a month ago I went jogging with Aneil in Hermann Park, and we stopped to stretch next to the road, and a guy I knew from high school, who I haven't seen in about 10 years, recognized me from his car and yelled out the window at me. Apparently even while jogging I look identical to how I did in high school (albeit chubbier). Then yesterday I was walking to my car from work, and as I passed a Starbucks another guy yells, "hey didn't you go to my high school?" And it wasn't even a good friend, I vaguely recognized him, but he was like, yeah I thought you were familiar. Seriously? Do I look exactly the same? Ha. Anyone who knew me in high school who reads this lame blog should leave me a comment and let me know.

In other news, Maria and I are having a Valentine's Day party this weekend, so I'm really excited. It is supposed to be a best friend love free-for-all but SOME people (read: Erik) think it's a "couples" party, so that's lame. I have vowed not to hold hands and/or make out with my boyfriend the entire time, so if you happen to be in Austin this weekend, be sure to stop by and maybe I will hold YOUR hand instead.

Lost is getting good again. I will avoid spoilers for you folks who are not caught up this season, but I love the new sassy Ghostbuster guy and the new awkward guy. In other tv news, who do you guys like on Project Runway? I strangely love "fierce" Christian. Ha.

This week I love: Lucky Charms, American Idol's "Hollywood Week", and candy conversation hearts.

This week I hate: the fact that it gets dark at like, 5:30pm, the lack of chemical plants in Austin, and that Make Me a Supermodel show.

Anywho, hope you all will be my Valentines!

XOXO,
S