…To surprise your GBF for his birthday.

SURPRISEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

65 and sunny? YES. And also, PLEASE.

Some fancy mansion where they were "filming". No big deal.

The effects of juice box wine take hold.

Because it's LA, and this shiz just happens.

Ladies represent.

The other besties!

Three pitchers of margs. I mean, uh, dinner...

I love you, Tommy. Happy Birthday baby!!!!!

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{{Hey, did you know Project Love Harder now has it’s own blog and merchandise store?? Things are flying off the shelves and old-fashioned donations are still more than welcome as we try to reach our NEW goal of $5,000. Please to check them out… after all, what could be more perfect for Valentine’s Day?? JUST SAYIN.}}

When I moved to DC, I was positive I was one of the so-called “transients” my parents warned me about. You see, they actually lived in NoVa when I was born, and moved up to Massachusetts when I was almost 2. They loved it here, but constantly saying goodbye to friends who were just passing through for an internship or to work on the Hill for a year, it broke their hearts.

I was afraid of this when I moved here after UNC, but at the same time, I figured I probably was one of them. That it’d be a year or two in DC before I craved a taste of NYC, or jetted across the pond to bartend in London.

I liked- even loved- the District as a city, but that didn’t make it “home.”

And then I met Lexa.

My relationship with B was a just few weeks old at the time, and growing fast… but a man doesn’t make a place home. B and I could move anywhere, if need be, and would still be US- our togetherness doesn’t depend on where we are.

But friends. Real Friends, that group of people you can count on…

…to turn your shitty days into jokes that end with a beer…

…to love your quirks instead of hate them…

…to despise and deprecate the people who’ve crossed you a thousand times more than you do yourself.

For me, DC didn’t become that place, didn’t become my home, until I met Lexa. We had lunch one day, and, well, I think it was probably the shoes she was wearing, but I just knew she would be incredibly important in my life.

The rest of the crew fell into place over the next year (the crowning jewel being us convincing Maxie to MOVE from West Virginia), and now I am humbled and grateful to say I have the most amazing, close-knit group of friends here.

I am that asshole who has it all. And don’t I know it.

All thanks to you, Lex. So Happy freaking Birthday, my love…

Now don’t you ever go transient on me.

Love your face.

That’s right folks. The infamous birthday/#pbandtuna wedding is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll be honest, folks. I have been super stressed and freaking out all week.

But now that the big weekend is actually here, I have NOTHING BUT EXCITEMENT churning in my loins.

To everyone who’s coming from out of town:

I am going to lick your faces so damn hard, oh my gaw. You are amazing and totally rock my socks off. Look, they’re totally across the room. (Everyone IN town: you are 9/10 as awesome but don’t feel bad. They really had a leg up on you on this one.

…TWSS.)

To my blushing bride, who wrote the sweetest vows EVAR and made me cry before 8am on my birthday when I read them…

Just you wait until I give you your present today. REVENGE IS A BITCH.

In all serious, I love you so much, Maxie. I don’t know how I existed before you came into my life. You are one of the kindest, funniest, warmest, cuddliest people I have ever known, and I am seriously lucky to call you a friend. (And lovah.)

Tonight we shall snuggle Murray together and it will be GLORIOUS.

All right, y’all. I have a shit ton of stuff to do to get ready, so I’m off. But please to enjoy the one video on the interwebs that makes me happier than anything else in the e-world. It’s an oldie but a goodie…

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

(I am *so* doing these dance moves tomorrow.)

If you’re in DC, don’t forget… the bash is tomorrow at Stetson’s (upstairs) at 16th and U Streets. We’ll be there at 8 sharp to stake it out…

Woot!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so freaking sick of SHOULDS.

Hitting my mid-20s, a lot has changed. Lemmonex and I talk openly about coupons for the grocery store, for chrissakes… and we’re not making fun of little blue haired ladies who use them. B and his friends in the financial industry discuss their retirement plans… and they actually have one. My doctor has started to nag me about extra calcium and weight training, because apparently I will perish into a pile of dust at 42 without said things.

Isn’t just making a home cooked meal every now and then enough? Isn’t making it from paycheck to paycheck without having your account fall into the negative enough? Isn’t cardio four times a week enough?

Because it’s a helluva lot more than I was doing at 21 or 22. But no, apparently… it’s not enough.

It’s never, EVER enough.

I am a big girl now. Officially, whether I like it or not. I have a home with a man and we have things and bills and living creatures that we pay for all by our bigass selves.

And it’s taken it’s toll… I feel it every day, in little ways. I feel guilty when I forget to take my multivitamin. (And simultaneously, like a dork for having them sitting on my desk at work.) I feel guilty when I realize I went a whole weekend without flossing. I feel guilty every time I walk by my company’s credit union where I really should open a credit card and transfer my high interest balance from the evil that is Capitol One… but it’s been almost a year that I’ve been walking by, and I’ve never made it inside.

These are all things I wouldn’t have dreamed of worrying about just a couple years ago. And now little “responsible” things like this weigh me down just a little more, every day.

“We are old,” Lemmonex and I say to each other once a day, whether we’re getting excited about a cheap homegoods store she found online, or the fact that we wanted to shoot ourselves in that bar Saturday night when we were elbow to elbow with all the “kids”.

We used to be those kids…

Now we’re wondering “if anyone still says that” and why on earth they don’t know what Hammer Pants are.

I wrote this post not so long ago about “Doing the Splits into Grown Up World”…

Looks like I’ve taken one more biiiiig, slippery step down this slope into “adulthood”.

Oh, well. I plan to undo at least half of the new “responsible me” I’ve discovered next weekend as my birthday present to myself.

Life is hard.

Dear Hostess From The Heights With Those Awesome Steve Madden Boots I Have Wanted FOREVER:

My boyfriend asked you about them for MY BIRTHDAY PURPOSES (coughcoughtwoweekscough). He was not hitting on you, hookerface. And *now* he’s not even getting them for me, probably because you were so weird about it all but possibly more because my stupid camera decided to break and obviously we can’t have my wedding/bday fiasco OR go to Costa Rica without a camera.

DUH.

Sincerely, I’d Rock Them Better Than You Anyway.

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Dear Girl Whose Crop Dusting I Had the Pleasure of Walking Behind This Morning:

I hope a toilet snake gets your evil, evil ass today.

Sincerely, Yes I Totally Ran In Front Of You And Squeezed One Out. REVENGE, MOTHA FAHKAH!

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Dear Old Lady in the Company Locker Room:

Is it really necessary to have an entire conversation in the middle of the room with your pancake boobs pretending to be Italian hands? Not every story needs THAT much accentuation. P.S. I can see your entire bush through your white cotton grandma panties, and I don’t think there’s a Korean in the world who could help you.

Sincerely, Please Keep Your Pubic Mound to Yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Period I Knew Was Coming in the Back of My Mind But Kinda Forgot:

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shiiiiiit.

Sincerely, Less One Pair of Boyshorts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Myself:

No, you are not a complete sell out for selling (just a little!) ad space to people and places you actually like! After all, Tonic DOES rock. Hell, they have karaoke every Sunday night! And you know how you love a good karaoke night…

Yes, that is Rick Astley. WHAT'S YOUR POINT.

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To Lisa (Albeit Belated) and Irish Lebowski:

Huge congrats on MAKING A PERSON. I can’t think of two people I would rather bring offspring into this world. Well, not together. With your hubbies. You know what I mean.

Awk…. ward.

Sincerely, Honestly Happy For You Even Though I Prefer Puppies and Kittens to Babies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Sharky:

YOU ARE THE WINNER OF THE FIREFLY HALLOWEEN CONTEST!!!

Congrats, love muffin. Charlie and the Waitress it is. These have already been procured…

And I am already mentally preparing myself to rock some aqua skinny jeans.

If you need an idea for Halloween, click the contest link. You guys were The Awesome. Thanks so much! And if you didn’t win, don’t worry. Firefly and I have been talking and something is in the works… and the next giveaway winner won’t be subject to my whimsy, I promise.

Sharky, shoot me an email-

Sincerely, Wanna Split That With Me?

***Update: Doods! My site caught swine flu and was down all day yesterday. It should be up and running fine now- vaccinate your children!- but do me a solid and let me know if you notice anything wonky, mmmkay? Xoxo***

Anyhoo. Today shall be a better day. My morning started like this:

Coworker: How old is your little sister?

Me: 21. No, wait, 22. CRAP, no, she’s TWENTY THREE!!!!

Coworker: (laughing at me) Oh, so you’re ancient, right?

(Actually, exactly what I’d been thinking was “Holy fuck, I’m OLD.”)

My baby sister turns 23 years young today. The hooker will always be younger than me, but somehow, I love her anyway.

Dear Sis,

I’m sorry for the time I dislocated your arm. (Accident! But still.)

I really miss making LEGO worlds with you.

I'm pretty sure it looked something like this. Boys drool!

I wish I’d let you play with the Barbies that still had hair more often.

Oh, and stolen less of, um, ALL your toys.

I love how ridiculously smart, funny, and compassionate you are. (Mostly the funny. You make me laugh like no other. But I can make you snarf milk through your nose, so we’re even.)

I’m proud of you for knowing yourself so well. You’re one of the few who never seemed to struggle with that angsty existential crisis so many of us do in our formative years.

(Guess I took on that burden for you…)

Ahem!

My only complaint about you? That you haven’t watched Always Sunny.

There’s a present for you in the mail… you have no excuse now, my dear.

(Um, surprise?)

Happy Birthday, Lil Sis.

Pay no attention to the Kate Gosselin style highlights, please and thank you.

P.S. Moog, Mike, Narm, JP, and most other readers with penii… I am just waiting for you to make some joke about banging my sister. MY MOM READS THIS. Just a friendly reminder.

(Now they’re going to make a joke about banging my mom. Warning FAIL.)

P.P.S. If you’re a blogger in the DC area, you should be a member of the free Washington, DC Blogger Meetup group. The lovely Lexa and I are hitting up their Meetup tonight at Madame’s Organ around 7, and we’d love to see you there too.

Don’t forget to RSVP if you’re coming!

Seeing as my lovah turned 21 for the sixth time yesterday, I think it’s only natural that we pay tribute with an installment of “The Shiz My Boyfriend Says.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re walking home from work, and I’m hauling ass because the light at the end of the tunnel is Happy Hour. (Oh, who am I kidding… we all know I’m a competitive street walker.) Suddenly I notice B’s not at my side and turn to see him a solid three paces behind.

Me: Come on, baby, let’s go! [I pretend to tug on an imaginary string.]

B: I’m not on no leash! I POOP WHERE I WANT!!!!

Me: [blink.]

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It’s Sunday night, and B’s friends are coming over to steal our moving boxes and see the new apartment.

Me: Quick, baby, turn on the light so it doesn’t look like we’re sitting here in the dark boozing.

B: It’s okay! It’s not boozing… it’s HBO.

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Standing (sweltering) on the street in Boston, waiting for his parents to come down from their hotel.

B: We should move to the shady side of the street.

Me: We could just move over two feet to that patch of shade.

B: No no no. This is INTERMITTENT shade. I want PURE shade. You’ll see.

(As soon as we cross the street…)

Me: Ohhhh, you were right.

B: I know. I don’t know much, but I *know* shade.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting on the couch goofing off.

B: Look how steady my hand is. I’m like a goddamn surgeon!

Me: Oooo. You should give me a pedicure.

B: No way. I’ll give you an appendectomy if you want, but no pedicures!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting on the couch goofing off… again. (Yes, this is 90% of what we do. What’s your point?)

B: The Eagles are playing tonight… you have some interwebbing you can do, right?

Me: Sure. (pause) What if I didn’t have something else I could do while you watched “smart TV” and sports? That would be bad, man.

B: I know. That’s why I was so supportive of the blog from the beginning.

Me: What? So you were guaranteed time to watch football??

B: Yeah. Totally. I even talked to Jill Pilgrim’s husband about it and he said the same thing. It’s genius.

Me: ………………

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Last night, you guessed it… on the couch.

Me: I love every inch of you. (Shuttup, it’s his birthday, I can be schmoopy.)

B: I love every CENTIMETER of you!!! Boo yah! One-upped you!!!

Me: You’re such a romantic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Birthday, my love!

Update: Date has been changed to Saturday, October 17th!!!

***Pssst, hey… have you updated my feed in your reader yet?***

Hey, bloggikins!

Guess what you’re doing on October 24th?

Let me crack an egg of knowledge all over your head…

When 2 Becum 1

Yes, that’s right folks. My Facebook lover Maxie and I are finally getting hitched, slash, celebrating our joint birthdays in one ENORMOUS shindig. It may seem early, but now none of you have any excuse not to be there OR be square.

We’ve already got the flower girl, MOH, Best Man, videographer, and of course, a to-be-ordained minister… what do you want to be? Ring bearer? Gift taker? Ice luge attendant?

Model for tequila shots to be taken off of?

Just make sure you’re there, lovelies… we’ll find something for everyone to do, even if it’s stand there and look pretty. Woot!

We’re going to get these guys for the entertainment… (Sort of NSFW, courtesy of my dear friend mn125…)

Late Night Special

EPIC.

(Hey, ladies, did you enter my giveaway for an enormous purple sex toy yet? No? Click here!)

I am exhausted from wayyyyy too much fun this weekend. Which means y’all are getting bullets.

And you’re going to like it.

The highlights of meeting the newest member of B’s and my planned Mormon colony in Utah, Alexa…

• Upon meeting her, humping Alexa’s left leg while Maxie worked on the right.

• Playing Survivor: Washington, D.C. in Rock Creek Park with only sweet tea vodka and 10 other debaucherous, non-naturey but hilarious people to find your way back out. Mission: Start a fire and cook food with a firepit but no grill. Upside: Get totally turned on when B proves that all those years of watching Bear on Man vs. Wild have finally paid off when he fashions a makeshift grill by basket-weaving strips of aluminum foil together. And it works. Rawwwr.

• Watching Deutlich drop her drink into a million little pieces within the first half hour at a bar on Saturday. Then, even SWEETER, to watch Alexa chastise her for doing so… and mid-sentence, get knocked in the elbow, which sends her own drink plummeting to the ground IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE fifteen seconds later.

• Celebrating the absolutely gorgeous Katertot’s twenty-tenth birthday in the company of many of my favoritest people on the planet. You know who you are.

• Seeing f.B’s face as he watched Maxie (try to) rap to Lil’ Wayne.

• Knocking over my glass of champagne at The Diner ONTO my french fries, which were accompanied by an ever-classy bacon cheeseburger at 2 am. I promptly separated the still crispy fries, ordered another cham-pag-nay and toasted myself. Cause that’s what champions do.

• Skipping down the street, randomly bursting into harmonized song with Alexa while completely hungover (still drunk) the next morning.

• Every last delicious minute of a loud and morally corrupted brunch, during which period clumps, Cleveland steamers, unprotected sex, penises of all shapes and sizes, and about 40 That’s What She Saids were mentioned… at which point we finally noticed the table containing two small children directly behind us.

So… when are you coming back?? My heart already aches for you, my little plum.

In other news… I fucking love my crazy-ass friends. *SMOOCH*

Update: I somehow forgot to mention the two-hour country-rap-80s dance party at my house while pregaming on Saturday. Trust me, it was worth mentioning… Don’t believe me? At one point, I twittered this:

LivitLuvit: Me: the way I dance is like dorky white guys fuck. Maxie: Yes. Yes it is.

My weekend, in tidbits… because I am feeling decidedly uncreative today. (Read: still hungover from all the tomfooleries.)

Friday we headed to Adams Mill to celebrate a friend’s birthday. The gorgeous and feisty Deutlich accompanied B and I… WITH the heart-shaped riding crop she had purchased that evening. Needless to say, she was a hit. So was our bootylicious and decidedly spankable dancing that (naturally) ensued.

I fucking love that girl.

Saturday was spent rooting for my UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING AND AWESOME-LICIOUS TAR HEELS!!!!!! Kendall, I think you just might relive my junior year of college when we took the title… I will NEVER forget that night, and I hope it looks JUST like this when it happens for you:

We watched the game at the home of two of my very favorite people in the world, who had bought two BUSHELS of fresh oysters and we roasted them while they regaled us with stories of their hilarious dog, Clifford, who apparently has a penchant for eating, well, EVERYTHING. I watched him eat a couple of oyster shells, a paper towel, some wax paper, and some oysters in the space of an hour, so I was not at all surprised when his owner told us about a trip to the beach last summer…

Clifford decided it would be Great Fun! to drink as much of the ocean as possible. They literally could not get him to stop downing the salt water, no matter how hard they tried (he’s a BIG boy). Finally they just let him have at it, and whatever would be, would be.

Well, what be was that Clifford ended up running up and down the coast… with sea water endlessly spurting out of his ass. No joke, they said it was just continual *spurt* *spurt* *spurt* while he ran along the water, trying to get away from his own painful heiny. I was appalled to find out that there was no video footage of this, as it clearly would have been the number one video on youtube for at least a week. It’s almost better than this kid, the new Rick Astley. No one’s Rick Rolling you, young ginger. Keep those dance moves comin’.

After the game I met up with my stellar babes FlipFlops, Pithy, Katherine, Maxie and Bethie to celebrate Flippy’s 21st birthday. I don’t even know how many Stankey Legg renditions we did for her, but boobs were flying, I pulled out my best (read: most embarrassing) dance moves, Maxie and I got engaged (I can’t WAIT to see that picture)… all in all, I’d say it was a flaming success. I saw the 50 or so pictures Maxie had on her camera the next morning at brunch (where Maxie threatened to poop on me), and apparently Katertot has another 200 or so. I am terrified and overjoyed to see them.

Incidentally, since I missed part of Flippy’s party Saturday for the Heels game, I have insisted on throwing her another shindig this Friday to make up for it. It’s your birthday MONTH, after all, right? Right. If you love her, love me, love booze, or love tomfoolery, shoot me an email for the Whens, Wheres, and Whys of it all. livitluvit at livitluvit dot com

Happy Mother Effing Monday!

One of my very, very lovely Carolina girls is throwing a birthday bash of “I’m Turning 29 Again” proportions. So right now, B and I are on a train,James Taylor style. Because we’ve seen fire, and we’ve seen rain. Or something like that. Moving on…

SOOOOO, yeah, today is going to be a light and airy Friday post, so yousall don’t have to think too hard. Last week, one of my favorite chicas in the blogosphere, Kate over at Punch It In! posted a very cute lil game… and it goes like this:

If you want to participate, leave a comment on this post and I will assign you a letter. You then write about 10 things you love that begin with your assigned letter and post them on your blog. When people comment on your posted list, you give them a letter and the chain continues on and on.

Now I ain’t really (gearing up for The Cack here) a fan of chains, but her post was adoramable and it had “EASY FRIDAY POST” written all over it, so I asked for a letter, requesting that it not be X (xylophones are so out right now), and she was kind enough to give me…

The letter N! Which is apparently purple. And male. These guys said so:

So, innerwebs, here you have it…

Ten Things I Love, inspired by the letter N.

1. North Carolina, aka The Cack. Given my current destination, it had to be said. Although I had my doubts when I first got down south to the dirty dirty, I am now and will always be a “sweet Carolina girl”… Masshole or no.

2. Narwhals, which is also my way of saying everything FUGLY. But you already knew that…

3. Neil Diamond for giving us the song Sweet Caroline, and by association, the Bahstun Red Sawx. As evidenced by the Best Present Ever.

4. Nora Jones. That girl’s voice does THINGS to me.

5. Nice, France- well, southern France, in general. Actually, traveling in general. Anywhere NEW, where I haven’t been before. 161 cities in 11 countries, and counting.

6. Noms. This is the best way I could think of to say EATING with the letter N. I love food, preferably served with friends and booze in a cozy setting. Yes please.

7. Nekkid. As in being. You get it. No videos in existence necessary.

8. Naughty men, like Don Draper.

9. NOTHING. As in, doing it. I am a huge freaking fan, no lie.

10. N-E thing having to do with Arrested Development or Sunny in Philadelphia. (I know, I cheated, but I love them that much.) To make up for it, here’s a clip about the fantastic musical, THE NIGHTMAN COMETH…

Do you have a guy who does Cat Eyes? I’M ON IT.

Alright, ladies and germs. If you’d like to get in on this, leave a comment and I’ll send you your very own letter, or maybe Anderson will stop oggling Obama for a while and deliver a personal message.

Not bloody likely.

Happy weekend, lovers!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

(I know. Ouchies. Brain no likey.)

But here’s the thing. When I read through my archives, as some of you have been doing lately,

Hi! How’s it hanging? I seeeee you! Luv, Big Brother

it makes me cringe a little bit. Because if I were you, and I read what I write about me… well, the image I’d have in my head about the girl who talks openly about the consistency of her bowel movements? Is not exactly the most, ahem, flattering visual. And while I am definitely no Kelly LeBrock or Natalie Portman, I also don’t ACTUALLY walk around the district taking dumps on sidewalks.

(Yet. We’ll see how far TMI Thursday goes…)

I think we all, as bloggers, struggle with the issue of anonymity. It’s tough to put yourself out there, and in some cases, down right dangerous. (I am SO sorry, Marissa!) But I also feel like I’ve gotten to the point where, well, goddamnit, I share an awful lot more than enough wayyy too much with you already. I think it’s time you had a face to put with my redonculous, humiliating, out-of-left-field, all too often jawdropping confessionary tales and awesomely bad exploits.

So, yeah, let’s do it. Ready? Okay!

Here’s LiLu have a blast with her gays in L.A.:

Here’s LiLu during her very happy Chapel Thrill days with her enigmatic GBF, Thomas: (And YES, Tar Heels, that is Bub O’Malley’s… on 80s night, duh!)

Here’s LiLu WITH A FREAKING MONKEY OMG HOW GODDAMN HAPPEEE AM I???

Here’s LiLu with her bestie at her BIRFDAY PARTY last Saturday night:

Here’s LiLu, madly in love with the infamous B (at the bar where we met, no less):

Here is my favorite picture of my most favorite person in the whole entire world, from our trip to Costa Rica:

And finally, here is a picture that I truly see myself in. A little bit tipsy at the enormous St. Paddy’s Day bash in Savannah, Georgia… a drink in one hand, and a mischievous glint in my eye. This, my friends, is truly LiLu.

So there you have it, folks. I am, well, halfway out of the closet. THIS is the girl who talks about her cooch freezing over… walking in on her grandparents… and faking a pregnancy to explain her “morning sickness” when it was actually a hangover. And yes, obviously these are some of my favorite pictures, the ones where I look the best, because, well, I’m hoping to provide a little juxtaposition here, so you maybe give me a little more leeway when I tell you stories like how B let me pee with his uh… you know.

I know this post probably comes across as totally self-absorbed- “Here’s LiLu, putting on socks! Here’s LiLu, brushing her hair!”, but the thing is, I’ve shared so much of the bad, so much of the ugly, so much of the FUGLY… I wanted to show y’all the other side, is all. And these aren’t just trivial pictures… I chose them carefully. They represent some of the most important people and memories of my life, and in the spirit of oversharing (which is the unspoken theme of this blog, after all)… I wanted to show them to you.

So, yeah. Um. Hi there.

It’s nice to finally meet you.

You all know about my incredibly powerful love for God’s strangest and fugliest creatures.

Which is why I am sure it will come as no surprise that I absolutely DIED at this video rs27 posted last week on his blog, Your Beard is Good:

I laughed hysterically for all 44 seconds of it. And then I played it again. And again. And AGAIN.

And then B told me to knock it the hell off, I can NOT have a lizard. Even if it can rock out to Fiddy.

Love it.

Um, so, remember how I was all like, YEAHHHH I’M GETTIN DE-RUNK THIS WEEKEND!!!!!…..?

Turns out, it’s pretty damn easy to do when you head straight to a blogger happy hour from work on Friday… I don’t know what it is about bloggers, but apparently witty and sarcastic people KNOW HOW TO BOOZE. And I couldn’t have asked for better partners in crime. I was lucky enough to spend time with the very very lovely:

LA Cochran (our esteemed organizer)
Urban Bohemian
Charlotte Harris
“It’s Toasted” (unfortunately J couldn’t make it, but of course I dragged B along)
The Restaurant Refugee
Sean’s Ramblings
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!
The Gilahi Blog
The Chronicles of Tewkesbury
Culinary Couture
Who Invented Roses

It was an absolute pleasure, everyone, and I can’t wait to do it again.

Saturday afternoon was spent at my neighborhood bar, concocting evil dangerous wonderfully evil and dangerous schemes with Restaurant Refugee. More to come on that…

When we had sufficiently humiliated ourselves, hooting and hollering over a laptop at the sports bar for hours (yes, we were THOSE PEOPLE), I took off for Jaleo. The tomfoolery continued well into the night as we bar-hopped around China town block, which was a blast for drinking and socializing purposes, not so much for my 4-inch-heeled-footsies. At the end of the eventful night, B and I set off for home: a 10-minute walk that is normally relatively pleasant… UNLESS, that is, your feet are torn and bloody and you are still wearing those goddamn heels. Then, my lovelies, that 10-minute walk is entirely unfathomable.

“We’re getting a cab,” I said, wobbling on my drunk and injured feetsies.

“Babe, we can try,” B said, steadying me, “but they’re all full. Everyone and their mother is trying to get home right now. AND we don’t have any cash…”

“We can have him stop by the ATM! It’ll be fine. I can’t walk. Ouchies.”

“We could… if there were any cabs. There aren’t.”

And he was right. We would have been stuck, or I would have eventually made it home with feet twice as cut up and all hurt-y and such…

if he hadn’t taken off his coat, and put it around my shoulders…

and taken off his shoes, and put them on my feet…

and walked home, in his socks, for the better part of a mile.

While helping me every step of the way.

I know it’s only been five months, darling. To the day, actually, since I met you…

But it feels like so much longer. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Someone sent this in to Post Secret a couple weeks ago:

It’s true.

I love you, B.

I’m going to be completely honest here…

I wasn’t in love with either candidate.

I’m not going to get into the whys and why nots, but let’s just say I saw the positives and negatives of both sides. And yes, some weighed more heavily than others, like the fact that THE GOVERNMENT STOPS AT MY SKIN, and ultimately I went for Obama. I just wasn’t 100% thrilled about it.

Until the results came in.

Until I saw the wonderful, emotional mayhem in Grant Park.

Until I heard Obama’s acceptance speech, and realized that he actually does want to do everything in his power to make things better. The man really believes in himself, and in us. That is incredible.

Until I realized, I am just one of millions who trusts that this man truly has the nation’s best interest at heart. (Foreign concept, I know.)

Until I saw my neighbors rallying at the gates of the White House, rubbing it in Dublya’s face. But, ya know, together.

I may not be completely in LURVE with Obama (as our President, not as a person). I may be unsure that he (or anyone) can handle the mess in front of him. I may still be terrified of the next four years, no matter who’s in charge.

But I am in love with the way our entire nation has come together.

I am in love with the way everyone hopes, and everyone believes. Watching the crowds last night, seeing them cry, hug, sing, and rejoice in the success of a common goal and dream- it was truly amazing.

I am in love with the way that racial tensions in our country have been punctured like a big ass balloon.

I am in love with the fact that the rest of the world will start to take us seriously again.

I am in love with the feeling of a fresh start, the feeling that maybe, just maybe, we are finally on the right track.

And that’s all the politicky-ness, I promise. Back to making fun of myself and TMI Thursday!!! tomorrow.

Oh, and Shannon? This one’s for you.

Happy Birthday, lady.