Should old aquaintence be forgot.....we'll sing it ore' and ore'

Advice from Nick, which I plan to adopt as my mantra for 2009: "Do what makes you feel free. Go forth and be fierce."

Unfortunately, when given, the advice applied to wearing totally fierce red shoes with a snappy dress. This decision, in turn, resulted in Partying Like It's 1999 which - in its own time, may or may not have resulted in Fran holding my hair back while I became intimately familiar with the contents of both a trashcan and my stomach. Being graduated from college is not, Gentle Reader, necessarily synonymous with being classy or making consistently good decisions.

On the bright side of things: the shoes were really fierce. And made me feel free. And I've discovered that my Secret To New Year's Eve Success held true, once again, so that's rockin'. I've noticed, over the years, that NYE tended to be the most disappointing of holidays. No matter what December 31 promised to hold, I usually found myself a little bummed out once January 1 really got itself going. This, I feel, resulted almost entirely because NYE was always played up as this TOTALLY AWESOME PARTY OMG BEST OF THE YEAR EVER BETTER DO IT WHILE YOU STILL CAN BECAUSE SOMETHING SUBSTANTIVE WILL CHANGE FROM 11:59 TO 12:01 IF YOU MISS IT YOU SUCK (also a good time for makey outy!). In fact, New Year's Eve is just...a day. A day on which you go to a party sometimes. Or not. Woo. It's the same as Begging Of April Eve or a solstice. Yeah - it only happens once a year, but so do the other 364 days. The secret to success then, is to say to youself, Self: this may or may not be Totally Fun Timez - but if it's not The Most Fun Timez EVARHHHH, that's cool by me too. This, I feel, results in times of funness proportionate to what should be the expectation.

Also, makeyouty can't be forced into a date like that. Come ON. Geez! You do not understand the unleashable power of makeyouty, people who are alls about kissin' at midnight.

So - that's my story. I wore some fun shoes and went to a fun party and maybe hit the Cheap Bubbling Wine a little hard, and it was fun. And now it's 2009. And that's awesome.

Now Matthew Lukens is staying at my house and we're having Fun Roanoke Adventures. Earlier, we had to stop talking about horror movies and urban legends because, as he pointed out, being The Kids Driving Through The Woods At Night Talking About How Urban Legends Will Certainly Not Come True, Ever, is a moderately auspicious activity.

True story: I don't like walking through the woods while holding hands - because you know how chainsaw killers feel about couples in the woods.

True story, the second: the horror/slasher genre makes me a paranoid, unhappy person.

"Hi. I'm Meg. I didn't go to high school with you."

So:

I used to have this other online diary - an online diary filled with things about booyyyzzzz and whinnnniiinng and Mandy Moore.

And, for a moment, Dear Reader, we need to go back to that earlier iteration of online journaling. Because, let's be serious about this right now: I really love Mandy Moore. A lot a lot. This has got to be the 40 billionth (in real speak: 6th or so) time I've watched Chasing Liberty and I still ADORE it. A.D.O.R.E. Mandy Moore - you GO rebel! You GET out your aggression! You MAKE OUT with that hot British Dude! NO ONE CAN KEEP YOUR SPUNKY ATTITUDE DOWN!

You know what would make this Mandy Moore experience better? If it were followed by that one where she dates the dude who looks like Every Man I've Ever Loved, Ever. I think it's called Get Real or Really Real or Real, A Lot, For Always. Regardless - it's the one where her BFF gets preggers and then her BFF's BF dies suddenly and people learn about true love, with and without matramony.

It's hardcore. I think we'd be friends in real life - we'd girl talk and participate in capers and she'd tell me how she gets her hair to look so cute all the damn time. Seriously, Dear Reader, seriously.

So - winter break's been, for many days, even more hectic than regular workin' days, but I'm digging it.

Waking up in Jared's house, surrounded by people who are similarly trying to make sure they weren't too awkward last night, puts me in a weird mood. Dear Changing Relationships With People I Grew Up With: you confuse me.

True story.

Dear Story of my life:

So, story of my life, you're pretty hilarious sometimes. I wound up at a bar with my pre-school best friend where EVERYONE I EVER WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH THAT I HAVEN'T KEPT IN TOUCH WITH WAS ALSO DRINKING. Story of my life (aka: AWKWARDNESS) why do you do this to me?

Couldn't you at least have told me to wear heels, SOML?

Oh well, I came home and Gchatted Charles Harrison because I desperately, DESPERATELY needed to talk to someone who knew and loved college Me.

Story of my life - I am not positive you're a comedy.

Lurve,
Meg.

Meg who got her mommy to DD her. Meg who is a mess and a half and probably shouldn't be allowed to live in her home town anymore. Meg who will, probs, delete this in the morning.

Lurve, indeed.

Pass me the denture watch and fig newtons, please.

The newest installment of "Things That Are Cute In My Life:"

- The joy my father gets from my newfound crush on Total Hottie Robert Redford. Dear audience: though he often sports an ill-advised mustache and often plays characters with more-than-questionable gender politics (and has kind of small teeth) - I get it. The cute part, though, is how every time I go over to my Dad's, he's netflixed either a Paul Newman or a Robert Redford. Oh Electric Cowboy, you're such a rascal!

I feel I've reached a new point in my life - the point in my life at which I begin to understand how Totally Old Dudes are also Totally Cute. Newman and Redford were just the tip of the iceberg. Shatner as Kirk as Sex Symbol has always been high on the list of "Things I just don't get." Until today, folks! I flipped on the television, saw some tight-fitting yellow, and was sold. I get it, folks.

It's official: I eat dinner at four, I go to bed at 9, and my heart flutters for Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and William Shatner - I am a very, very old lady.

I can't figure out if I'm using "forebearer" correctly, so I removed it from the body of the post. Darn you - ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Gentle reader,

I come to you today with a picture. I say no more about this picture than that it is a sign of great and powerful things to come.

Also, it's a menorah hat. HAT.

(And that's my Bannister. Note the white lights - proof of my co-habitation with a one, Miss Mary Ryan.)

This post isn't very funny so I tried to fake it with a youtube video

Oh Arlington - the land of Couch Crashing and Life Lessons. Lessons from this installment of Weekends in the DC-Metro Area include:

- I want to live at Kate's house always. The land of KateJennyAndrewDavid is a land where, according to what I see when I visit, I can always watch Nine to Five and color felt posters while eating delectable baked goods. What's that you say? I could probably do those in my own home, now that I'm "an adult" anyway? True - but it's not the same without Kate, et al.

- I am weak, weak when it comes to Ms. Katz and her sweet-talking, make-up finding wiles. Also the West Coast needs to be closer to this one. Stat.

- I CAN DRIVE IN GEORGETOWN NEAR CHRISTMAS TIME AND NOT DIE. Dear Cities: I hate driving in you. Fix that, por favor. (Side note: I can parallel park in Georgetown near Christmas and not die - take that, mon amie!) (Side, SIDE note: it is annoying that I do not know how to make accent marks in this little bloggymadoodle, so I can not ACTUALLY use any of the 4-5 French words I know! SACREBLEU!)

- Kelly is the hottest thing on two legs. Now, for those of you who know my friend Kelly, you were well aware of this fact before I told you. For those of you who don't - let me just reiterate: Kelly is the hottest thing on two legs. This is impressive, coming from me, because I have a lot of attractive friends, guys. You don't even know. My friend circle is, without a doubt, Hot Chick Central - and the ladies I was out with Saturday night were, if I do say so myself, easily the cutest, classiest, most awesome women to walk into any room we deemed worthy of our presence. But...I mean...you should see what happens to a room when Kelly walks into it. I'll give you a hint: men melt into piles of simpering mush whose eyes glimmer with hope and adoration. It's AWESOME. It also equates Free Drinks In An Attempt To Distract Meg So All Men, Ever, Can Attempt To Romance Kelly (in a proper-noun sort of way). I would like, again, to reiterate: it's AWESOME.

Finally, even though my Youth Group kids are, for all intents and purposes, being butts I am going to post this video about the true meaning of Hanukkah. The true meaning of Hanukkah is humorous raps - that's right, humorous raps. And a solstice-esque festival of lights, just like every other world relgion.

Oh, and Macabees and the miracle of the oil and family and getting presents at the same time as all the other kids. It's about that, too.

But mostly raps.

The stammering really gets me

Dear Woody Allen:

I do not think you are very funny or entertaining. I'm sorry, but it's true. I wrote a paper once on what you symbolized about the Jewish-American experience's necessity to be self-referential in a sort of paranoid and self-deprecating way. You make me uncomfortable, and I am annoyed that this pegs me as Not Appropriately Quirky OMG2XTREME.

I am a Jewish feminist who doesn't particularly like Woody Allen and has a conflicted relationship with the music and works of Ani DiFranco - oh why can I not get my pop-culture references to match my societal labels?

My life is so seriously difficult, guys. You don't even know. Don't even.

In other news: I didn't know how much I liked Richmond until I spent an evening going to hip coffee shops and cool vegan dives and fun apartment parties featuring hilarious snore-stories. I drove home listening to NPR and basking in the bright, crisp light of a morning of a day that was only going to go down hill in terms of "things that stress Meg out."

In thirdly other news: I am not very good youth group leader and would not like to do it anymore, if that's a-okay with everyone. Oh? It's not? You'd rather be kind of passive aggressive and consistently ask me to organize things the kids don't seem to want to partake in? Cool. I...I guess that's almost the same.