on strange obsessions and the best friends who fuel them

Last night, at 10:53 PM, I submitted my final assignment for the spring 2011 semester.

I'M DONE!!!

I've never been so relieved to be finished with a semester of school in my life. This finals week was pure agony, right up until the last second -- and I really mean the last second. The biggest thing that motivated me to get through it was the fact that I am going to New York City today with my very best friend Lindsay, to see a Broadway show and roam Times Square and be unabashedly touristy (one of my favorite things to do in the whole world)!

We're seeing Wonderland, a modern-day musical adaptation of Alice In Wonderland set in New York City. I'm not sure if those who read this blog know that Alice in Wonderland is basically my favorite things of all time. Before I was a Joss Whedon geek or a Star Wars geek or a LOTR geek, I was an Alice geek. First of all, I take the book way, way too seriously and consider it my own personal property (so much that I'm hostile towards almost everyone who says they also "love" the book). I have been collecting Alice-y things since I was 13 (especially White Rabbit stuff, Red Queen stuff, anything with the original Tenniel illustrations, and reinterpreted illustrations). I read The Annotated Alice at least once a year. I make it a point to try and write a paper on Alice every semester. And I've seen almost every single adaptation of Alice on the big screen, small screen, and now, the stage.

I'm super lucky to have a best friend who feeds my strange obsession, so much as to gift me with the opportunity to see the only version of Alice that has existed on Broadway to my knowledge. And she'll be here in about 10 minutes, so I'd better get my act together. 

I wouldn't want to be late. For a very important date.*

Hee hee!

*From the song "I'm Late" sung by the White Rabbit in the 1951 Disney adaptation. The White Rabbit never says this in Carroll's book. He does, however, say, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" which does not rhyme.**

            **I told you I was an Alice geek. It's insufferable, I know.

insane in the membrane: the story of my weekend

This weekend Matt and I descended upon Lambertville, NJ, a small, historic town near our alma mater that is known for its art community, antique shops, and all-around quaintness. It's the kind of place that I guess people go to retire. Honestly, after spending the weekend, now I kind of want to live there when I retire. It was awesome, is what I'm saying.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

• The FOOD, OMG. We just picked restaurants at random but we happened to end up at the best places in town. And the breakfast our B&B served was insane in the membrane. Warm scones with blueberry preserves, fresh fruit from the farmer's market, and blueberry-cornmeal pancakes from scratch. I nearly died.
• Touring River Horse Brewery and facepalming (in amusement) when Matt insisted on asking the geekiest questions like "What sanitizer do you use on  the bottles?" and "What kind of machine you use to flash-chill the beer?"
• Stumbling upon a secret room in an otherwise typical curio/antique shop that was literally jam-packed with pop culture memorabilia, records, action figures, old magazines (from Tiger Beat to Rolling Stone), pulp fiction books, and kitschy toys. Matt, who is a collector of classic rock LPs, found original presses of Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience AND Aqualung by Jethro Tull and he bought them both for FOURTEEN DOLLARS. 
• The fact that the B&B had A Mighty Wind in their DVD collection. It was slightly less exciting when the DVD crapped out just before all the good stuff happens, but still. It's the concept. 
• Discovering that I fucking love B&Bs and I don't care who knows it. All I can say is that instead of being worried that it would be lame and annoying and I'd have to make chit-chat with pretentious Princeton retirees [note: I actually did have to do that, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be], I should have been more concerned with the monster that a B&B would unleash in me. As soon as we got to the house and dropped off our bags I dragged Matt downstairs into the common area for way longer than necessary in the hopes that we would run into the owner again or come across another couple. So, yeah -- the B&B experiment went, like, outlandishly well.  

And now. Pictures.

Here's the pop culture room I mentioned before. I seriously had to catch my breath when I first walked into this room. It's like Geek Heaven.

This is Peddler's Village, where Matt and I had dinner and window shopped. I took this picture while he was buying us some ice cream. 

Our room. It was way bigger than it looks and so cozy. That bed was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I have to admit, though, when I saw the flowered wallpaper I had a bit of a moment from the episode of Gilmore Girls I talked about last time. You GG fans know what I'm talking about. And no, there wasn't actually any foil in the paper.

I just needed you to know that our toilet paper looked like this when we got to our room. This is the level of service we received, people.

I can't believe I'm even posting this, but I just wanted to show you how Matt has this uncanny ability to ruin pictures of us. 

See?

And of course, the obligatory food picture. This is Matt's order of Chocolate-Banana Coconut French Toast. I bet you can guess what happened approximately 1 minute later.

Gone.

Pros and Cons: Saturday, May 1

Pros

• I went to a party and I met a girl from Canada. I accidentally told Matt she was from Ottawa even though she told me she was from Toronto.
• Actually, what she had said was that she was "from Tronno." Which was a huge pro.
• At the same party, I saw some of my cousins and we had a lot of laughs. 
• And a lot of cake.
• I drank wine, which is almost always fun (barring the Arbor Mist Debacle of March 2009)
• My sister and I had an epic Boyz II Men sing-along in the car on the way home. 
• I learned the corniest and best joke ever, but you have to know a little French to get it: The One-Two-Three Cat and the Une-Deux-Trois Cat had a race in the swimming pool. The One-Two-Three Cat won. Do you know why? 
• Because the Une-Deux-Trois Cat sank. (Say it out loud, French speakers. Say it out loud. Then groan. Then feel free to backhand slap me through your computer screens.)

Cons

• Said Canadian girl told me she hates the Flyers. 
• Boo on not being able to bond over a sport because of team rivalries.
• I got eaten alive by mosquitoes because we were sitting outside the whole time.
• I hardly got any good reading time in, which sucks because I'm like 40 pages away from finishing V For Vendetta.
• I feel like I just need to finish it so I can start reading it again
• Because holy shit I have almost no idea what is going on in that book.
• I kinda lost my voice a little bit from all of the epic sing-alonging. 
• Nobody laughed at my corny joke. Sad face.

Well, so far this weekend the pros and cons are neck-and-neck. Tomorrow I'm hanging out at my old college campus with one set of friends during the day, and then, in the evening, I'm going over to my engaged friends' house with Matt to eat pizza and play the incredibly geeky game Setters of Catan. So we'll see what the tally looks like on Sunday. Keep on having a good weekend everyone, and DFTBA.