still haven't left yet... i suck... i've decided to go without reaffirming my directions... i don't think i need them... i can find my way... i'm just going to take my "bad girl's guide to the open road" and drive... this'll be fun...

i'm just about to leave, but i had to post this link. It's possibly one of the strangest things I've found on the internet... this girl is 26 years old, obsessed with Nsync, and she writes kinda fucked up fanfic about them... most of it is gay in nature. weird. why would you obsess about guys in a band and then write fanfic about them fucking each other? and why is she 26 and doing this? get a job...

well, i'm off shortly to Pottsville, Pennsylvania (home of Yuengling Beers) where i'll visit with my family and my mom and stepfather. they're in town from michigan for a conference. i'm not sure what we're doing or how long i'll be there... beh. i don't feel like driving today, especially not for 4 hours alone... i better get some good music together... be back sometime sunday...

so beck and i decided that we no longer want to be engineer and teacher and that now we're going to be "bad girls for hire." we'll be cat burglers or hitwomen or secret agents or a combination of the three... dirty deeds, done dirt cheap (no, not those kinds of dirty deeds... get us drunk and (if you're cute) they're generally free... just kidding... kind of... see post below on alcohol warning labels... ). our friend eric will be our tech guy (kinda like Charlie, and we'll be the angels). the theme song for the tv show based on our outstanding adventures will be "Disco Sex Trash" by the Thrill Kill Cult. you know, since we've got the tattoos, we figure we're already halfway there... ;)

so beck sent this to me in an email this morning, we both found it quite enjoyable:

Due to increasing products liability litigation, American Beer Brewers have accepted the FDA's suggestion that the following warning labels be placed immediately on all beer containers:
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your bra.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at four in the morning.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you have mystical Kung Fu powers, resulting in you getting your ass kicked.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead/knees.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause a disturbance in the time-space continuum, whereby gaps of time may seem to literally disappear.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause pregnancy.

so i had the weirdest dream last night (well, this morning really...):

it started out on a sunday and i was at church. it didn't look like my church, but it seemed normal to me in the dream. i was apparently supposed to sing with some group (weird, i haven't been in a chorus since high school) but only this other guy and i showed up to do it. so we're in front of the church and we're all embarrassed because we don't want to have to sing alone. and then people start telling us that we'd make a cute couple and that we should date, which really embarrassed us. i don't think this guy in my dream was anyone i know in real life, but in my dream world he was someone that i'd hung out with before with friends and he was a little younger than me. he was kinda cute though and we held hands.
then the dream shifted and we were at my parents house in what was my room. in the dream i knew that i had my own apartment, but apparently i was also keeping half of my stuff at my house in my old room. anywhere so we were there napping and we realized that my room was on fire. so we got out of the house but i had to keep going back and screaming at my brothers to get out of the house. then we were in the backyard and my neighbors were just watching us in the backyard with our house burning and i couldn't believe that no one was doing anything.
at first it was just a little fire in my room, then the windows were like bursting and pretty much the whole house was in flames. So i kept trying to call for help. the first time i dialed 911 it didn't work or i couldn't dial it right or something, and then the next time it went through but i got this dispatcher that didn't want to help me. she was like, "hello?" and then didn't say anything and i'm freaking out into the phone and she's not really saying anything. so i hung up and called back right away and got a different dispatcher and she was like, "oh she's heartbroken" as if that explained why the other one wouldn't help me. then i'm yelling at this woman that my house is on fire and she didn't really seem to care and i'm like, "you have to get the fire department!" and i think i actually screamed something about it being a "working structure fire" which is funny 'cause i only know that term from knowing my friend Beck who's a fireman and then she said "they're already there" and i turned around and there was this (hot) fireman walking towards me asking if everyone was ok. and the fire was put out in my house, it was all charred and wet looking, but only in the upstairs bedroom part.
so then i tried to call Beck but i only got her voicemail (and it was weird because in my dream i kept trying to dial the phone but i'd dial the wrong number). then my mom got home from the store with a bunch of bags of coke and she was serving the firemen like there was nothing weird about being at the store and coming home to have your house all burnt and serving firemen coke. and then i went in my house and the whole downstairs was fine, just a little dirty and smelly and everyone was sitting in the living room talking about how it must have started.
it was really just an odd disturbing dream that ended abruptly (thank God) because Beck was calling me this morning. anyway. I can't believe how much of it I remember. i think the uninterested dispatcher part was weird, and it may have something to do with how someone i know knew someone who didn't pass the psych eval to be a 911 dispatcher and i was told that story on saturday i think and we said how i guess you'd have to be stable to be a 911 dispatcher 'cause otherwise you might hang up on people or something... i dunno. i'd welcome any dream interpretations :)

my little brother is just so freaking cool. check out his post on birdshit.

here's what to do when you win the lotto. This is vital information that you may need, so read it carefully. I did. I'll do anything to avoid doing actual work. The article was great for daydreaming... but it ended hella stupidly. I wanted to email the author right away and say, "weak, very weak..." Now I must do actual work... hopefully I'll get my shit done...

so... more on the weekend...

Saturday: I volunteered to help out at work Saturday morning by going to the department of corrections and setting appointments for people who were applying to be correctional officers to have psych evals. It was pretty boring, but hey, it was an extra $40 and I got to leave early... The weirdest people apply to be corrections officers. There were some kids there that looked like they were maybe just out of high school or community college, and then there was this like 50 year old lady who complained about everything... I was the only young person working there. I worked with Dave from the office (who's probably around 50), a really nice if somewhat odd guy, and two older ladies that apparently work at the department of corrections full time. They were so demanding of the applicants: "Come over here first! There are TWO lines here! You didn't fill that in. Go over there and finish it!" When the applicants came over to the table where I was sitting they came to me if they wanted their appointments to be in Rochester or Harlem, and they went to Dave if they wanted Albany. It was weird. People kept apologizing to me that they went to Dave instead of me. Like I cared. I just wanted to get out of there so I could go to Irish Fest. Also, I really wanted to apply bacitracin to my tattoo which apparently was oozing ink onto the back of my shirt (eww): there was an outline of my butterfly on my shirt when I got home (I hope that comes out in the wash...). I was wearing my awesome red Steve Madden shoes and some big biker looking guy with a cool Celtic cross tattoo on his forearm complimented me on my shoes. Really, those shoes are magical or something. I mean, how many times does a guy actually notice your shoes? And most of my compliments from those shoes have been from guys... anyway... so Dave let me go home early, which made me very happy. I went right home and got ready to go to Irish Fest.

I had to meet Beck, Alex, Steve, Neary and Lee (the group that went out last weekend to the Parting Glass) at the parking lot at Crossgates across from Hooters where we were supposed to get the shuttle to the festival. But when we got there we weren't sure if that's where it was really picking us up, and then we found out that you could no longer buy the wriststraps there for admission to the shuttle. So Steve ended up taking us all to the fairgrounds in his truck. We had a great time... Alex got a huge order of fries for everyone to share and I picked at them making the only things I ate that day an apple and a few french fries. So, it didn't take much beer to get me drunk. I find that this is a good, inexpensive solution for me... I'll have to remember that for the future. Anyway... So unfortunately my ex-boyfriend was there with the woman that he cheated on me with, but it didn't really bother me. He tried to get me to see him kissing her, but I ended up not seeing (Beck told me) and I think that's funny. He's so pathetic. Later he was standing by this one pavillion where I was watching some musical acts (very good) and Beck was talking with a bunch of the guys that we came with and some others. I was standing with (well, leaning on... I was already pretty drunk) Alex and I didn't see him, but Beck did and pointed out to the guys that she was standing with that she didn't like that guy and they all stared at him and he ran away. What a wimp.
So the bands that I saw were all pretty good. The first one that we actually watched was Kilbrannan which is from Syracuse. They wore kilts and did a lot of kinda traditional music. Then they busted out the bagpipes and an electric guitar and did this hella rocking version of "Scotland the Brave" which I can't find a recording of online, but I'd love to get a hold of. Afterwards there was just one guy with a guitar who was pretty good. He did a bunch of interactive-drinking songs that were funny (and difficult to perform as they went on). Then we went to the Grove Stage and saw Hair of the Dog. They were awesome. They're a local band so we'll get to see them often if we want. It started pouring during the middle of their second set, but nobody cared. The music was too good and the listeners were too drunk to do anything but continue to dance. They did this awesome song called "I Used to Work in Chicago" that's hella funny. I was trying to provide a link on here from which you could download it, but it just wasn't working for me. So try searching Kazaa for it and download it, or you could try im-ing me and asking me (nicely) for it, cause it's really worth a listen :) When Hair of the Dog was done just about the whole population of the festival walked to the parking lot. It seemed like everyone left then. We felt bad for Steve 'cause we had to pile into his car all wet. Beck got clothes tossed to her, but I didn't get any and I froze the whole way home. When we got to Steve's I was given a shirt from Alex and some shorts from Steve and I felt much better. The next morning when I got home though, I felt a little wierd... My sandels got ruined the night before so I ended up walking into my apartment in an obviously borrowed T-shirt, boxer shorts and in bare feet in front of a few of my neighbors. That was a little embarrassing... Ah well.. Soyeah, Saturday was a great time :)

Sunday: Sunday Beck came with me to meet the usual crew for lunch. We went to the American Cafe in Colonie center where we partook of good food and great bread :) After walking around the mall for a little while Beck and I came back to my apartment where we fell asleep :) My couches are too comfy... Then we watched Sex and the City and ordered Chinese food. The whole weekend was just such a great time. It'll be a while before we get to do it again, 'cause I'm going away this weekend and Beck's going away next weekend... beh. Ah well.

what a great weekend :)

Friday:beck and i got tattoos. beck came directly here from work and we headed right down to lark street to the "lark street tattoo company" to do the deed before either of us chickened out. it's probably a good thing we went early anyway because otherwise we probably wouldn't have gotten in. we were hella nervous going in the shop and we didn't really know what to do when we first got in there. so we looked through the books of flash (the stock tattoo images) that they had there and waited around until one of the artists was done. at first i told beck that she had to go first and she had to do the talking since it was her idea, but when the girl came to the counter i jumped up right away and was like, 'hi, i'd like to get a tattoo' and i took out the pic of the butterfly that i wanted and told her that i wanted it on my lower back. beck was like, 'dammit, i wanted to go first!' i explained later that i realized that if i didn't just do it then i would never have done it.
so in order to tattoo you, they take your design and make a carbon copy of it, then transfer it to your back. from there it's just tracing and filling in. my design was pretty simple and i got just black so it wasn't a lot of work. my artist, kara, said she was going to do one line and if it hurt too much or whatever she could stop. so she did it and it didn't really feel like anything at all so i was like, 'bring it on!' and then she started... well... when she did that test line, she must have picked the part of my back that she knew would hurt the least, 'cause once she got started it hurt. not so bad most of the time, but whenever she was near my spine it really hurt. and then there were times when she was filling in and moving the gun back and forth really quick, and that did not feel so good. so she didn't really talk while she was doing it, and i was busy breathing and imagining that giving birth must be fucking hellish because this was bad but that must be worse. i had no idea how long it was going to take and she wasn't really giving me any updates so i just sat there imagining the worst. i swear, i thought she made it HUGE or something. she was up in my shoulder blades one second, down my butt another... well, i'm exaggerating. it turned out to be not too big, but very cute. beck got hers started right about when kara was finishing mine up. beck's artist was named 't-bone.' he was a big guy with dreds... but beck said he was pretty nice. here are pics of our tattoos: