one more miracle

A brief update because I feel like I neglect my LJ far too much these days!

Basically to sum up, everything from my last post is still pretty awesome. Indoor soccer was great again, except for how I managed to INJURE myself, god-fucking-dammit. I pulled my quad in high school and I managed to aggravate that old injury pretty badly tonight. :( I really hope the pain will pass quickly, because I don't want to be hampered for next week. I guess this is what I get for not treating my body right for several years. Oops! But the game was much more even this time, we won 2-0, and the guys and gals on my team continue to be really lovely. Iker!goalie is still super hot and super competent, so that is definitely not a bad thing. :D

Science is awesome with a side of terrifying - so many new things to do! Will I be up to it?! Eep. But it's exciting too. :)

And Matt is... Matt is kinda super awesome. I'm really enjoying this thing we've got going so far. Sunday, we went to see Inception (!!!!!!!!! TOM HARDY, PLZ DO ME. OR DO J GORDON-LEVITT. He was JANOVEC in BoB, you guys! <33333) and then back to his place where we just hung out, listened to The Postal Service on vinyl, and exchanged backrubs. I'm super comfortable with him - everything is at this really lovely place of affectionate physical intimacy that's really just cuddly and sweet, so I don't feel pressured or scared like I did with Dave. Basically the speed is lovely and I'm really enjoying it. Today, I went to visit him at the cafe after I left lab, which basically meant hanging out with my laptop, getting a free mug of AMAZING HOLY CRAP coffee (Intelligentsia's Summer Solstice - UNF. I didn't need sugar OR cream!), chatting with the German owner of the coffee shop, and meeting several of Matt's friends. Oh and flirting with Matt outrageously of course. :) It just felt like such a lovely, comfortable, domestic scene and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Fun story - a couple of Matt's friends had just walked in, and Matt called across the room to ask me what kind of coffee I wanted. I flirtatiously said "Why don't YOU decide for me?" A few minutes later, Matt introduced me to his friends, and the girl said "Ohhhhhh! I WONDERED why you were being so flirtatious! That makes more sense now!" And I just laughed and laughed, but I was also delighted because the fact that she recognized my name meant that he's been talking about me, which is rather :DDDDD. Hee!

Also, the other day he described himself as a "radical feminist", which is A++++++ in my book. It's hard enough to find a guy who will understand feminism, let alone one who IS a feminist. And he's not a poser - he's studied this shit and he really believes it. I said something like "I'm sorry I need to shave!" and he just shrugged and said "Why? I don't care. That's your choice." And I was like sdlkfjlskdf awww! I got big hearts in my eyes! ♥

My #ger girls on Twitter continue to brighten my life, as does Die Mannschaft itself. Today a video came to light which was a MONTAGE OF GERMAN FOOTBALLERS HUGGING that had AIRED ON GERMAN TELEVISION. Ahhhh I love Europe. ♥ Oh and I caved and ordered Die Spieler! COME TO ME, 200 GLOSSY PAGES OF MY BOOOYS.

I also spent this Saturday with my cousins and my sister at a Renaissance Faire! Always an amazing time. We saw REAL JOUSTING, as in, huge ass horses and genuine lances. It was a father against son joust, and the son (19 years old and adorable) got brutally unhorsed. Took quite the fall in 150 lbs of armor! He got back on the horse though, which was very impressive. That was a fantastic sight! And my favorite Ren Faire act, the Rogue Blades, was there, YAY! I've seen them probably 6 or 7 times now. :D They're a comedy-sword fighting troupe, and they've had the same skit for years upon years, but I always always love them. This year, they spontaneously added a fun twist where it became a Star Wars adlib on top of the usual plot, so they pretended their swords were light sabers, made sound effects, and called the short one Yoda. It was phenomenal. <3333

How are you, darlings? I'm ashamed to say I'm falling more and more chronically behind on my flist. :( I miss you!

Very quick Spring Break update!

Spent last night and today with my most awesomest cousins. Watched three episodes (Crossroads, Bastogne, The Breaking Point) of Band of Brothers on their massive HD TV in BLURAY with the added commentary from the veterans. Watching Malarkey start to cry when he talks about Muck was heartrending. :(((( All in all really lovely though, quite nice to get different vets' perspectives right along with the action. Lipton and Shifty and Guarnere are my favorite old men. <333

This is the greatest photo ever, btw:



I LOVE ALL THEIR FACES. Everyone looks quite different, except for RON LIVINGSTON who obviously has access to the fountain of youth. &hissmirkyface; And Scott Grimes, who is darling as always. ALL OF THEM! MY GOODNESS. <3333

Also finally got hooked on TRUE BLOOD. I had completely been resisting it, idk why, maybe because it sounds so nutty, but at least the first few episodes have totally got their claws in me. UNF BILL HOW SO CREEPYHOT? And Sookie is just fantastic. I also got to ASKARS's first appearance and UNFFFFFFF. He's sitting there all hot and authoritative and dangerous. Unfghhhh. I'm borrowing their DVDs and will likely mainline the whole first season in the next week. Bring on the I told you sos!

In general had a blast here, as usual. Not enough time, but they're only an hour away so I can come visit again soooon, hopefully. Tomorrow I set out for Connecticut, a 10.5 hour drive by myself. Have a 400-song playlist all made up, plus episodes of BoB, Castle, Big Bang Theory, and White Collar (ROSS MCCALL!) queued up for my listening pleasure. I am all set! Here's hoping the weather cooperates.

Love y'all. Don't break the internet while I'm gone. ♥

So I had yet another adventurous weekend of fun! On Friday after work, I drove up to my cousins' so that we could go to the Renaissance faire on Saturday. The morning dawned dark and stormy, but we went anyway, hoping it would clear. When we got there, it was still raining, but not as hard, so we went in to the almost empty faire, where vendors were huddled under their tents. About 15 minutes after we got there, the sky opened up with another deluge, complete with teeth-rattling thunder, so we sheltered in an armorer's booth. After that passed, it rained rather lightly for another hour before it finally stopped, and the sky gradually cleared to yield a sunny, extremely muggy day. I almost missed the cool rain! The day was a fun adventure anyway. I bought myself a costume for the next faire we go to, and all the ones we'll be going to in the future - I don't have a picture yet, but it's a long grey-green dress with pretty bunched sleeves that flow away from my elbows, along with a cream bodice with a curly golden pattern all over it, which laces up VERY TIGHT and makes my, ahem, endowment very apparent. *grins* It's totally sexy and I'm really excited to wench it up at the next faire, mwahaha.

My favorite part though was the HORSELESS JOUST. The horses would have hurt themselves in the deep mud, so instead the "knights" ran around poking each other with lances. It was hilarious. ( Here are a handful of photos from the day! )

Also during the weekend, Meg started watching the Angel DVDs I lent her - she's never seen it before, despite being a massive Buffy and Firefly fan and a general Whedon accolyte! We blazed through 6 episodes during the weekend and I think she loves it. We even watched I Will Remember You, because I had a moment of masochism, and owwwww my heart. I love that show so much. ♥ It's extremely bizarre to see David be all young and broody and foreheady, though, after watching all this Bones. He kind of seems like a different person! I love both versions though. :)

Then today Meg and I went to IKEA!!!!! Woo!!! It was an extremely successful trip, as you can see:

Those boxes contain 4 major pieces of furniture, and I got several other odds and ends, but the whole thing only came to $650! IKEA, ilusomuch. Meg and I had an absolute blast, even when we had to haul all those boxes into the back of the van in the ~90 degree muggy heat (ughhhh).

( Come see what I bought! )

I love all of it SO MUCH and I can't wait to put it all together in my new room! Eee!

I was planning on going out for drinks with some of the girls in my program tonight, but I got home from IKEA around 4:30, sat down to catch my breath, then headed straight into my lab where I worked for almost 2 hours. There were some things I just really needed to get done. Then I got home and ate and showered but at that point I was like.... I want to lie in my bed and make an LJ post and watch Bones. Really. So I decided not to go. :( I'm going to plan a night out for next week though since it's my biiirthday, yay!

I hope you all had fun weekends too! ♥

Finally, I want to say a belated-in-her-time-zone but no less heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY schneestern!!! ILU. ♥

ENORMOUS PET PEEVE ALERT: It appears that EVERY PICSPAM in Merlin fandom is in this format - i.e., screencaps squished down to roughly 300x150 px and put into a single collage image. It's ugly and horrid and completely USELESS. Why has this fandom fallen prey to such a horrible habit?! I fully plan to remedy this with a FULL SIZE massive picspam showing off Merlin and Arthur and Gwen and Morgana and Uther in all of their glory.

/negativity!

I AM HOME! *flops* I was on the road with my little sister for 13 hours yesterday, and got home at midnight. It was pretty exhausting, but not all that awful. My sis is a great road trip partner, especially since we love all the same music. We listened to FOB, MCR, We The Kings, Paramore, The Hush Sound, Panic, Across the Universe, The Used, David Bowie, TAI - basically everything awesome :D And then i slept for 10 hours and now I'm refreshed and relaxed and just CHILLING. It's amazing.

I had SUCH a wonderful time seeing my family. All my little cousins are growing ridiculously fast. Sam, who is 14, is SIX FEET TALL. All my cousins are such darling kids, it was lovely to spend time with them. And Meg (my cousin but also a mom twice over who runs her own small business dyeing yarn) is everything I wish I will be when I grow up. We're so much alike. It's really great to just hang out with her and chat about all kinds of things. And her husband, Jeff, is such a great guy. I was really happy for him because he's lost 100 pounds in the last six months and he looks fantastic.

Now I am just hangin out at home trying to catch up on LJ. A whole week of LJ! *hands* But I can't not TRY, yaknow?

I've gotten through most of the first season of Six Feet Under. It's so GREAT. I love Claire and Nate and David so much <3

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a great new year! And now here we are, opening the book on the Year of the Obama, and I am very excited and hopeful. It's a huge year of change for me personally as well, what with graduating from college in 5 months, and possibly starting grad school in the fall, or who knows what else. Here's to you, 2009. Please treat us better than your predecessor.

I love you all, and it's good to be back <3

Ahaha, I just got an email from LJ reminding me of my own birthday. Thanks LJ, I had totally forgotten! :P I'm going to have a lovely birthday this year, since I'm going to be up here with all my family and apparently there's going to be an Ireland themed party...? LOL. I am very excited. :)

I've finally gotten to try Guitar Hero (and GH2)! It's really really fun, but I don't think I'd ever get addicted. Good thing, since I don't own it. But it's certainly fun for the time being. There are a lot songs I only know because of my Supernatural fixation - Carry On Wayward Son, Surrender, Smoke on the Water, and a few others. :D I can totally imagine Dean getting obsessed with this game. Of course we know Brendon and Spencer already are! I can totally sympathize with Ryan's exasperation though *g* I know Sam would be ready to throw Dean out a WINDOW, haha.

So I've kind of, um, gotten my sister into Panic!. I know, god, I'm such a terrible influence! *g* But I'm having a lot of fun sharing my excitement with her, especially since I can't share it with so many of my friends, um. So that's nice.

Still having a great time with the cousins and aunts and uncles and various and sundry extended family. I love everyone up here so much, it's such a treat to come.

One month, three days until IRELAND!