one more miracle

As you might have guessed from my delightful drunkpost, last night was pretty nutty! And super fun. So there's this guy, Noah, a second year PhD student that I met at the biochem retreat last September. I've hung out with him lots, and my roommate Emily has become friends with him too. We went out with him and his friends on Monday to celebrate him passing his candidacy exam \o/, and that was so much fun that he invited me and Emily to a weekly gathering he has with friends on Friday. We met up with them at a bar at 5:30 PM (SO EARLY) and started drinking immediately. I think we ended up with about 15 people there, it was a little crazy but great. I had two beers and some appetizers and was already feeling pretty tipsy. Then we all walked to Noah's house, picking up booze on the way. We all congregated in his basement, which has fully six awesome couches that he's accumulated for free from Craigslist! The next several hours were full of pizza and beer and wine and progressively more drunken shenanigans.

Several times I found myself on a couch between these two guys. Craig is tall, kind of cute in a football player kind of way, and a friend/ex-crush of my roommate Debbie's, so we sort of knew each other. He was being very flirtatious in that fun drunken way where you touch too much and make stupid jokes and whatever, basically the exact kind of flirting that I love but isn't serious at all. He was doing the same with another girl there, Anna, but I wasn't upset because 1) I totally was not going anywhere with him and 2) she was awesome and girl-on-girl hate/jealousy is stupid. I also had a great time getting to talk to Mark more, who's a good friend of Noah's. I sat across from Mark at the bar too so we had some good conversations. He's super adorable with floppy brown hair, round face, glasses, beard, and general sweetness. The catch: he's definitely got a girlfriend. I have no idea how serious they are - I may need to do some intel gathering - but she's in Boston so she obviously was not there last night. At one point I was between Craig and Mark, leaning back on Craig's chest and with my legs twined over and under Mark's legs. Haha, yeah, I was a DRUNK SHARK. But man, it was just COZY. I love when I find people who will let me be my touchy drunk self. I love physical contact! I am a cuddler! So yes, it was super lovely on that front.

One of the best parts of the evening is when the DUCT TAPE came out. First it was normal silver duct tape and I tied up a couple people... I forget exactly who. Mark and Craig, probably. :P BUT THEN, OH THEN, SOMEONE GOT OUT HOT PINK DUCT TAPE. Ahahaha WHAT. I used THAT to very thoroughly tie Craig's hands together. IT WAS GREAT. I have photos! The two of us were really very drunk at that point, but we went searching for scissors to get him free. Luckily the scissors we found were safety scissors or that could have been a VERY bad situation. I'm usually not stupid while drunk! But apparently there are exceptions. :P

Toward the end of the night, I was drunk enough to pick up a bottle of wine with about 3 inches left in it and just start drinking from it! *facepalm* That obviously did not help with the inebriation problem. :P

At only about midnight (because we'd already been out for >6 HOURS) some group decision was made to head home, so we all walked back. I used Mark's arm as an aid to NOT FALLING OVER. He really is super sweet. Even if it turns out he's like, engaged to this girl, I'm glad to have him as a friend. And everyone else who was there too! It's a really fun group and I hope we get to hang out with them more often. We have been invited back for dinner next Friday, so yay! :)

I obviously have to share some photographic evidence with you. Also, I DYED MY HAIR! Yes, again. And I'm really happy with it again, but I hope it doesn't fade away in a week like it did last time!

( Hair colouring and hot pink duct tape ahead! )

And that's it - FOR NOW. Tonight is karaoke with Francisco and his lab, which promises to be DELIGHTFUL TIMES. So stoked. :D Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. ♥

Today has gotten off on an awful foot. Forgot I had class until literally the minute it started, discovered I have a 2010 estimated tax payment due that needs to be postmarked TODAY (I was so proud of getting my 2009 taxes done!), and the coffee at work was COLD. *pouts* It is, however, a gorgeous day outside (78 degrees and super sunny!) and I endeavored to rescue myself from a miserable day sitting in lab with no experiments to do by asking for a library day to work on my research presentation. I'm not being dishonest in any bad way - I really had no experiments to do, and I really plan on working on that presentation. However, I am at home instead of the library (om nom lunch!) so I can prepare my taxes and walk them to the post office.

There's no real reason you needed to know all of that. It's just the state of me!

OH, one hilarious thing - me and my roommates signed up for graduate student SPEED DATING. Lolz! We have all been moping about our lack of boys lately (and I really, really need to distract myself from Dave), so we figured why not? Should be fun! Anyone have any stories to share from speed dating, any advice?

Let's talk about Justified! The first five episodes, to be precise.

( Spoilery spoilers )

In short: thumbs up! Definitely enjoying and will be watching every week. Because I totally needed more TV.

Off to walk to the post-office in the exquisite sunshine! I think it's funny how some people either don't check the weather or haven't quite adjusted to the fact that it's SUMMER outside today, so they're in jeans and sweatshirts. Oops! I myself am in capris, tshirt and flip-flops. :D

Before I go, a music rec: Airplanes by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams. I'm not a rap fan by any means, but this is a really beautiful song with a catchy melodic riff, and the choruses by Hayley are exquisite. Her part has been stuck in my head for a whole day. I'm finally getting to see Paramore on the HCT in August with angel726 and I'm SO excited! :D

A couple days ago, I finished the most incredible book. It's called Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and it is truly a tour de force. It's also a beast, clocking in at 1130 pages in my paperback version, but honestly? Worth every page. I had my doubts at first, doubted whether I'd be able to stick with it, whether it could really be that good, but my dad had read it in three days (!) over Christmas and I was intrigued. Three months later, I have an incredibly battered and spine-creased copy that I can only gaze at in awe now that I know what it contains.

I'll give a spoiler-free pitch outside of the cut, then go into details behind the cut in case anyone wants to come flail with me/help me wrap my head around it. So! Cryptonomicon is an epic story about three different lives. There's an American code breaker in World War II who's personal friends with Alan Turing and whose mathematician perspective on life is both fascinating and frequently hilarious. He's my favorite. There's also an American Marine who starts in Guadalcanal and goes on a wacky ride around the world, getting caught up in all kinds of crazy missions that he doesn't really understand. Then there's a modern day (read: late 90s) computer scientist/entrepreneur who is working in the Philippines to develop the first major "data haven" in the world. He also happens to be the code breaker's grandson! All three of these lives are separate for the first, oh, half of the novel, but slowly they start to wind in towards each other, crossing and parting and crossing ways again, until at the end it really is all one story and you are astonished at the sheer skill it took to weave that many strands of narrative into a satisfying and startling conclusion. At first I was a little put off by how plot-driven it was, how the characters were almost sketches of people, but over time, the three main characters especially became quite vivid and sympathetic and I found that I definitely never wanted to leave the book without finding out what happened to them.

( Now some specific, spoilery flailing that perhaps will only interest Elle! )

Elle Elle come talk to me about Cryptonomicon! Tell me your favorite parts and whatnot, because I will likely be all "OMG YES THAT!" and it will help flesh out my memories of the whole book, as well as perhaps my understanding of the story? Cause I'm not sure I got everything, haha! Anyway, COME FLAIL. ♥

Reading that book felt like an accomplishment, goddamn. Been a long time since a book felt that satisfying. Next up: Stephenson's Snow Crash! :D

I've been floating on a cloud of YAY I'M IN JASON'S LAB YAY YAY YAY! Unfortunately, my current reality isn't quite that awesome and consists of fucking up experiments and a really really shitty group project that I honestly don't know how well we're going to do on. Ugh. So thank god he said yes or else I would be an utter wreck right now. I'm just clinging to it - I'm IN JASON'S LAB! Officially! He even sent out an email today about new lab photos and I was on the email! :DDDDDD

Today has not been a decent Saturday of any kind. I woke up, ate breakfast, went to lab from 2 to 8 PM, ugh, came home, went to grocery store, and worked on aforementioned group project, in the process stressing myself out so badly that I chewed on my fingernails until they all ache and it actually hurts to type. WONDERFUL. Now it's 1:30 AM and I'm exhausted but trying to get through Doctor Who without falling asleep because OMG IT'S AMAAAZING!!!

Tomorrow should be nice though - brunch in Detroit with one branch of my family, then back to Ann Arbor for dinner with another branch! Good times and good food. :D

Although that means no time to work on STUPID PROJECT ARGH. The only good thing about this project is that the one other person in the group actually doing work is this insanely pretty guy. I mean, he would not be out of place on television for us to swoon over. The other day he came to class having not shaved and he had the most exquisite stubble, like Ron Liv's 5 o'clock shadow, and I was captivated. It was kind of a problem. He also has these super blue eyes with long black lashes and a smile to die for... unf. Unfortunately, he's kind of not really my type at all, being from Connecticut and you can TELL. Like, he should be a lawyer with the way he talks sometimes. Gah, I don't know. He sure is purty to look at. And we commiserate about how awful our group is, so that's fun. :P

Random question: how do we feel about the new Youtube layout? Overall I feel it's quite functional, but why did they get rid of the starred rating system? Also, there's no way to tell how many comments there are on a video. They're strange changes that I don't quite get! Overall it does look more streamlined though.

I've been reading a lot of my old entries about just before Dublin and then during. That encompasses my slide into bandom, which is hilarious to watch - did you know at one point I genuinely, honestly thought Gerard and Brendon were gay? LOL. Oh, naive little self. I also thought Frank was the lead guitarist of MCR, gasp! Sacrilege. And it's weird to read myself squealing about Ryan when I really don't like him anymore. Anyway, the beginning of Dublin stuff is even more interesting, to see how different I was. It's very pronounced, actually. Which I knew, but it's awesome to have LJ as a concrete record of that. I hope I keep my LJ archives for my whole life, it's such a potent piece of personal history.

And I need some advice - does anyone have any ideas on the best way to get from either NYC or Philly to Cleveland without a car? I've checked plane, bus, and train, and everything either has wacky layovers (ATLANTA?!) or detours or just takes bloody forever, and it just seems so STUPID. Fucking American public transportation. Or the lack thereof. So any thoughts as to ways I could work that out so it isn't soul-crushingly horrible?

Finally, in Twitter Continues To Be Awesome, Brian Schechter responded to my Twitter-stalking for once. And I just - ahahaha, what.



Love him! He's such a dork. I totally get why he and the MCR boys got along like gangbusters. ♥

Augh so tired. Happy Easter, to all who celebrate! I hope you have lovely days.

I'm quite scared of the prevailing wind in our country at the moment. It can't lead anywhere good, and I honestly don't know what it will take to stop the trend towards catastrophic violence. Just this weekend, the FBI carried out raids practically in my own back yard on a Christian militia group that was selling pipe bombs and plotting to kill law enforcement officers. This is on the front page of NYTimes.com right now.

This NYT Op-Ed has some interesting historical context and commentary on the situation.

"The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."

When you put it that way - well, yay for progress, but holy shit am I scared for the backlash.