One more book to add to the list.

American Gods by Neil Gaman. I really don't think Neil Gaiman can do any wrong.

Amazon.com Review
American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

This was definitely a fantastical book. The story is never too unbelievable and I found myself swept up in the struggle between the new and old gods. The idea that these gods are still among us is enticing. Neil Gaiman has fast become one of my favorite authors. And following him on twitter is fun too. I have to say that I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Now I must go add this to the list of books for 2009

Let's do this quick and dirty.

I will be MIA for a bit. The office is moving this week so that is consuming some time. I have finals next week so that is consuming my life. And I have been nominated for and taken the Secretary position of Student Council at school. Yeah, I'm fucking crazy. I will most certainly post up my schedule next time so you can see why I'm going to explode starting in September.

Without further ado... let me post some pics from Rhode Island.


Ok so ignore my double chin and sweatiness. This is probably 2.5 hours of sitting in Connecticut. I hate Connecticut. We spent 4 hours in traffic when it should have taken 1.5. It was awful. Here are some examples of what Cassie and I came up with while sitting in hell:

Dear Connecticut,
You have more red lights than the district in Amsterdam.
Love, Us

Dear Connecticut,
Do us all a favor and split yourself between Rhode Island, Mass and NY. We would appreciate it.
Love, Us

Dear Connecticut,
I am pretty fucking sure you are the worst state in the union. Please kill yourself.
Love, Us (Notice the anger building)

Dear Connecticut,
I thoroughly enjoy speeding down your highway at 20mph.
Love, Us

Dear Connecticut,
Your existence makes me ashamed to be an American.
Regards, Us

You can't really see it but that says Welcome to Rhode Island. I have never been so happy to see something in my life. A 3 hour trip took us 6.5 hours. I fucking hate Connecticut. There are only 49 states in my USA now.











Ok so we got there late, somehow Cassie and I planned our trip during Restaurant Week. Fantastic timing cus we are fat girls and Restaurant Week allowed us to eat at some really cool local restaurants. The first night was Local 121, which only uses produce from no more than an hour away. It was delicious.

We ended the night at this bar that has a beer club with 99 beers. I had a framboise and the ladies tried some wild beers. The first night was good. Sadly, Cassie and I missed having any time to go out and explore but it was a great night.







It's all about food when you have Cassie and I together. We stayed with her friend Juhi and went to brunch here before we set out to explore Providence. Cute place, delicious omelettes... love local stuff!














So the most fantastic thing about Juhi, besides her letting us crash on her extra bed, was that she lived in the historic district of Providence. So all the amazing historical houses (like Henry Miller's) were all nearby. This house was amazing. There were many amazing houses and me loving architecture I took a picture of just about every single one of them.







Very nice. I swear one day I will live in a house that has a plaque on it telling you when it was built and by whom. Oh my heart.







This was probably my favorite.
















BROWN UNIVERSITY MOTHERFUCKERS!

Oh you have no idea, we walked the campus, pretended we were students, took pictures of everything. Went to the bookstore and bought sweatshirts. Yes I now own a brown BROWN hoodie. And yes I wear it, it may be the middle of the summer and sweltering but I will wear it anyways. And dream... dream a little dream of attending an Ivy League school... that I should have done regardless. Why did I doubt myself?!? I could've been an Ivy Leaguer. FML. This was the highlight of the trip.
Um, so the grass at BROWN was the prettiest grass ever and I had to roll around in it.


We walked Providence for 7 hours that day. Went to Indiefest for a bit, which was all local bands on 4 stages and lots of local merchants. I have so many photos!!!! That night also led to meeting some of Juhi's friends (who were fucking awesome) and hanging out til 4 in the morning.






Dancing at some bar.












Baby Got Back was playing. Much dancing.












Sunday we went to the beach in Cape Cod. Gregg, Juhi's friend, invited us up to Sandwich, Mass and we went! It was a super cute town and the perfect ending to the weekend.


There are many beach photos. We hung out here, I got some color and then we headed out to this little boardwalk that Gregg wanted to show us. Super cool and would have been romantic for a couple.









It was effing gorgeous on this boardwalk. Love the photos that I got from there. We went to eat after this and then headed back to Rhode Island. Then Cassie and I got our shit together and headed home. It was about 11:30pm and we did not want traffic in Connecticut so we were willing to make the trek back that late at night. This time we got home in 3 hours. Cassie was home at 2:30 and I was home before 3.



Dear Connecticut,
Like a prostitute, you are best visited under cover of darkness.
Love, Us

262 photos later it was an amazing weekend. Ok so if I make a Flickr account, I can attach my photos to here right? Cus my photos are kind of fun if you want to go through them. I would be welcome for any information you have on how to make that work.

And now I take my leave of you. I have another couple blogs in me... one about dishonesty (had an experience) and of course another about the boy in the band that I love. And I'm sure I will have plenty about school once it is all done. This was not quick or dirty. Sorry I lied.

Stupid FedEx

They have my laptop and are making it supremely difficult to get it back. I shall succeed tho. You have no idea the separation anxiety I am having. Spent the whole weekend in Rhode Island and Cape Cod. Depending on the laptop there will be pictures later. Let me just say I spent a lot of time in the grass at Brown rolling around like an idiot. Man I wish I had gone to that school. WTF was I doing with my life. Anyways, more later. How was everyone's weekend?

Hey it's a bday follow-up!

Be excited kids... I got pictures and the whole nine yards. Friday was a long day! And now I'm 27 WOOOOHOOOO! Yeah I am that excited. Don't ask why, cus I haven't quite figured that out. The day started with work, as you can tell because I updated. I seem to do most of my blogging while sitting at my desk. After work... it was all about Sx and lunch. Then:
Yeah it was time to strip down and do my first shoot. I got past the first round in the application, the only way to get that Suicide name was to do the photos. "Modeling" was a bitch. That shit hurts. I am not used to smiling so much, nor not breathing for so long, nor being naked in natural light. She shot about 200 pictures which will be whittled down to about 50 and then submitted. I saw 2 and one of them was awesome. When your photographer goes "And that's the one that will make you a suicide girl", you know that some sort of magic happened. Cross your fingers for me folks!


After all that hard work, one must be rewarded with food. Especially hot, cheesy, fattening deliciousness. I give you 4 cheese Mac and Cheese at S'Mac in NYC. Extraordinarily good.


Be excited kids, this is Wizard of Oz under the stars at South Street SeaPort. Yes... The Wizard of Oz, my most favorite movie in the whole world. WHOLE WORLD. We almost made it for the whole thing but it was freezing and people are fucking annoying. I moved two inches and got assaulted by fingers and being told that the person behind me could no longer see. It's on a BIG FUCKING SCREEN, if you cannot see it then you need to talk to your eye doctor, not me. Thank you much. I take it as a sign that Oz was playing on my birthday. We are connected. I love it.

Time for the fair! We schlepped it back to Jersey and went to the fair! I am not one for this stuff but my friend has never been to the state fair in Jersey and it was time to change that. So we wandered around playing games and just hanging out. On facebook, we have decided that this sort of looks like it should be an album cover. I dig it. This is a good portion of us all together!



Another first for me that night... the ferris wheel. I hate heights, ferris wheels frighten me. It was gorgeous at the top but when that thing started to move I almost crapped my pants. It went around 4 times and every time I thought I might die. This is a photo from the top. Carnivals are just fucking pretty from that high up. This will probably never be a repeat performance.


YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big dog, my friend won it for me! It was good to be the birthday girl. Oh do you see that lunchbox? That was my "purse" for the evening. If you ever want to buy me something pretty I collect metal lunchboxes. I'm just throwing that out there. It was very fitting for the evening with Wizard of Oz. That dog is amazing. There is no where to put him but I love him none the less. River won me a pink gorilla too! It was a good night for presents. I love them both.


This is where the night stopped being fun. They had a petting zoo at the fair and an elephant walking around in a circle in the parking lot. I walked through just to love the animals a little bit but had to speed up and get out of there cus I was crying so hard. Yes, you heard me, CRYING. I couldnot handle the conditions these animals were in. I mean none of them looked abused and I'm sure someone loves them (this may just be me trying to make myself feel better) but they seemed so sad. I was practically sobbing. SOBBING, I tell you.
Which reminds me of another thing we saw that night. Early on, there was one of those sideshow freak tents about the smallest women. We joke about my one friend being tiny so we wanted to walk through. We thought it would be like all those other ones that just have things in jars and statues of all the things they are talking about. No, not this one. It was a woman, on a pillow, just sitting there. A REAL WOMAN. A REAL, TINY WOMAN. It was kind of the most horrific things I've ever seen. Not the fact that she was tiny or anything, but that we paid a $1 to walk through this tent to look at a woman on a pillow. She looked miserable, it was just so awkward. I will never ever do that again. I learned my lesson. I will also never look at a petting zoo again, unless it is on a farm.

I almost forgot to put this in. Look at that makeup and hair. Yeah, like a tranny hooker. Sx did a damn good job making me look presentable for this shoot. I didn't wash my hair til last night. Yep, count it, that's 4 days. I was a grimey disgusting mess but that's okay. My hair looked hot. And I got to see the bestie that I'm totally in love with. So I will take grimey. Seriously, more make-up than a tranny hooker. It was so weird to have all that shit on me... but SG here I come!!!

Ok that was my 27th birthday. I was up for somewhere between 30-40 hours. Good times. Lots of love folks. Now time for me to catch up on my blog reading. <3

Hey 100th Post!!!!

Well it's pretty fucking convenient that this is my 100th post... or at least by what blogger is telling me, there might be a few in there that haven't made it up... so this could be a huge lie. Either way this is why:


Today is my birthday!!!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOO! Do not ask why I am so excited to be 27. I hated last year's birthday... but this year. I'm all about it! That's about it for today. There will be much celebrating and fun times to be had. Thanks for stopping by if you are.

Skinny Days

i LOVE skinny days. it's pretty effing nice today. Well now that my pseudo period bitch is gone, things are feeling a bit better. for the first time in 3 weeks... yes it took 3 weeks for the bitch to finally show up, try to kill me and leave... i do not feel like a fat bloated cow. or maybe it's the pointy black heels with my new jeans and black shirt. i'm so edgy and hip today LOL.

Suicide Girls has started taking over my life. I do believe that on Friday, my birthday, hint hint, that I am going to do my first set. Trying not to think about it too much because I don't want to freak myself out. Not about my birthday, about the stripping down to my nothingness and displaying the goods for naked, but tasteful pictures. I have all the faith in the world in Sx, who is taking the pics. And she knows not to let me see them until she has photoshopped the hell out of them. Or I will cry and hate myself and not celebrate my birthday. Thank god i like my vagina or I would up shit's creek trying to do this. LMAO... yeah I just laughed out loud in my office. Scared a couple of old ladies. I look like a crazy person now. But anyways, I really like this having a whole other persona on there. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just me but still. Most people don't know my real name, don't know jack shit about me actually and it's nice. I like making friends. Or whatever you call these internet relationships. Haha... I would tell you about one amazing encounter but I don't think that would be accepted here. I need myself an X-rated blog for these things that go on SG sometimes.

Whoa I'm tired. I just zoned out for like 5 minutes. Ok back to work my loves. Leave me some sugar.

Mama Kat

If you click on that title right below it will take you to Mama's Losin' It, I LOVE her blogs and her fun writing assignments. So this week I will actually do one on time! Woot!

Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept

Directions:
For you newbies it's never to late to jump in!! Here is what you must do. Choose a prompt that inspires you most. Write. Come back Thursday and paste your blog URL into the Mister Linky that will be up...this way anyone can click on your name and head over to your place to see what you wrote.

Feel free to write on more than one prompt if you so desire. I do it all the time, but it's my game...and I don't know how to shut-up...so it should be expected. And remember the more comment love you give, the more comment love you get so comment comment away.

The Prompts:

1.) Tell us about a "dirt cheap" you've taken this summer.
(inspired by Anti-Supermom)

2.) When I grow up I want to be like...
(inspired by Jenny Says What?)

3.) Describe a difficult moment that you survived.
(inspired by Sarah M.)

4.) List 5 things you like to do while camping...or 5 places you'd like to go.
(inspired by Kisatrtle)

5.) What are you paranoid about?
(inspired by Melissa)

I think I might do more than one, yeah I'm feeling ambitious. Crazy stuff I know... let me get through at least one and then we will talk about another one.

5 Places I'd Like to Go:
This reminds me of a thing my friend sent me yesterday... hang on let me find it... here we go:

TFLN: (917): yea..i want to get out of new york for a bit too but for the love of god not to new jersey. that's like getting tired of the stripclub and getting yourself a toothless prostitute.

I'm not one for posting up from the texts from last night but my god that is funny. I love a good Jersey joke. That being said, this is the list of places I would want to go that are not Jersey:
1. Salem, Mass. (I love this place, it's like my second home. Be there in 9 days)
2. Savannah, Georgia (Ghost stories and plantation homes. Very much so)
3. Europe - specifically England, Amsterdam and Germany
4. New Orleans (not during Mardi Gras)
5. Oregon (the birthplace of Traditional Chinese Medicine in America)

This list could go on for days. Let's see how many I can see. I get a month off in between semesters. I would like to set a goal to go somewhere new each break.

OOOOO... I'm gonna do it.
What am I paranoid about?

So we moved last month as I have previously written about, not exciting. However there is a bridge that I have to drive over back and forth to get from home to work. I hate bridges as it is but this bridge is one of those ones that opens up for passing boats. Let me tell you nothing is worse than sitting on that skinny bridge, next to an 18 wheeler, waiting for that bridge to go down. Instant panic attacks that the bridge will collapse, I will fall to my death, the road will be slippery from rain and there I go right off the edge... etc. Oh and let me just mention that a couple years ago, the sister bridge next to it was open one night and now it's named after the EMT's that went over cus they didn't realize it was open and died. In the winter. I travel these bridges at all times of the day. Freaks me the hell out.

Oh and also now that I am back in school and taking tests again I have this weird paranoia. This really came up during midterms. I go in to these tests and I'm all like "yeah I studied, I'm going to do well". And then I do (maybe this confidence is just in my head) but when I leave and until I get the test back I get this crazy panic feeling that I marked the wrong answers to everything. Like I looked at the test, knew the answer was B and put C cus my brain and my writing hand don't work well together. LOLOL.


Ok, I feel accomplished this week. Feeling good.