battered and braised, grilled and sauteed.

Well, well, well. I have decided to try proper capitalization and punctuation again. This will probably last a whopping one post. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The past two weeks, or so, have been a whirlwind of emotions, events, and words. I still hesitate to post on most of it (some of my own, some of others, some only involving me slightly). Know that "mine" is sorted out for the best--the very best. I am more content than ever (after several days of silent agony). Things are as they were, but stronger in many ways. "Others" is sorting out as we speak. I have been surprisingly impressed by some people's actions and strides to make everything work out. Hopefully it continues. "Sort of mine" is just straight up drama--some of which needed to happen, some of which is just entertaining, and some of which is totally unnecessary. Seems like the world is begging for us girls to have intense nights out these days. Every single time we have gone out, it has been wonderful chaos and dangerous riot fires.

Friday the girls all got together for what was supposed to be Amy's girl's night out, but she ended up needing to stay home. Heather, Lydia, Laura, and myself still ended up going to the Varsity to catch The Greycoats, Dan Rodriguez, and Ari Herstand play some tunes. There we ran into Kalgren, who had previously the denounced the "scene" and "scene-sters" but must have thought he was exempt from contamination this night, and his girlfriend, who is very nice. We also found Meg, and roped her into our little circle of women. Of course Amy (Ari's girlfriend), Allison (George's girlfriend), etc... were there. Good people all around. Later in the night Brian Shackle showed up, and Mo also showed up. Eventually we decided to get some drinkables and headed over to the Ugly Mug (of course). I drove, lost, in downtown Minneapolis at 1:00AM all by myself AND found my way. Amazing. My biggest fear, partly overcome. The rest of the night? Not so satisfactory. I will not divulge. Anyway, we all ended up going to Luce (of course) and ate our pizza bitterly. Regardless of the drama the night brought, my girls are wonderful. I never have a bad time with them. Never. And the aftermath was sorted out the next morning, which was a good thing.

Above: Sort of fish-eye. Below: Non-fish-eyeish.

Saturday I went with Justin to Shane Nelson's wedding. He is the man who directed and shot the Farewell Continental video in the post below. Genius. Right? The wedding was the most perfectly done wedding I have seen, in terms of what I would ideally like (although not sure if I would actually do, or if I will ever actually get married). He was married at the Arboretum. The ceremony was in a square garden outside. There was a string/flute three piece band. The guests stood, lining the walkway, and when Shane and then when Molly walked past it was very casual and comfortable. Very classy and beautiful, but still "real"--not a lot of show. I loved it. It was quick and then we all moved to another gardenish area where the reception was held inside a inn-type of thing. Justin and I ended up sitting with two other Justins he knows, and it was a wonderful time, considering I didn't really know anyone. Shane is one of the most witty, kind, and open people I have ever met. It was a privilege being able to witness a milestone in his life.

Photo of a Polaroid.

Sunday Justin invited me to his mother's birthday dinner at Moto (?) a Japanese restaurant. YUM. many small dishes of food. I totally adore his whole family and all of the "significants." Such a good bunch of personalities. After that we went to his place and watched a movie (Something Idaho? With River Phoenix?). I loved it! He was being a little turd, though, when I tried to explain one of the character's personalities to him (based off of my knowledge of a Shakespeare play). That punk. He is so cute when he is a punk.


In other news...

I am skinnier than I have been in ages.

I feel better about myself than I have in ages.

I am so totally stoked for Vegas coming up next weekend.

Who is excited for the new Harry Potter? This girl!

I am practicing how to smile in photos these days. I like my big natural smile, but sometimes I just want a good photo. So I am working on this. Lame, huh? Eh.

I have not watched television in at least a week, which makes me very happy.

I was, very luckily, able to listen to the new MCS roughs for the new album a few times. I am completely obsessed. I cannot get them out of my head. They are going to get so much credit as a band for this new record. I cannot wait for it to come out so everyone can fall in love with it as much as I have.

i'll fight her wars, and she'll smite my enemies.

saint cloud was a hot mess. apparently it was their homecoming, so everyone had been drinking since the early morning. trust me. you could tell. needless to say, we all hid in a corner booth upstairs until readygoes went on stage. in the meantime, however, several creepy men thought they had the right to leer, lean, and talk all over our table. gross. the couple next to us got in a fight and the guy smashed his beer bottle all over the table. scary. reminded me of an ex boyfriend i have, and made me feel sorry for the girl. yikes. those are the types of guys you need to run, run, run away from. finally we cautiously made out way onto the dance floor. the boys went on, mike minehart showed up, as did eckum and his sister, rachel. us girls put "blinders" on and danced our way past the annoyances of the surrounding crowd. halfway through the two hour set we had to take a break and get away from the drunken masses. at this point, though, several drunk blonde girls around us had knocked lydia's drinks down her back, down her front, and all over the floor. lydia was getting feisty, and iiiiii love feisty lydia. we snuck out back to take some jag shots from a flask, as we were definitely needing a pick-me-up. we entered back inside, but heather and laura informed us that the blonde girls were talking amongst themselves about how they wanted to fight lydia. oh. bring it on. we were more than ready to settle the score in spite of all of these ridiculous people. the girls spilt lydia's drink again, of course we were expecting it, and it happened. lydia got in her face telling her to settle down. the girl was a mess and shouting randomness back at lydia. finally lydia smashed the girl's drink to the floor (glorious!!!) "how do you like that?" the girl was stunned. both of them started getting in each others faces more. as this happens, her friends stand (or rather, drunkenly lean) behind drunk blonde girl and all of us girls go to lydia's side. laura crosses her arms. i stand stone still behind lydia eyeing the chic. heather casually puts her arm around lydia's front to hold her back, as the drunk blonde girl's friend does the same to her friend. finally we pull them apart. the drunk blonde girl is freaking out, explaining how much she hates lydia to her friend, and looks at me (still staring her down) and says "and look at her friend!!! see!?!" i ask "what?!" she then attempts to "burn" me by making fun of my "team edward" shirt. but unfortunately she is too intoxicated to read, and she obviously does not read twilight in her spare time. she stumbles "easm edward? what the fuck does that mean?!" i laugh and reply calmly, "oh honey, if you weren't so drunk, you would maybe be able to read. pathetic." she spits and stutters, "you're ugly!!!" lydia lunges at the drunk blonde girl, ready to punch. heather pulls her away again. me, calmly, "well you're fat." okay. i realize that saying that to anyone is an awful thing to do. but i wanted to wind her up. she really was not THAT fat, but, yeah. i can be malicious. she, with mouth hanging open, "what are you talking about!?!" heather then proceeds to show her with spacing her thumb and forefinger apart, "thin. fat. thin. fat." the girl comes after me. i smile languidly. enjoying every second. finally her friends pull her away while she is fuming mad. us girls just laugh and dance in a circle. we finally got our aggressions out on someone in this stupid crowd. awful, but amazzziinnggg. meanwhile, all of her friends kept coming up to lydia apologizing for their friend's behavior. lydia is a scary mofo when she wants to be, and they were obviously intimidated. loved it. anyway. the show continues. mo comes down into the crowd and plays a guitar part in the middle of us girls. heather steals shackle's hat and rocks it. shackle sings to us as we make faces. show ends. we all go back to the hotel. pajama part it up. the guys arrive back to their hotel room one floor above us. we grab ice and make our way up to their joint. instead of walking, i choose to gallop and whinny, which the hotel manager and security apparently do not appreciate. they yell at me to calm down, and begin their chase of us. we run upstairs and lock ourselves quietly in the boys' room. security then finds all of us, knocks on the door, and yells again. jerks. we were not even being loud. the loudest thing in the room was the television (which was playing a star trek movie, because i demanded it to be so). our room leaves after the second security threat and runs back downstairs with security tailing us. we lock in and almost fall asleep, but then rachel, her friend, and some of the guys come back down to hang. we drink some jag, they drink some vodka, we all play musical rooms, and eventually fall asleep around 5:00 am, after a few more security threats. they totally hated us...
in the morning we all trudged to the green mill, where i got their mushroom and something tortellini. i was having cravings. ate. joked around. watched some high-def football (and pretended to get into it, when in reality i think the vikes are a total joke). and left. poor lydia was not feeling well at all. we drove home to our respective cities, and all of us probably slept for a combined 298,498 hours.

this was saint cloud. it was pretty awful, but some of the awfulness made it interesting. i swear, saint cloud is totally a bermuda triangle. every time we go there it ends up being the STRANGEST night ever, in some way or another.

p.s. do not point and give the "rock-n-roll" hand gesture at band members an entire show like you know them, just to look cool. you don't.

p.p.s. dinosaur shadow puppets eating palm tree fingers are boss.