Postal Service, drinking and football. Yeah, I don't know either.

I've had this song stuck in my head for nearly a week, so I'm just going to blog it and hope it goes away. I have my doubts, though. It's all the lyrics to the Postal Service's song Nothing Better. The blue is the guy singing and the red is the girl.

Will someone please call the surgeon
Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart
That you’re deserting for better company?

I can’t accept that it’s over, so I will bar the door
Like a goalie tending the net in the third quarter
Of a tied-game of rivalry.

So just say how to make it right
And I swear I’ll do my best to comply.

Tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together?

I feel I must interject here.
You’re getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself
With these revisions, and gaps in history.
So let me help you remember. I’ve made charts and graphs
That should finally make it clear.
I’ve prepared a lecture on why I have to leave.

So please back away and let me go

I can’t my darling I love you so.

Tell me am I right to think that there could be nothing better
Than making you my bride and slowly growing old together.

Don’t you feed me lines about some idealistic future.
Your heart won’t heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures.

I admit that I have made mistakes
I swear I’ll never wrong you again.

You’ve got a lure I can’t deny
You had your chance so say goodbye.
Say goodbye.

Aside from that, Joy and I went out drinking last night with our new friend Fresh and I am totally wrecked today. God. I am never doing that to myself ever again. It was awesome...don't get me wrong. And Fresh completely rocks my world. However, I was late to work and now I have to deal with the fallout. Which should be minimal since it was an honest mistake.

Oh, and my phone suffered a serious blow to the head last night that destroyed the LCD screen, so I'm in the process of getting numbers from all my friends, which is hell. I am dreading putting them all in once I get a new phone. Which I needed anyway, but it's still a pain in the ass. Although it will be nice to get a phone that isn't held together by a ponytail holder. Yeah, I'm really classy.

And I still don't have a costume. Dammit. I think I'm going to Catholic Schoolgirl it.

No more caffeine for me. I'm shaking like a leaf. Ugh.

Oh, and don't forget to cheer for the Packers this weekend against the Redskins. Apparently there is some true but obscure statistic that says the outcome of the last Redskins home game before the election has predicted the winner for the past seven decades. If they win, the incumbent wins the election. If they lose, the challenger wins. So for the sake of democracy, cheer for the Packers and Kerry wins. Best case scenario.

Quote of the Day: "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." Ernest Hemingway.

Washington Post Red Sox survey says...

Will the Red Sox repeat next season?
773 responses so far:
Yes (27.9%), 216 votes
No (72.1%), 557 votes

Does just asking this question ensure another cursed 86 years?
776 responses so far:
Yes (17.9%), 139 votes
No (82.1%), 637 votes

Which pitcher had the best postseason for the Red Sox?
779 responses so far:
Foulke (20.8%), 162 votes
Lowe (37.5%), 292 votes
Martinez (2.8%), 22 votes
Schilling (37.6%), 293 votes
Somebody else (1.3%), 10 votes

Which position player had the best postseason for the Red Sox?
775 responses so far:
Bellhorn (4.9%), 38 votes
Damon (18.5%), 143 votes
Ortiz (60.6%), 470 votes
Ramirez (13.5%), 105 votes
Somebody else (2.5%), 19 votes

Who is the most ridiculously annoying Red Sox fan?
768 responses so far:
Affleck (37.5%), 288 votes
Fallon (23.3%), 179 votes
Kerry (20.6%), 158 votes
King (6.9%), 53 votes
Somebody else (11.7%), 90 votes

Does Nomar deserve a World Series ring?
773 responses so far:
Yes (24.6%), 190 votes
No (75.4%), 583 votes

What was the worst part of FOX’s coverage?
776 responses so far:
McCarver (29.4%), 228 votes
Viagra, Levitra (18.4%), 143 votes
Plugs for FOX shows (33.2%), 258 votes
'Scooter' (11.6%), 90 votes
Something else (7.3%), 57 votes

Note: This is an unscientific survey of washingtonpost.com readers.

Fall Classic 2004 or, How I Learned to Shut Up and Watch Baseball, sometimes.

Baseball is so not something that interests me during the regular season. I was discussing this with a friend on the bus this morning, and the fact of the matter is, you have to really, really adore the game in order to suffer through all of them (TM Sars). Because most of them suck, they really do. And I have a really hard time following a game that takes the better part of five hours and has maybe ten minutes of actual action. Of something happening. Interestingly enough, I seem to feel the same way about basketball, but that’s another entry entirely.

With baseball, I moan and bitch about how boring the game is, how banal the stats are, how long and tedious the season is. But then the Fall Classic starts up and we reach the Series. I will be the first to admit that I am a fair-weather fan and thanks to dozens of my friends, I am currently rooting for the Red Sox. I rooted for them last year too, as well as the Cubs since Chitown was living in Wrigleyville at the time. I’ll probably root for them next year and the year after that. The thing about this series that kind of amazes me is the suspension of animosity. Don’t get me started on stupid college kids getting drunk and rioting in Boston after they beat the Yankees; that sort of moronic shit happens every Halloween in Eugene. That’s beside the point. There's this amazing ability for most sports fans who aren't drunk morons to unite under the pennant and watch the Series like normal people.

My thing is that I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a point in my life where I have a pure appreciation for sport. Anyone who reads this knows my bordering-on-unhealthy obsession with the Olympics every two years. Sports are a unifying force in this country. People become enamored with teams and with sports for a reason. Particularly in the postseason, there’s a sense of rising above, of conquering the demons of day to day and becoming something great. Seeing the bloodstain on Curt Schilling’s ankle evokes a feeling of respect and reverence for his belief in the game. It makes me think of everyone else who rose above an injury or a major setback and triumphed. Schilling’s ankle is being held together by stitches, tape, and the hopes and prayers of every Sox fan alive right now.

I spent the first half of Saturday afternoon sitting on the floor at Claudia’s on Hawthorne, splitting a pitcher with WRX, eating Burgerville that one of my sorority sisters had gone out to get since the wait for food at Claudia’s was two hours at one point and watching the Ducks slog their way to a win against Stanford. It was awesome. After that, WRX and I snagged a table, Bumbershoot showed up, and we all watched Game 1 together. We were two hours late for a party at my own apartment, thanks to that game. I'm still not entirely sure that I'm sorry.

I like sports because I like talking about them with other people. I enjoy talking shit about opposing teams. I like watching games like the Ducks and then talking smack with my friend’s boyfriend on the bus in the morning because he’s a Beaver. I like the dialogue and the fact that sports fans always have something to talk and dish about. I like the instant camaraderie of a shared table with three older gentlemen in full Sox regalia as they high-fived all three of us anytime the Sox scored a run on Saturday.

I like proving my dad wrong when he said, “You don’t watch baseball.” I liked calling a very old friend in DC and knowing that we were watching the exact same thing and cheering for the same team. I’m a satellite part of the Nouveau RSN. Maybe I’ll stay there and maybe I won’t. This guy knows more about the RSN than anyone I know and he’s got my respect.

I'll be a sports fan for the rest of my life. I'm going to watch college football, my favorite teams in regular football, though only whenever I can catch them, I'm going to obsess about the Olympics, I'm going to watch college basketball because half of my family bleeds Kentucky blue and white and I'm going to watch the Fall Classics.

Quote of the Day: "Baseball was life! And I was good at it... real good." Mr. Mertle (James Earl Jones), The Sandlot.

Ten reasons why my weekend rocked:

10. Warren Miller is always more entertaining under the influence of several free beers from our new friend, the cute bartender at Ringler’s.
9. Pumpkins, pumpkin carving, and pumpkin seeds. And prizes.
8. Surf flicks at the Guild and getting to run into friends I haven’t seen since graduation.
7. Red Sox: 2-0
6. Cold and sunny yesterday, my favorite kind of weather.
5. Thai food
4. Jon Stewart on “60 Minutes.”
3. Freeing myself from a sticky situation.
2. Spent three hours sitting on the floor at Claudia’s, sharing pitchers with WRX and eating Burgerville that a friend went and got since the wait for food was 2 hours. And then getting a table to watch the Sox game after the rest of the Duck fans bailed and Bumbershoot finally showed up.
1. Getting a phone call on the way to work first thing this morning alerting me that Chitown was standing on the Hawthorne bridge wearing a salmon costume. Awesome.

Quote of the Day: “Let go, let go/just jump in/what are you waiting for?/It's alright/'cause there's beauty in/the breakdown." Let Go, Frou Frou.

Drunken Lullabies

Flogging Molly last night kicked some serious ass. We had such a good time. My mom actually managed to get us three tickets when they released some extras yesterday morning, so Speedy, Joy and I went to the show. We got there right as the second band was wrapping up, so it was perfect timing.

Beforehand, we stopped in at Ringlers to get a beer and made friends with the bartender, because he was so entertained by the three of us arguing over TV shows and yelling about Hobbits. Yeah, so I was gushing about “Lost” again. I do that from time to time. Speedy confessed to having an affinity for “Desperate Housewives”, so I win. Either way, we drank our beers and headed upstairs for the show itself. We had a blast. We went straight up to the balcony and watched the end of the second band while making friends all around us. We drained our beers and then ran downstairs once Flogging Molly came onstage. Speedy threaded her way through the crowd and got up close to the barrier on the 21-and-over side of the dance floor. Once the band kicked off, we didn’t stop dancing once. It was awesome. All we did was jump up and down, pretend we knew how to Irish dance and then scream and clap. I love Flogging Molly for the simple reason that they make everyone was to dance and have fun. There’s no moshing, there’s no ass-kicking and there’s tons of really great energy. We made friends again with the guys around us and I kept apologizing to the poor girl behind me when I stepped on her foot. She wasn’t getting as crazy as we were. Either way, we partied hard, danced our asses off and thoroughly enjoyed the show. Speedy got a kickass tshirt that I totally covet.

After the show we went back down to Ringlers because we were way too hyper to just go home. We sat down and ordered a beer from our old friend the bartender and made friends with the other bartender. Sitting at the bar has its perks, since we could make fun of the other patrons, like the PDA afflicted couple sitting directly across from us. We kept begging the bartender to turn the soda gun on them, but he was too nice. He was also nice enough to buy all of our beer after the first round, so we really love him. We got into an ice fight after too long since both bartenders were standing by the ice bin and started flinging it at us. We had to fight back and maybe I might have missed and hit the PDA couple by “accident.” OK, I didn’t, but that would have been awesome.

Some friends from high school showed up, so we got to hang with them for a little while before our energy levels simultaneously flatlined and we had to get back to my place to crash. Speedy slept in the pool house after we crashed and she might still be in my bed, which is where she decided to go after I got up and got ready for work. Not that I’m jealous or anything. Gah.

Quote of the Day: “Must it take a life for hateful eyes/To glisten once again/Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess/Singin' drunken lullabies.” Drunken Lullabies, Flogging Molly.

We're coming Home, again.

I’m teaching myself a new word and a new phrase this week. The word is “No” and the phrase is “Thanks, but I already have plans.” I don’t know if it’s going to work, but it’s a nice thought, right?

My weekend essentially kicked ass. I spent the entire time having fun with my friends. Friday night was Marshall and Sassy’s housewarming party in their new apartment downstairs from the old one. This followed a rather spirited happy hour with Joy and Sprite. I fully intended to go home from work, take a nap, pack all my things for Eugene, do a little work and then head over to Marshall and Sassy’s for an hour or so. Well, as soon as I heard Joy’s voice on my voicemail telling me that it was time to drink, that didn’t happen. At all. Instead, the three of us met at the Brazen Bean, where I ran into a guy I went to high school with. He looked at me in line and asked if I’d gone to Lakeridge. Well, yeah. I guess we had drama together or something. He was vastly more popular than I was, so it’s really interesting to see, something like seven years later, that people noticed me way, way more than I thought in high school. But I digress.

Anyway, Joy, Sprite and I met at the Bean, put back several martinis apiece along with a margerita pizza before heading across the street to the Silver Dollar pizza place (and for everyone I went to college with, I know exactly how funny that is.) for pizza, PBR and shots of Jager. Well, by this point it was dark outside, which meant that it was time to get to Marshall and Sassy’s. We called a cab, since there was no driving at this point and piled in. Once we got there, the party was starting into full swing and was packed for hours. It was hilarious. Many cups of Mac Frost, jello shots and tickle fights on the couch later, the place started to clear. I talked to a ton of my friends before being sent over next door to retrieve one of the boys. Well, instead I ended up hanging out over there for a few hours since apparently I was more tired than I thought. I woke up on the couch over there around 7am and had to go knock on Sassy’s door to get my purse so I could call a cab and go home. Once I got there, it was a rush to shower, change, eat something and get some coffee so I could get on the road to Eugene before game traffic stopped by Corvallis. I managed to get out of the house and on the road in just under an hour, so I rock.

The drive was uneventful, so that didn’t suck. I got to Eugene and met some friends at the Motel 66 to walk over to the game. I ran into a buddy of mine and we walked over to the tailgater together, where I met up with the guys I was attending the game with. The Dutchman ran over to get me, since I was getting nowhere trying to figure out his directions. My bad, not his. We wandered over to the tent, where I met a bunch of different people and was handed a beer almost immediately. I got to meet Dutchman’s brother, parents and a variety of other friends, not all of whose connections I can remember. WRX was there, too, and he and I got a chance to catch up. I actually met WRX long before I met Dutchman, so it was hilarious to discover that they were friends. It was this whole six-degrees-of-separation thing thanks to Chitown and Dutchman’s fiancee. But I digress, again.

We had quite a lovely barbecue and drank a few beers before the game. Once we finished, we packed as much in the car as we could and started stashing beers in our sweatshirts. WRX seemed determined to take in beer for the whole game, so we tried. I managed to be the idiot walking across MLK with a beer in my hand, but didn’t get caught so woohoo for me. We got into the game with all beers intact, inexplicably, and managed to get to our rather fantastic seats without incident. The game itself was good in the sense that we won and the seats kicked much ass as they were right by the endzone and we could see everything. We also managed to drink all the beer, so the cheering got exponentially louder with each beer consumed. God Bless PBR.

After the game, we wandered back to the tailgater and fired the BBQ back up. WRX had wandered off at this point to find his friend and tell him that he didn’t need a ride. We had another round of food and even more beer before WRX got back, we fed him and hopped into Dutchman’s car for a ride over to yet another friend’s house. We showed up and I discovered that the guys’ friend happened to live with a frat/raver buddy of mine from school. We hung out there, watched band practice, drank more beer and then Bumbershoot came to get me so we could go to the bars.

Once we got to Rennie’s, we stood in line for way too long, but got to make friends with the cute boy standing behind us. We got inside and spent a bunch of time hanging out with old friends, eating cheese fries and drinking a lot of beer. It was awesome.

Bumbershoot and I went to breakfast with her boyfriend, her friend and Speedy and then proceeded to spend the entire day on the couch watching football. Go Broncos. Yeah.

What a kickass weekend. I’m already scheming to come back down.

Quote of the Day: “Here they come marching down the street,/Like a desperation murmur of a heart beat,/Coming back from the edge of town,/Underneath their feet.” Homecoming, Green Day

The only way to get there is by boat

Camping!! I haven’t been camping in ages, so when some of my dodgeball teammates asked if I wanted to hit Government Island with them this weekend, I agreed. It’s a cool place to camp, actually, since the only way to get there is via some sort of watercraft as there aren’t any roads. Hence, late Saturday afternoon, I found myself driving over to Yes’s house to pick him up along with Cap’n and SSMSB so we could put the canoe on top of my car. DaKine rocks my world right now, since the pad-and-strap surfing setup worked perfectly for the canoe. Sweet!

We got to the carpark area and waited for the other crew to come over from the island and help us over, since there was no way in hell all four of us were fitting in that one canoe without flipping or getting soaking wet. Either way, we threw the majority of our gear into the canoe we brought, Yes and I jumped in and paddled towards the crew coming across with another canoe. We stayed by the shoreline, so that we could help out when the others got there and picked up Cap’n and SSMSB. Yes and I rock at paddling, despite the fact that I can no longer paddle a canoe like a normal person. Instead, I try to do it like it’s a dragonboat. Which sort of works. Either way, I’m sore as hell from the paddle back upstream to the cars yesterday. Damn.

We finally made it to the island after nearly beaching ourselves on a sandbar. There was a full welcoming party and we managed to set up our tents, get everything out of the boats and get settled within 20 minutes. After that it was time to really start drinking and we embarked on the drinking bocce game. Now, I’ve never really played bocce to begin with, so this was a bit of an adventure. Town Drunk and I were a team, which was straight up hilarious. We are not good. Keep that in mind. The goal of the game is to toss the ball in your hand and get it closest to a golfball sized white ball, which earned your team a point. We also had a twist in that a beer can also got thrown. You had to stay as far away from the beer can as possible, since the closest team had to take shots. If you were the closest to both, you could get a point and then assign the shots to another team. We took several shots in a row before we got a little better at aiming and even managed to win one round. Sweet! The headlamps were sort of helping, but SSMSB had my divelight since he didn’t have a headlamp and as it was the brightest source of light, we put him in charge of spotting the white ball. He was doing OK until he and I got into a full-on pinching fight. I didn’t find any bruises, yet.

After a team that wasn’t us won, we all headed back to the fire, chatted with some pirates who had wandered down the beach and continued to play drinking games. We managed to kill all the beer as well as do a commendable job on a bottle of Jack, SoCo, Jager and a bag o’ wine. Yeah, exactly. The airplanes finally stopped flying around 1am, so we got some sleep.

The canoe ride back was hilarious, since we had played more games, ate a bunch of yummy food and sat around playing Frisbee, sober bocce and a murder game. All good fun.

The Boy and I went to see “Eternal Sunshine” again last night. Again for me, not him. It kicked ass again. I think I’m starting to really like The Boy. We’ll see, eh?

Quote of the Day: “Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.” Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is view #2. Glad I've mastered technology.

This is view #1 and #2 of the pretty flowers I got on Monday. Yeah, I'm bragging. I'm really OK with that, considering how rarely I get things like flowers. I promise to get over myself soon.

Shock and awwww...

So, I went on a date last night to see "Garden State" again and he sent me flowers at work today. I'm starting to think that nice isn't such a bad thing.

Quote of the Day: "Wait. Wait! Your friend Anna thinks I'm cute? Your friend ANNA thinks I'm cute? Shit, I just blew - wait - two eighty-five on the wrong girl!" James (John Hannah), Sliding Doors