Birthday Girls are the new awesome

Guess whose birthday it is today? This girl:

Maybe you recognize her? She runs half marathons. She kills spiders with the greatest of ease. She owns cuter shoes than anyone I know. She is my roommate.

What do you do on your roommate's birthday? Bake her a cake. I bought some neat pans that help you make a checkerboard cake like this:

So I made two mixes full of cake batter and dyed them orange and black:

And put on my checkered vans to really channel my checkered martha stewart:

Then we poured the batter into the sneaky separating cake pan thingie...
and when you take the plastic thing out of the pan, it makes perfectly seperated cake parts, which when baked and stacked on top of one another, make a checkerboard cake!


You don't get to see the final result quite yet, but it will probably come out looking a lot like this:

Come by the apartment tonight if you want to see what checkerboard tastes like.

Happy Birthday, Betsy!

Almost Halloween is the new awesome

I know that Halloween hasn't even officially happened yet, but we have been so excited about it and betsy's simultaneous birthday, that Saturday night we started the celebration.

First we three favorite girl friends of betsy took her to Bar Tartine down in the Mission. Everyone loves Tartine Bakery, so getting to finally check out the restaurant portion was like a birthday dream come true. Bar Tartine is so awesome that they don't even need a sign out front letting you know where you are eating, so I had a tough time even finding the place.

Julia, Lindsay, Betsy and Me. I swear that is Bar Tartine behind us, even if there is no sign to prove it.

This is Julia and Kevin and some of the beautiful food we were served. Kevin secretly wished that all we had ordered was cheese.

Aaron was saving his smiles for the costume portion of the evening. I was thrilled with the free bread. And Lindsay thought the lighting was good to really show off that sweet fauxhawk of hers.

And betsy was the beautiful birthday girl. They brought her dessert with a big candle, which we all proceeded to re-light and make wishes on. Best birthday dinner.

But then it was really time to pull out our Halloween costumes. What do you think that Betsy and I decided to go as this year? Well ...

That's right. The most self-indulgent costume ever. Almost as self-indulgent as the fact that we gossip about ourselves on the internet all the time on this blog anyway. It seemed timely, though. Everyone I know started a blog this year ... there is always the strange relationship between real life and the internet ... so bets and I dressed as The New Awesome.

First we made a huge mock-up of the blog and put it onto foam core.

Then I razored our faces out.

Aaron modeled the first cutout and really did me justice, i think.

I took out any roommate aggression that i have been harboring for bets when i razored her face.

i let aaron do the honors of punching her face right out.

Apparently he had some built up aggression as well. Her face went flying.

Aaron and Linds were the first of many to try the New Awesome on for size. They were instructed to look as much like bets and i as possible. I think that Lindsay was pretty right on.

Then Aaron really got into character as Ted Theodore Logan aka Ted from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. There was a lot of air guitar happening, and he wouldn't shut up about how much Bill and Ted's version of time travel is far superior to that of Back to the Future.

Babe report, dude!

Once we were all dressed up we went to a Halloween party over in the Castro, hosted by these fine gentlemen, Brandon and Brigham.

It was a lively party to make the Castro proud, and this political rally took place right there in the middle of it all!

Will had to take a turn as The New Awesome too. I made him be Betsy because she is always wearing that much blue eyeshadow.

Preston and Brian were totally the New Awesome too.

Betsy almost cried because there were creepy spiders hanging everywhere, and she forgot her fancy candle-spider-smashing tool at home. I was mostly scared of creepy dead looking brigham behind her. Since i forgot my fancy-candle-dead-guy-smashing too, we decided to take off.

On the way home we saw so many more great costumes. A group of Sees Candy saleswomen:

The lovely ladies from Deal or No Deal (all costumes always enhanced by dressing in drag)

Frida Kahlo

Some sexy cowgirls:

And of course, The New Awesome, in the Castro


Can you believe that it isn't even Halloween yet?

Dealing with it is the new awesome

Guess who was back on my ceiling when I got home from work. Yep, this guy.


Our ceilings are high in our cute SF apartment. Way too high to reach even if you're tall and stand on a chair. I happened to be talking with a good friend of mine when I noticed my eight-legged houseguest was back. He suggested I use a broom. But there was way too much risk involved in a broom. The spider could totally survive a broom swat. So instead I thought I would get a long candle that had a flat end and just carefully smoosh the spider with the end of the candle and then have a paper towel handy just in case I needed it. So I got ready.


Then I chickened out and realized two things. I needed more surface area for smooshing and I needed to protect my head with a baseball hat (Go Giants!) in case the spider fell on it and attacked me.


Dealt with.

Arachnophobia is the new awesome

Yesterday was a rough day so I went to bed nice and early. So early in fact that I woke up at 4:45am, 45 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I turned my light on and as I lay there in bed thinking about how nice it feels to actually get enough sleep I saw this on my ceiling...


...or something kinda like it. I freaked and jumped out of bed because I'm sure it was about to pounce on me, then stood there contemplating my options. Do I try to kill it myself (absolutely ridiculous)? Do I wake up Rebecca so she can kill it (almost as absolutely ridiculous)? I didn't know what to do so I took a shower.

(One cool thing about living in our apartment in San Francisco is that we have no spiders. Ants on occasion but spiders almost never. And this is the best thing ever because I'm pretty sure I suffer from a mild case of arachnophobia.)

When I got out of the shower and went back into my bedroom, spider was gone. Vanished. Poof! Into thin air. Or it's hiding in some corner of my bedroom waiting to attack me sometime this weekend.

Polaroids are the new awesome

I enjoy Polaroids of many sizes. So much so that I recently purchased a new Polaroid camera of my very own and have started taking pictures of all my attractive friends.



If you come over to my apartment, chances are I'll take your picture too.

Also, remember how Lost was total crap tonight?
Also, remember how Lee has a new blog.

Decorating for the Holidays is the new awesome

Perhaps it is the fact that my roommate was born on Halloween that makes her decorate for this holiday more than any other, but I came home the other day to find our home completely covered in black and orange witches and pumpkins and other halloween paraphernalia.

the problem? all her stuff is waaaaaay too cute to be truly halloween-y.

the witches are soft, cute and grandmotherly, with moles that look more like dimples.


the sayings adorning our every doorknob do not strike fear into the hearts of any that read them. (not to mention, the witch graphic here is nose-less. everyone knows that if you want to make something look harmless and adorable that you don't put a nose on it)


rather than appearing to be the veritable tower of terror that betsy originally had probably hoped to place in our entry-way, instead we have what appears to be a Christmas tree shaped homage to halloween, with some smiling pumpkins and some really inviting york peppermint patties to take with you as you leave our home.


the black cat does not look like it has the evil intention of causing anyone bad luck, and the red-eyed bat on its tail is flying in loops, which everyone knows is adorable.


Obviously we are having some trouble bringing the appropriate spirit of fear into our home this Halloween season. So I put up my truly frightening decoration - the famed Old Woman in a Straw Hat painting. She knows the true spirit of Halloween.

1/2 marathons are the new awesome

Back in March, Kat convinced Julia and me to sign up for the Nike Women's 1/2 Marathon. March was a long time ago. And back in March, October seemed really far away. So it seemed harmless enough...sure I'll sign up for a half marathon known for free manicures, pedicures, massages, the "chocolate mile," and the Tiffany's necklace you get when you cross the finish line that is handed to you by a hot firefighter dressed in a tuxedo holding a silver platter.

(see...not joking)


If you know me, you know I'm not kidding when I say that originally I signed up for the free schwag. But as the race drew closer, I got really excited about it...started training even...and today ended up being an amazing experience. One that was so exciting, so challenging, so emotional and pretty much one of the most awesome things I've done in a long time. I didn't realize until I was out on the course, passing by the thousands of surviving family members of people who have died from leukemia and lymphoma who were cheering us on, that this race was for something really important. And it felt really good to be a part of it.

Friday afternoon we went and picked up our race packets in Union Square. Boys are allowed to run this race...but it's mostly for girls.


Niketown had turned the outside of their Union Square store into a huge list of race participants!


Officially famous.


This morning Rebecca was nice enough to let me wake her up at 6am so she could drive me to the corner of Market and Powell where I was meeting my friends. This is how I look at 6am in my cool race sweatshirt that I didn't wear in the race because I didn't want it to get gross and sweaty.


There was about 300 billion (give or take) runners in Union Square. This made me feel a little bit nervous and excited and maybe I wanted to throw up for a couple of minutes.



Here's Jules and I in the sea of people a few minutes before the start.


Like the true best friend roommate she is, Rebecca met us at the finish line. They gave us these huge pieces of totally future tin foil to keep us warm after the race. Also, this is how I look after I run 13 miles. No big deal.


Quite possibly the only piece of Tiffany's jewelry I'll ever own.


Also, let me leave you with this thought, at the 12 mile mark when the 1/2 marathon course split off from the marathon course all I could think as I watched those insane marathoners turn left was "have fun doing that all over again suckers!" It's official that people who run marathons are crazy. Literally crazy. If you're one of these crazy marathoners, you know you can't argue with me because I'm totally right.