Loving to dance and rhyme and quote the scriptures all the time is the new awesome

Bets and I decided it was probably about time that we had a little roommate bonding time since these past few weeks have been a little hectic.

How do you ensure that your girls night out is not spoiled by any boys barging in? It is an easy 2-step process.

1) Eat pizza dipped and double dipped in super super SUPER "i will haunt your breath for the next 2 days" garlic sauce



2) Go see a musical about a religious boy band


We headed over to the the Orpheum to see the famed off-broadyway show Altar Boyz, so popular that they have their own following of self-proclaimed "Altarholics" - a group that betsy and i were desperate to be accepted into.



Sure, it wasn't anything that we hadn't already seen in Sons of Provo, but as Altar Boyz producer and co-creator Ken Davenport so eloquently said, "Any time you put five guys together on a stage and have them sing and dance and wear hot outfits, people are going to come." Seriously. Who can get enough of praising the Lord with funk and rhyme and girding up of loins in pleather?

Also, since we all love a little Divine Forgiveness, we were glad to find a place to lighten our painful and humiliating burdens. I felt better immediately after filling out an Altar Boyz Confession Card.
Betsy's confession was that she was too awesome for her own good sometimes, but I don't think she felt very bad about it.

Look. All I know is that more people would probably go to church if there were good looking dancers like this there busting out The Word. If you need to borrow the soundtrack, I am pretty sure Bets just bought it.

Having a type is the new awesome

Bex has always had a thing for bad boys...and when I say always, I mean since way before I knew her. One time when we were in Los Angeles for the weekend, we stayed at her parents house for a night and spent the evening looking at old photo albums. Here's a picture of Bex's 7th grade boyfriend Pete. He's the one on the left.


This is Bex's Jr. year boyfriend Billy. Apparently they broke up because Billy joined the airforce. Billy is pictured here with his new girlfriend Tiffany. Apparently Billy and Tiffany are still good friends of the family.


I didn't realize it then, but I realized it last night when I came home and found this on our fridge:


Bex has a type. She has a thing for bad boys. Guys that wear leather and don't shave very often. Guys that hate wearing shirts. I should have realized when she camped out for Shooter tickets last weekend that she had this preference. Maybe I should have realized it sooner...perhaps this night. But I didn't.

Maybe I should have noticed this on her headboard...


Or this on her desk...


I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to all the nerds I've tried to set Bex up with over the past three years of being her roommate. If I had realized this bad boy thing sooner, I wouldn't have wasted anyone's time.

Becoming Special is the new awesome

I pass this karate studio on the way to my sewing class weekly, and their welcoming sign never fails to make me glad that there is a place out there to help all of those completely unremarkable kids that i see daily.

Castro neighbors dinner club is the new awesome

Last December Brigham, Brandon and Dan invited Steve, Rebecca, Marshall, Brian, Preston and me over for a holiday dinner and game night. We ate the most delicious dinner and then played a heated game of Trivial Pursuit.

In last place...Marshall, Rebecca and Dan.


In second place, Preston, Brian and Brandon.


And easily taking first place (because of our enormous brains)...Brigham, me and Steve.

One of the great things about Castro neighbors dinner club is everyone gets an assignment. Since we were hosting this time, we made the main dishes. Preston & Brian brought delicious homemade appetizers, Brandon brought the most delicious loaf of french bread from Tartine and Brigham brought the most delicious orange cake from Sweet Inspirations.

Since Rebecca and I were hosting tonight we decided to play the best game ever. We figured our guests would LOVE and appreciate this game as much as we do.

After finding out Scott chews tobacco and Adam collects butterflies, I knew Drew was the one for me. Unfortunately everyone else felt the same way so there is going to be serious competition.

Bible Parties are the new awesome

I have always loved a good themed party. Maybe even when I am at a party I need the structure that an assignment gives? All I know is that when my friend John told us that his birthday party was going to require us all to dress up like someone/thing from the book of Genesis I went running for my Bible, all excited. Who has Bible themed dress-up parties? Genius.

There were many good costume ideas tossed around. Lot's wife (after she turned into the pillar of salt, or course). The Fourth Day. Adam and/or Eve (a flesh-colored body suit with stragically placed fig leaves would have been pretty neat). But I didn't have as much time as I wanted to prepare my costume, so I sort of did a cop out and went as Rebekah, so that, you know, I could pretty much just be myself. I did carry around a camel all night. And I had a button that said "Daughter of Bethuel" and another that said "very fair to look upon." Still. For as much as I just talked about loving dress up parties, I know that this was sort of a poor showing:

Amanda and Casey decided to be sharks. I have never heard of any sharks in the entire Bible, let alone in Genesis, but they tried to insist that there must have been some in Noah's Ark. When I pointed out that faulty logic, (duh, the sharks probably all stayed in the water during the flood, hanging out with the whales and eating all the stuff that didn't make it on the ark) they changed their story and said that they were actually the day when God created the waters and all the moving creatures in it. I think they just wanted to be sharks and had to just work it in however they could.

John's costume was probably the most interesting and well thought out - his is taken from Genesis 3:15 where it talks about being able to crush the head of the devil while he will only have power to bruise your heel. So John? Was a bruised heel.

It should be noted that there were many other costumes that did not get recorded by my camera, but that is probably because I was too busy rocking out to Genesis (the band) who provided the soundtrack for the evening. The early stuff, of course. It just fit with the theme.

St. Patrick's Day Parades are the new awesome

I don't know how you guys celebrate St. Patty's Day, but I wouldn't be caught dead in anything other than the BARTmobile at the SF St. Patrick's Day parade.
Or without an obnoxious green velvet top-hat.

Maybe you will remember that I have driven the BARTmobile in a few other SF parades, like Pride and Chinese New Year. This year I assembled another good looking team of revelers to help San Francisco understand how much BART loves the Irish.
Andy's favorite tagline of the day was "meet your neighbor, ride BART" and the even more popular "sit next to a stranger, ride BART!" I tried to tell him one of people's least favorite things about riding public transit is the forced interaction with creepy people that they don't know, but he just blew his pipe whistle in my face and kept yelling at the crowd.

Adam was a good sport when I told him there were no more velvet green top hats to wear and that he was going to get stuck with a kind of girlie tiara thing. He wore it proudly. Nothing says "Happy St. Patrick's Day" like two noisemaking paper blowout whistles, activated by a single straw extending from the top of the hat to the wearer's mouth. Genius!

Apparently on St. Patrick's Day, all the red-headed children in the city feel safe in the streets for once and come out from hiding. Seriously. I don't know where they keep all the red-head kids for the rest of the year, but they were ALL out on display on Saturday.

The green-haired kids came out too. I don't see many of them around either, usually. They must hide with the red-head kids the other 364 days of the year.

The crowd was certainly dressed up and festive. Do you think the real Irish get offended that this is what we think of them? Weird green glittery hats and tacky green boas?

This was my favorite photo of the day, because it really captures the excitement of the crowd. That kid is so stoked to be at the parade that she is eating beads!

Basically, if you can't tell from the photos, we had our own Ferris Bueller's Day Off experience, except where the ever-charming Ferris performed a stirring rendition of Twist and Shout amid thousands of dancing Chicagoans on a shamrock covered float, we had some cold people in green wigs waiving BART tickets at us. Pretty much the best St. Patrick's Day ... ever.

Hating Fun is the new awesome

i feel like this is sort of a big step for the journalistic side of the new awesome. an exposé, if you will. i bet you all thought that grant loved fun! Well. This is a new shocking piece of evidence that suggests otherwise.


Apparently this is what happens when you challenge jared to "draw how much i hate fun." If you can ever graphically describe how new and/or awesome we are, jared, that might be even better.

Still so cute is the new awesome

I'm not a girl who likes to post about the same exact things twice...or three times...or even ten times...but I think these little gems deserve a second discussion.

It's been nearly a year since I discovered the kumquat. And a few days ago I bought a bag from Safeway and let me just say, eating a kumquat is the fruit equivelant of eating super sour candy. You know the kind of candy I'm talking about...the kind you get nervous to eat right before you put it in your mouth? I have a bowl full of kumquats staring me down next to my computer here at work, silently challenging me to eat them. And each time I put one in my mouth I feel like I've just won a small battle.

Berkeley is the new awesome

This weekend Steve and I ate dinner at Zachary's Pizza in Berkeley with Shawn and Robyn. If you ever have the chance to hang out in Berkeley with Shawn, you should. He's one of those super smart genius types that went to UC Berkeley and he really knows his way around town.


Maybe you've had the delicious deep dish pizza at Zachary's and maybe you know it takes about an hour for them to cook it after you order. And it takes almost as long to get a table. While the boys waited for our name to be called, Robyn and I went next door to Pegasus Books. I have a new office at my new job with nothing in it as far as decorations go so I thought a calendar might be nice. Who sells calendars in March? Pegasus Books does. Any three for $5 in fact. The only "normal" one I could find was this New York City one (I know I know, NYC, snooze-fest).


Once I started rifling through them all, I knew I needed six for sure. I give you...
Cats in Hats!


Goats!


Peeps!


Pigs on Parade!


Teddy Calendar 2007!


I know what you're thinking...best most luckiest night ever...can't get any better...oh wait...

Finding out your roommate's potential as an artist is the new awesome

Since my sister is planning on getting married so quickly, today Bets kindly offered to create a speedy wedding invitation in her signature style.

Sister, if you need to see Bet's portfolio to know that she does good work, I have taken the liberty of collecting some of her past masterpieces that have been done over the years. Her best work is done in church, and the great thing is, she generally uses me and whoever is visiting that weekend as her (really good-looking) models.

here is the weekend Cassian came to town:

this is one of her first pieces - me and brendan, holding the hand of friendship. (don't worry veeda, it doesn't mean a thing. bets draws picutres of me holding her boyfriend's hand all the time, so i think it is just one of her signature looks).

See?

(Also, Betsy picks up on subtle details that some people don't. I bet that usually looking at that pig-nosed Steve in real life, you wouldn't realize that one of his arms is giant and one of them is scrawny. Well. Lucky for you, Betsy has an eye for detail.)

Tanner and I, doing bacon cheers.

Jordan and Paul, before they got married. I think that betsy had offered to draw this as their engagement photo, but it looks like Jordan gave it an F. Maybe for fabulous?

And these are two really nice head shots of Keith and Steve G., just to show that it doesnt have to be a full body shot if you don't want it to be.

So listen, sis. Hire Betsy, and your lips will never look better, and your elbows will never look so sharp.

Dancing in the hog trough is the new awesome

This post goes out to all those other single ladies whose younger sisters have gotten married before them.

That's right. My sister called me last night to tell me that she is engaged. My BABY sister who just turned 22 exactly 7 days ago.

In my family we used to joke about some random western folklore where if a younger sister married before the older sister, the unmarried older sister had to dance barefoot in a hog trough at the wedding - otherwise she was destined to spinsterhood. Now it isn't so funny if I might actually have to dance barefoot at my sister's wedding.

Look. I'm just saying, I have about 5 months if anyone is interested in rushing into a relationship for all the wrong reasons.

Dancing to Michael Jackson is the new awesome

Dearest Steven,

I find it amusing that when YouTube asked you for a cateogry, you filed this video under "comedy." I think it could also fit well under "the sweetest dance moves you'll ever see", "michael jackson sung better than the King of Pop himself could do it" or "three boys you totally wish you were making out with."

Behold: a snippet of what the karaoke birthday video i told you about is going to be made of:


(thanks, steven. this will go down as one of your finest cinematic achievements)

A slave to fashion is the new awesome

In the past few years, I have started to notice how much all this fashion magazine brainwashing really works. How often did I look back at the 80's and roll my eyes at the fashion distaster that I considered that decade? And when all the runway models and fashionistas in New York started sporting the pointy toe in the early 2000s, I wrinkled my nose and wondered at the state of the fashion world.

Yet back in 2003, what became a staple of my wardrobe? Pointy toed shoes. Pointy flats, pointy heels, pointy heels that were almost flat. All my shoes were pointy, pointy, pointy.

The same thing happened with the skinny jean. I would stare at the size 0 models sporting them and shake my head, telling people that only anorexics could pull that style off. Yet a year later, what did you see when you opened my drawers? Skinny jeans in droves. Some of them even have zippers at the ankle. I am literally living the fashion life that my 1984 self had envisioned.

So now I am scared, because what are all the magazines flaunting right now? High-waisted pants.

I think they look strange and elongate funny parts of a woman's body. They seem awfully 70's to me. I can't stand tucking shirts into pants. But I am already starting to like the high-waisted look on skirts, so I can tell that 6 months from now I am probably going to be eating my words with a big, fat high-waisted spoon.