I bought fifteen cases for my house, my house.

This is a big one! Huge! Huge fun, people. December 13th was my 24th birthday, and the 14th was my roommate Roger's 25th, so we combined forces and planned a massive Prom-themed party for the weekend. Here is how all that went:

Popped home to the Jerz for the second to last night of Hannukah because I heard my dad had made his amaaaaazing brisket. He makes the best pot roast in the world and I had to get me some. Dad made it a point to alternate the candles and make it all pretty.


I tried my hand at his latke recipe and aside from a minor hot oil burn on my hand it was a success.


On my actual birthday some friends took me out to dinner at Mud, where I'd never been. The atmosphere was lovely, the food was delish, and there was a boob painting.


Then back to my place for dessert and drinks. Jenna made about 70 cupcakes.


And she ripped out a page of madlibs just for the occasion. Here were the results:


Not our best madlibs outcome ever, but it had its moments.


We dug in. The next morning there were sprinkles all over my living room.


And I got a JENNA HUG! A really big one! Oh it was amazing. We have a strict no touching policy (derived from Arrested Development, the prison scenes...go watch it) but birthdays, thankfully, trump the rule.


El got me the best present evaaaaa! If you haven't seen this movie please come over right now and watch it with me.


Jenna got me the second best present. A tupperware full of chocolate frosting. I am aware that on film it looks like a container of shit. It is delicious. She's a smartass - I told her a while back that the first thing I learned to make from scratch when I was a kid was frosting and with my crazy massive sweet tooth I sometimes made a batch just to eat it. Shut up, it felt like a good idea at the time.


Jenna found me an amazing card.


Haha!


Jenna slumps under the table. It's her party move.


And then starts answering work emails on my computer. I was not having it so I smeared her frosting on her face. She sat there without wiping it off and kept emailing.


Boooooo work at parties!


Party-Jenna back in full effect! It'sssssss a self shot.


Hoooo boy. Jenna's wine-mouth.


JC self shot take 2.


Looks like Allie and El were bored with Jenna's antics.


I was fine with it. Busy wine-tasting. Looks like I'm doing that slurpy thing that people who actually know things about wine do when they're tasting it. I wasn't.


Kimmy's new thing is obviously flashing the peace sign in every picture ever whether she's in it or not.


My sneak.


JC wine-mouth again.


The lady's a regular wino.


Wanted to see what her molars looked like I guess. Gross dude, no more camera privileges.


Kimmy gave her pigtails. Hot.


We weren't drunk or anything, that's just what their faces look like.


Oh look, my finger.


My hair smells amazing.


They are still so bored with us!


This is why. Jeez guys.



Haha! I love my face here. Clearly this was going on long enough for there to be two photographs. Jenna looks pretty happy about it. It was a really fun night, so thanks to all my laydeeeees and the roommates of course for making me feel all lovey dovey on my birfday.


The next night Michelle drove into the city to take me to dinner since she couldn't make it on Thursday and we went to Mud again, and I got the same sammich.


Michelle bought me a beautiful sweater from JCrew. I almost NEVER like clothes that other people buy me, but boy did she nail it. I've worn it three days in a row now. Thanks Michelle!


Party day! Roger and I walked to Trader Joe's where the register line literally wrapped all the way around the store to the entrance. Here's the daunting scene. We suffered for this party, people!


The line made Rog pretty sad, but it actually went pretty fast.


It helped that we nabbed some free samples of a sausage puff pastry thingy along the journey.


On the walk home we felt we deserved a lunch break, so we grabbed some Thai.


Jenna and Kimmy came over early to help decorate.


The booze spread.


The ceiling came out pretty super, kind of an under the sea theme. Woooo prom!


Pepper joined in as the party dog, but fo realz y'all she kept farting. Not cool, Pep. Next time you come to my apartment please chomp some Rolaids first, Jesus.


She found a ball under the futon.


Caught Jenna dipping into the snacks early with her gloves on, no less. Her outfit was absolutely stellar. I immediately labeled her the prom chaperone. Home Ec teacher, duh.


Pep wanted snacks too, as always.


She was all dressed up with some snazzy jewelry.


Matt models his prom getup. Outstanding.


Roger's was pretty great too. He's like a mix of the stupid vest guy at every wedding and Bar Mitzvah who makes the guests do the macarena and a pirate.


Matt's pants! Wooooooo!


Prom king and queen and king. We set up a shimmery backdrop to take prom photos against as everyone entered. Just like real prom, get it??


Pepper's portrait.


Don Johnson and Debbie Gibson. How amazing is El's dress! Holy nuts, I flipped when I saw those sleeves. And the skirt had already been spilled on by its previous owner. Perfect.


Haha!


I'm always saying this, but it's another shot where I can't look at it without cracking up.


Susan showed up in a bridesmaid's dress she'd actually had to wear. Hideous, and perfect.


Allie and El brought tallboys of PBR. It was a smart choice.


Chaperone Jenna making sure that Anna and Monrovia danced at least 6 inches apart.


6 inches! No touching!


Chaperone Jenna breaks her own rules and gives Max some smooches.


Allie, El, Kimmayyyyy, Susan, well on her way to drunktown.


Jenna smooshing Allie's face in her dang gloves.


Susan ensconces the girls in the shawl from her dress.


Strangling Kimmy.


Karate Kid Don Johnson will lick yo face.


Jenna's dress ended up in Susan's, don't know how, but there it was, and she figured the easiest way to get it out was with her teeth. Smart.


I lasted quite a while in those bad boys, but I gave up a few hours in and changed into the old standby. Yay chucks!


Mary and her friend (holy crap forgot her name, I'm sorry!) looking glamorous.


Anna and Mary.


Check us out.


Anna was so dashing she had all the ladies on her arm. Arms. Whatevs.


Monrovia and Anna. Monrovia's smiling with her eyes, really. Right Tyra?


Anna was decked out from head to toe, literally. Wooo pink argyle socks with garters!


I had high hopes when I labeled my bedroom the makeout room, but no one ended up running with it.


Caught off guard coming out of the makeout room! Don't worry, I was by myself.


Jenna serenades Party Pep.


I sing and dance and point, and Kimmy flashes peace AGAIN.


Party in full effect! What do I do but sing and dance? Nuffin.


Oh right, stick my tongue out. That's the other thing I do.


Matt and I are always chucks twins.


By now anyone who reads this blog - all 4 of you - should know that this point move means I'm singing to The Pipettes' "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me." I spent months, literally, compiling the playlist for this party (Jenna and I have wanted to throw a prom bash practically since college) and you betta believe it was loaded with indie pop good times. And of course peppered with 80s and 90s school dance classics.


I sang to everything.


Still singing.


And dancing. And singing.


Jenna fights through the crowd probably for some drinks.


Heyooooooo! Let's call this admiring fishnets.


There are the ladies attached to those fishnet legs.


El put her hair into a side pony.


Dazzling.


Finally got around to taking more portraits.


Anna had never been to a real prom, so now she's got a photo to send to her mom.




Ha! I don't know who took this. Thank you.


Haha good one ladies.


Very serious dance moves.


Good party faces from Anna, Monrovia and Mary.


Monrovia hollering for me to play more Taylor Dayne, I'm sure. Tell it to my heart! Tell me I'm the only one! Is this really love, or just a gaaaame? Man, I think I just added a song to my karaoke repertoire.


Some prom 'tude.


Jason and Matt scoping out the scene.


The scene.



Are there more drinks down there? Let's check...no? No drinks? Oh well.


Another shoe defeat! It happens.


Looks like my rapping stance. I'm guessing Ice Ice Baby.


Prom Supastahhhhh!


Party foul!


Sang so hard I hurt myself! And there's Anna's face, looking much better than mine.


Mary, Joern, supa dupa drunk Rog.


Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" was playing and there were no lighters, so Monrovia lifted my decorative scented candle. In reality it was quite dark in the room - Matt pimped us out prom style with really dim blue lightbulbs in all the lamps so we had some sweet ambiance going on - but my flash makes it look all bright. It wasn't! Do not be fooled.


Susan was blitzed, let's just be honest about it. Sauce-o-rama. On the floor playing with the $3,000 cammy cam the Kimster borrowed from NYU for her job as party photog.


Pepper was concerned and tried to tell Susan to stand up and put the fancy cam down.


Comparing those stupid string thingies that fancy girl clothes always have sewn into the armpit. They are annoying.


Party winding down, everybody looks a little defeated, but in the best way. It was tremendous. There were a TON of people, the apartment was packed, we all made new friends, sang and danced to good tunes, and...WATCHED JENNA DO THIS:


Please note that as amazing as this video is purely because of Jenna, it is made even better by the fact that while she is busting a move you can see that there's a whole group of people down the hallway wanting to get out. Not while the JC is shopping for groceries suckaaaas! Sorry. One day Jenna will be applying for a new job, and her future employer will google her and stumble upon this. You're welcome in advance, Jenna.

After everybody left, only Matt's friend Jason was left. Roger went out to a bar to keep dancing, Matt fell asleep on the couch, and Jason and I walked in the 3am blizzard over to Nero's for some pizza. Along the way we agreed to all get brunch in the morning and recap the night, and it actually happened! In fact, when I woke up at about 12:30pm I heard three male voices in my living room - Jason was already there, so I threw on some clothes and off we went to Grape and Grain where we had brunch for 4 hours. No exaggeration, we didn't get home til almost 5. The waitress was a delight and brought us bunches of complimentary mimosas and finally an entire bellini pitcher, so we just kept sitting there talking and enjoying a classic New York brunch. If I may wax sentimental for a moment, it's those days that are why I love New York. It's like a small town - party with lots of friends and then meet up with the neighborhood folks the next day to relax and relive the good times at a the place around the corner where the waitress treats you like old friends.


The morning (er, afternoon) was made even better when I saw that I had a birthday package from Amanda way out in Ohio! Haha how great is she. Santa really does love Jews, though, no lie.

I start work tomorrow. Finally, after two months of unemployment. It's been a good run, people.

I like it when my hair is poofy. I like it when you slip me a roofie.

Be boo beeb boob diggity do beepbop. Zachary just said that to me on the gchat, that is a direct quote. It's my birfday today and it's snowing outside and I had lots of errands to run, but while the weather is busy being gross I will get busy blogging. Here it comes.


The night after Thanksgiving I was still in town in the Jerz so Michelle and I got ourselves some sushi. As y'all are aware, we've been friends since 5th grade, and fo realz nothing has changed.


The roommates and I and a couple of their friends went over to Cubbyhole and on the way were dancing and hanging from the poles on the train and this sassy little dude FLIPPED HIS SHIT about it. I tried so hard to take a video of his fit of anger, but all I could get was this snapshot, mostly because I was afraid that if he caught me he'd punch my face. He was ranting in an unintelligible language and doing karate moves. We were scurred, yo.


Roommate Matt, signaling me to sing some GLORIA! I THINK THEY GOTCHA NUM-BAH!


Ha ha. He might have been laughing about the fact that every single time I get Gloria going on the jukebox at Cubby, the resident drag queen freaks out and loves it and tells me, in her baritone voice, "Oh my god I met Laura Branigan twice, she's amazing, but she had an aneurism it's so saaaaad." I have heard this story at least 4 times.

It also needs to be noted that Matt is from the boonies of Pennsylvania where each year there is an American Idol-style talent competition that he managed to tape recently. Here is my favorite clip:



This is sort of a sad story. Michelle told me that she was going to bring her horse into the city and ride it around from bar to bar in the Village. Trust me, any questions that you are coming up with right now are the questions I immediately spewed at her, and she had a smarty answer to every one (answers: all you need is a driver's license; the horse must have clearance and papers from the vet; yes, it is legal to ride a horse on city streets so long as you abide by traffic laws). So she told me the day and time and I was there, but because of traffic and parking I ended up waiting around for such a long time that I had to go home and I missed it! So sad. She says she took pictures and it was a blast, and hopefully she'll do it again so that I can be there and share it with the interwebs. Jenna and Kimmy were going to come by and witness as well, so we met very briefly.

It was worth it so I could see Pepper's new coat.


Charming.


AND got to see the procedure for getting Pep into her subway backpack. Haha poor little Pep.


Another night I coerced El into coming alllll the way east to my apartment for some dinner. Peace to you too, lady. Thanks for the wine.


I made a super healthy batch of quinoa and veggies.


And I licked me some wine.


Flew out to Chicago for about 5 minutes. Here's Stacy and her two roommates, both named Jessie. Both super. Here's our jacked up group shot where everyone looks bad and my eyes are closed.


Oh look, everybody else looks good this time and my eyes are closed and I look exactly the same. It's what I do.


This night was just silly to the extreme. Drinks were coming from all over the place, I don't even know where half of them came from. I do know that for most of the night I had two beers at a time in my hands, and particularly remember one charming lady coming over to me and doing that classy move of tapping my bottles with hers so that they overflowed. Thanks lady.

Back in town, and it was a Mondo Friday. Started at Cubby pretty early on.

Kimmy put fake grapes down Jenna's shirt. She actually kept them in there for a while.


Jenna self-shot.


Oh Kimmayyyy.


I don't know how this started. I don't know, people. But Kimmy and I debated whose boobs were bigger, and here we are trying to get photographic evidence, but really just showing how we can both give ourselves double chins. More on this later.


This is a good shot of the ceiling at Cubbyhole, it's always so festive. So is Jenna's crazy white face.


The usual dance move, you know.


Hahaha I can't frown and look at this.


Self-shot again.


And again.


I love that hat! I've missed it's ever-presence since last winter.


New member of the gang, Allie. She danced her way right in, I think she's a keeper.


Haha! Another winner.


Ohhhh snap! I don't know, that's just what it looks like my face says.


That's my finger.


She was giddy because of my stellar jukebox picks, I'm sure.


Oh look JC took more pictures of herself.


Right back atcha, Kimmy.


I'll lick the side of your head.


Haha that's peace sign number 3 for the Kimster.


Thanks for taking this, whoever did, I'm always happy to see how shiny my hair is from an aerial view.

I said I'd get back to the boob issue. What happened was I left my camera on the ledge in back of the bar where we were standing and the bartender came over, didn't realize it was mine, and for some reason gave it to some chick standing by us to hold onto. So I go to this woman and ask for it back, and she says, "How do I know it's yours?" "Uhhh I'm in the pictures. In fact I think my boobs are in there." "Let's have some proof." Some molestation followed. But it was a nice catalyst for us taking pictures down our shirts. For modesty's sake (yeah right) I will not note whose are whose:

Rack #1


Rack #2


Rack #3


And Kimmayyy peace sign #4.


I'm guessing Jenna was singing something by Peaches.


Fuck you, man, I just gotta dance.


I don't even have anything sassy to say, there was just some good rug-cutting going on.


Calling Gloriaaaaaaaaaaaa!


Oh look how angelic I am.


Jazz hands! Pow!


Once outside and on our way to Mondo, Jenna noticed Allie's awesome sneaks and loved them so much she gave them a smooch.


And then we noticed a restaurant with my middle name! I've never seen that name anywhere before. But it's in the West Village so I probably couldn't even afford my namesake restaurant.


I was a little concerned when we first got to Don Hill's, cause it was after midnight and still completely dead, but we got dancing anyway. Jenna was insane. She was lawn-mowering all over town, for serious.


She let loose, I loved it.


And Allie got ANGRY. El stayed happy in her !!! tshirt.


I do love to dance in my sailboat shirt. Everyone had some good arm moves that night. it turned out to be a great one. Ran into Adam, and also Stacy's friend Emily who just moved to Brooklyn and loves comedy and dancing (winner!) and her boyfriend. The djs took every request I made immediately every time. The only downer was that I left my brand new striped shirt there, which was tremendously sad. But at least I have some pictures of how good I looked in it.

The next evening was Jenna's holiday band concert up at Columbia, after which we all planned to have some dessert and mulled wine at Susan's.

Closeup of Jenna honking away on Bertha.




I bought her a present at one of the thrift stores in my hood. She liked it.


At Susan's we made a bread tower and ate it with some fancy cheese.


And Jenna did...this.


The ice cream we picked up to go with Jenna's apple cobbler was caked in so much ice I worried that it had been in the store's freezer since the 80s, but it tasted alright.

In this video Jenna explains her grandmother's take on the Moon landing:



And the night is over when Jenna slumps out of her chair.

Dear Former Blogging Friends,

Look. I know not everybody wants to post all their personal biznass on the interweb. I know there are crazy stalkers, and potential employers, and ex-boyfriends and girlfriends who you don't want stalking you. But I am getting downright tired of being the only one of you who keeps up with this blog situation. I used to love me some Indie Rawk Jeffro! And some Adam, Priya, Zachary Seth and Mark Lesliebien! Where has everyone gone! We don't see each other enough. The internets are all we have, people. No need to post anything incriminating, just show me the stupid shit you do. Because that's what I care about.

Hearts stars and horseshoes,
Caroline

P.S. Obviously Jenna and Phil are exempt from the bitchfest. Now watch this:

Bitch! Don't make me pull out my pimp hand...I'm from the Slappaho tribe.

Zachary said that to me the other day. Now here are some pictures from the Tegan and Sara concert and then Thanksgiving.


El got a program on ichat so she can appear on the moon,


in France,


and as God. I'm unemployed and she was working from home on a Monday. I hope I'm unemployed for a long, long time.


We met up to see Tegan and Sara for the second time this fall. El showed up with her dang knitting.


I pretended to be important and bored on my phone. I've got news for you: I wasn't talking to anybody.


We got a good standing spot up on the catwalk at Webster Hall and were pleased with ourselves.


There's Tegan.

The tickets were a very early birthday present from Jenna who also loves the T&S, so with her in mind I took video of the times the girls gave their famous little storytelling episodes between songs (for the record, the banter was far more hilarious when we last saw them at the Hiro Ballroom, but hey):

Here they are bantering about their New York "experiences."


Here are the ladies again, this time introducing the rest of their kick ass band.


T&S did a cover of "Umbrella" that was dead on, and in fact I dare say better than the original.

Before leaving the stage to prep for an encore, the ladies outlined a request. The audience was...mildly compliant. We were asked to try being completely silent the second they ended their last song, COMPLETELY silent, letting them run offstage for a minute, then as soon as they came back we were to let loose like we'd never let loose at a concert before. Interesting idea.

As you can see here. There's definitely the handful of douchebags. Overall it was an awesome show. Thanks JC!!


Went home for the holiday last week and saw the kitty. She's still little.


And of course did the whole reunion thing at MacMurphy's. Gil was there!


Told Michelle to take a fugly shot with me.


Told Adam to do the same. He said ok, and then smiled. Haha what a jerk. I'm the only fug in this shot, but that's fine.


Joe appeared, like he often does. Got to see tons more old high school folks that night, had a blast. Came home laaaate and crashed out on the couch. Had some other fam staying with us so my old room was taken and in the morning WAY too early I was awoken by being pummeled by the tiny fists of one of my little cousins.


The gobbler.


The table.


My plate. It was tremendous.


With the folks for a holiday shot. Who do I look like more?


All day the little cousins were hanging all over big cousin Matt and one of those little guys stepped in some dog shit and got it on Matty's pants. Good end to Thanksgiving.

I am watching A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila

and in no way is that depressing. Here are some photos! Some may show up sideways. I don't know why.


I've never done karaoke on a stage before, but Anna invited me uptown with her buddies to give it a whirl, so I kinda had to. I was scurred.


Gloria! How's it gonna go down?


Anna's friend Eli rocked it country style.


Drunk people danced.


Ok, the lady worked it like you wouldn't believe. This is Anna's friend Ronica. She wandered all over the bar, climbed up on tables and booths, it was crazygonuts! Amazing!


Later, I got bitten on the eyelid by the mosquito that's been living in our apartment, and literally staying alive I think by biting the hell out of me.


I met El outside the Blender theatre for our second Pipettes concert in the last 6 months. We'd each baked breads (min zucchini, hers pumpkin) and agreed to bring slices to exchange. But there were bouncers at the door running metal detectors over everybody! So we couldn't bring in our aluminum foil-wrapped breads and instead had to scarf them outside to avoid a Spinal Tap scene replay (if you don't know the foil-wrapped cucumber down the pants scene, rent the movie).


These two girls were standing in front of us and couldn't have been older than 13. Maybe.


We were a little put off. We have dirty mouths and felt like we couldn't curse in such close proximity to little girls.


Pipettes! Rosay is my favorite. She's on the far left and is the best dancer of the three, without question.


Get a vague idea of how all the songs have little dance moves. Such a delight.

I always say I'm going to post pictures of places I live, so here's a buncha that:

The living room. Where the roommates and I watch reality television.


The kitchen, where I bake holiday breads.


The hallway that leads to the boys' rooms.


Halloween bear in the window. Very important.


My knitting bags that live next to the futon.


My bedroom is teeny. This bed takes up more than half of it.


Gah! Sideways again! Oh well. I have some shit piled cause I don't have a closet.


More shit on shelves. Fun! It's the East Village way. And that's the story for now.

Ba ba baaaaa!

Just now my lovely roommate Matt forwarded me this article explaining the origins of Neil Diamond's tribute to me.

So I got a hankering for some Neil, and here he is singing another classic. Doesn't it make you wish Will Ferrell was singing it instead?? Check out the sweet dance moves, and note that at about 1:25 he "takes you to the bridge" long before Timbaland ever did.

Test 1, 2, sibilance, sibilance

So it seems blogger has a movie option now. Let's give this a shot! It's dark because it takes place in a cab late at night, but I ran the video on my camera because Jenna was running her own episode of Taxicab Confessions. Here she is interviewing our cabby and sharing her own insights on colors, foods, and drugstore carpeting:



And then here is what happens when El, Jenna and I sit around drinking jug for too long: