So last night was pretty neat.
We went to get Thai food at the King and I (me, liz, laura, becca and carolyn) - it was lovely food, not enough cilantro, but i'm crazy for cilantro BIG TIME. We talked about recycling, farming, the new deal, whether scallops had a lobster of a fish-like texture, and laura was distracted by some guy who was breathing far too loud for it to be normal. We then walked around south grand, but the store I wanted to go to was closed, so we ended up going to some used bookstore, and Becca got "explaining hitler" which is a really good book that I read in high school when I was grappling with the meaning of evil and whatnot. I'm sorta done with books though- I really don't want to read anymore, i want to live. No worries, though.

Anyway last night - one walgreens stop later, we ended up at Mirasol, a fancy little cuban joint down on the newer part of the Loop - across from the Pageant...we all got carded, so its a good thing Mer wasn't there...sorta. Mojitos, etc...it was pretty awesome. I daresay it was Carolyn's first time eating thai, having a mojito (she always gets a cosmo, i'm like, honey, those were so 2000, Sex in the City is OUT) and probably seeing a plantain. I'm happy for her, not that those three things are necessary for a complete life, but hey, i like her to see that there's more to life than paris, politics, and ohio. She does just fine on her own, but still, yay.

We later went over to becca's house, where I drank far too much, and probably made close to a fool of myself, but i was among my wonderful friends, thankfully...so I hope the spectacle I made of myself was more along the lines of quirky vaudeville show than terrifying car-wreck. Who's to say?! We tried to sort out the profile of Becca's perfect man, (something that I think is so fun) but it got complicated, went sour and ultimately ended in tears (mine). Oh well! I mean, no modern woman really needs a man to complete her life, but i thought it was fun to talk about. I have a feeling things are more complicated, but whatever - she'll find someone, and they'll watch sports in harmony only those in love know, but i guess we just won't know his profile b/c she did not want to help us out.

I soon thereafter did some backbends and stretched, stressed myself out a bit and passed out after miss lizzie dropped me off. I always wanted my name to be lizzie so i could be miss lizzie like the Beatles song - but I was not so lucky, Elizabeth is my middle name, not my first. I think Lori suits me fine, though.

Anyway, now I'm a little hung over, and sorting things out in the "life-plan" area, so I might be prepared for my mommy's arrival home and any impending discussions along those lines. I haven't seen her in like, 3 days, and that is so weird...I miss my mom! I miss everyone else, too - i need to go forge out on my own, b/c this like, sitting around and thinking about how everyone is somewhere else (even in light of the fact that we are all indeed sleeping underneath the same big sky) is for the birds.

In other news, we got DSL at my house and I learned how to (almost) play a song that was written by a girl on the guitar. Small victories over a suprisingly trying day.
~Lori

OMG!

This is a picture of me.
It's probably what I do everytime one of my friends call me.

I couldn't get to sleep last night, so i decided to go through all my old schoolbooks b/c I don't have any good chick-lit in my closet. I considered reading Dr. Zivago, but then i was like, hm, that will not be satisfying. SO I like, looked at the moon, and was like, damn, why oh why did I take that nap. SO all i really did yesterday was sing in church, take a huge nap and then stay awake forever, and like, gaze at the moon. Its cliche, but try it. OH, and i did watch the Paula Abdul: True Hollywood Story. I love Paula - we have so much to thank her for. Her dancing innovation has seriously shaped my life, as I'm sure you understand since chances are, you are my friend. So anyway, after much pondering, and like, listening to random stuff on my ipod, I finally fell asleep after I looked through my AP english notebook, read about how to best get along with Saggitarian women (I'm one, i thought it'd be an interesting take), walked around and listened to Nancy Wilson's "I'm gonna laugh you right out of my life" (even though I don't really have anyone to laugh out of my life) - i finally fell asleep.

Woke up at like, 10 and decided to go to Bread Co to use their wireless internet ( i get DSL tomorrow!) b/c i wanted to see how this Tristan Prettyman song was played on the guitar, and my computer would not download the video with dial-up. Anyway, luckily Ian came up to bread co to save me from myself b/c i was struggling with trying to revamp my resume and like, I was thinking too much. It was super fun, thank you ian for the good company, welcome distraction and funny stories. I am just loving my hometown friends!

'Bout an hour later I went to see the Penguin movie at Frontenac - Liz was nice enough to join in. The movie - won't say it was riveting, and i wasn't really feeling the true love(it was nothing like The Notebook!), but i was feeling some love from the penguins. The power of love. And the flutes were pretty, as well as the icebergs. Anyway, the penguins have to fall in love, b/c what else is going to compel them to like, continue their own species? It has to be something cosmic, like love, b/c like, love can move mountains, etc..and seriously, animal instinct can like, tell you when a snake is nearby...that's not the same, cello! I don't buy instinct in some cases, and I'm a scientist (sometimes).

Tonight my friends called me and we went to Houlihan's Happy hour at like, 8 - the drinks were a little boring and the cliente (out party excluded) was a little shabby. We stopped by pin-up bowl, and then dropped off liz and kept it local at 2 nice guys. I had a salty dog, but it didn't taste like grapefruit juice to me. Still, I was reminded why it is my favorite drink. All in all, it was a fun night of talkin' and plannin' and now we're all going to get Thai food tomorrow and sit on cushions and be hip. Aaaand, since liz is like, a total vegetarian, she can enjoy the delicious vegetarian selections of the thai diaspora, instead of having to eat like, a salad with chickpeas (if you're lucky). Then, if the plan works, we're gonna have a drink and go hang out somewhere -- i'd say we're going over to my house so i can play guitar, but I can't play guitar, so we'll have to think of something else, like karaoke on my vcr. That rhymed!

Anyway, Becca and Liz have never been to blueberry hill when its a bar, so we may go there on thursday or so, as long as we bring lots of fun people who are good at talking, b/c that is so important - maybe we'll go friday, since wednesday i'm being dragged to Maggie O's for college night yet again...the cheese fries we always get after are just not seeming like enough to get me to go, but who am I kidding, i'll be going, b/c hey, I'm fun. But maggie, you dont' make it easy on me.

Last time I went to Maggie O's, i lost my phone for 20 traumatic minutes, but thanks to wearing sunglasses on the dance floor, no one tried to interfere with my dancing. Then we talked to some dude that sat at our table whose name was hailey & he just kept leaning forward - he was either drunk or like, dying...who knows, he went away. Oh and he called Becca a bitch, and i was like, you can leave now, thank you. I really don't want to go back, and not only because the bathroom lady, Maggie, now knows me (and doesn't like me b/c I don't tip her well) but b/c the last time, some creepy x-ray technician 30 year old wouldn't leave me alone (see, i wasn't wearing sunglasses that time - try it...it works!). I was able to see the humor in the situation not only because we started like, jitterbuging to Nelly (which I actually thought was pretty awesome, he was actually kinda good), but b/c earlier me and the beccas were listening to "No Scrubs" by TLC and Becca S was like, "this is SO lori's song" and becca w. was like, "yes" and they squealed in agreement, and I agreed, too (duh!) -- well anyway, the x-ray technicians were wearing scrubs. Get it? Life is funny sometimes.

Just for posterity, i'd like to record the cat-calls I am lucky enough to recieve from the patrons of "Plush," the bar across the street from Maggie O's:

"Damn, girl! That skirt is FIT!"
"Damn! I on't know your name, so I'm onna call you DAMN!"

I mean, am I flattered? I swear, i try really hard to be so, but something just rubs me the wrong way about this whole cat-calling business.
However, apparently cat-calling is my business, so in light of that, my favorite cat calls of my life would probably be:

"Damn! You one strong ho!"
(this was when i was moving myself out of my dorms)
or "Girl, you are happenin'!"
(this was followed by some snaps, and a little dance - that i can appreciate)

Becca S's favorite is "Damn girl, you are blessed!"

I'm sortof liking the i don't know your name one, i think I'll move it into my top 3. They actually look sortof cute in writing. Like, how nice of someone to say I'm blessed! But I dont' think he was talking about the being kind of spirit and generous of heart kind of blessed.

Anyway, i'm going to go to sleep now, since I have a busy social calendar, and I'd better get my beauty sleep before i start looking like Mrs. Shrek.

Oh man.
What a whirlwind, huh!
As soon as Becca came into town on the 29th, i had a feeling things would gett better/more exciting, but man, that was ridiculous! I originally thought she'd be coming in on the 27th, which would've coincided with the release of Jason Mraz's new album, Mr. A-Z, which I totally heart, but it didn't. I DID however, get to go buy the album with my baby cousin Sammy (a.k.a. Uncle Sam, Sam the Eagle) and he said the infamous words:
"You know what? I love you!"
ANd I was like, ready to fly on a cloud of rainbows, it was sooooo cute. 6 year olds make perfect boyfriends - listen up fellas.
Anyway, maybe i can sum up what a lovely time was had by all. If you'd like to look at pictures, go to http://community.webshots.com/user/becschapes and look at the STLness folder.

I've really opened this blog for the purpose of forcing myself to write something, and to just get back to writing writing writing like i know I can, so bear with me while i cut my teeth yet again. I'll ruminate later.

So Becca comes back, and we celebrate Happy Missouri Month (as it was christened in my house, by mer) with the Kirkwood High VIPs, and our groupies.

Here are some highlights (not really in order, but who cares!):

- becca's first night back we go to Beale's street bar, and proceed to get in a lot of trouble involving a hotel room with a balcony, some ripped clothing, some bruises and some lost dignity and sleep. Ah youth! Don't think i could've made it through that trauma with out west side story and jason mraz's track one on the new album. Party gone wrong PTSD is like, brutal, guys! Mom's not mad about it and thinks its funny.

- Wed. night at DUffy's turns into a reunion, except for that creepy guy with the canada shirt that said he had a gay affair in 1st grade. Laura handled that one politely - another reason to develop a signaling/S.O.S. system BEFORE entering any bar. We run into everyone, and prompty whisk them off with us to Maggie O's for college night, and we run into MORE people, and its all just really awesome. Most of them are VIPs, too! Its amazing. I crimped my hair for that one. We all get numbers so we can randomly call people for girls night, planned for the following monday.

- pool party at Becca's - mer discovers that we have yaegger and left over boxed wine from new years - the race begins to drink it (the wine) before the expiration date. I opt to just steal others' beers and act all innocent and what not, hoping to ride on my reputation, which is stellar, if not a little comedic. Boys say gross things and I get a quite flustered and demand respect - some things will never change. Brad tries unconvincingly to tell me I'm not his favorite person. Note: becca's pool is slippery and if you try to run away and back into the side, you'll slip, and probably get water up your nose...especially if you're saying, "euwww, gross!" at the same time. Learned that the hard way any number of times.

- After the serendipitous meeting at Duffy's, Thomsam Williams' parents sureptitiously go out of town, leaving his house open for a world of bonds just waiting to be kindled and re-kindled. Catchphrase is the best game ever, especially when the boys don't invite you out to come listen to them play music :( Its also good for talking to those who were never all that good at talking in high school. Reuniting with random high school buddies begins, and its awesome - as the VIPs expand, so do the hearts of many a KHS graduate. I get to play the drums when the power goes out and proceed to wake up all the babies in the neighborhood with my best Animal from the muppets impression...i think i have a natural gift. Becca sings about gays in space, and doo doo pie, and i do my best britney spears impression. Thomas sings and plays Tribute for us(I'm really good at singing like the demon, as becca discovered), and we all just can't help but have some frickin' good times until laaaaaaaaaate.

- VIP party with margaritas and the baseball game by the pool. mom gets mad for no reason and meredith overreacts. Night swimming is priceless.

- Chocolate Bar with ian and a couple Mexicans that only Lori could handle anyway - in her muny uniform no less! Kristin leaves us for Miami, and we are all like, devastated. Luckily though, we were all on the side of the table that DIDN'T have the recovering alcoholics. Poor Laura did though, and we salute her.

- Trip to lamberts including semi-tornado weather, and an unfriendly roll guy! (who knew it was possible) I did get some shorts that say "hot buns" on them though. A lamberts classic. THanks to jason mraz for providing the soundtrack to like, all of august. Meredith got the "oops i'm dumping a drink on you trick" pulled on her, and she fell for it. I got to wear a bow tie.

- Girls night reunion, we try to take notes but really only end up gossiping about who's married, gay, pregnant, sick, dead or ugly. I for one am glad that no one was all of those things. 'Twas an enlightening night! Mom gets mad and mer overreacts. We don't end up calling any random boys, b/c they all have to get up to like, build houses and crap, and so do we and we actually don't think boys are like as exciting anymore...next reunion must be on a weekend, (possibly thanksgiving or xmas?) though, just to add the element of possibility (though that would eliminate the element of swimming). We end up playing higher or lower with our Most-Wanted Iraqui militants deck of cards - if you lose, you have to try to pronounce their name, and you must follow their name with, "...is BAD!"

- we go to the city museum for some real hippy music, conversation, and the chance to jump into a big vat of balls while wearing red high heels. It was amazing! Becca and I were having like, a field day.

-Party in the Park ...we all dress up all preppy and try to score it with the business crowd in Clayton. WE really end up just talking to each other and running into Kayla Weber (whose teeth are like, day-glo white) and having like, a LOT of margaritas. Mer never got even close to carded, and ended up having so much to drink that she was inspired to pop a squat in shaw park and get sick, forcing us to pull over by ladue high school, after which a policeman showed up, but luckily he was awesome, and understood our plight through some sortof young meaning-to-do-well telepathy, and let us go on a "well, be safe and get home" as we apologized and promised we would! Here's to you, ladue! So we listened to Jason Mraz, (track 3 specifically) b/c really we didn't feel like listening to anything else. Dropped meredith off at home, put her in bed next to a trash bag, and then we went to duffys, and it was like whoa reunion! I ran into john lemke, and it was totally wonderful and pleasant. Best conversation i've had with him ever. I had a lot of best conversations ever that night - maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the moon, maybe it was my confidence in my infinite wisdom, who cares! it was magic, and only slightly embarassing.

- Thomsam's magical thursday night party: complete with vodka and fruit punch, guitars, boy musicians in the garage that prove to be less engaging with their audience than in person (and that's saying something - whatever, boys are always instant entertainment for me anyway - like both a car wreck AND a shooting star at the same time ) so, inspired by the speediness that shmirnoff inspires, we ladies just had to go inside and roll around and bounce off the walls in general while I attempted to play "sleep all day" with Liz on vocals. All that an a Jason mraz and Toca viewing on VH1 in the living room, more rolling on the floor, raps about my school (inspired by a flip flop), and perhaps some stirrings of young love all blossomed under thomsam's roof, even as he drank too much from a frisbee and passed out after too much Jason mraz sing alongs (as if it were possible!). We later walked to becca's pool for some late night skinny dipping. Becca S and Kimono proved to us all that love at first sight is real, and Kimono's free-spirit begged the question, "shave or wax?" but no one really wanted the answer. It was a full moon and we were all open to the mystery of it all! I later sent jason mraz a crocheted hat inspired by all the magic he was in cahoots with creating. I saw him in a magazine and he had his girlfriend's name airbrushed with unicorn on his t-shirt that he was wearing while he was making waffles in his semi-humble california abode. That was awesome, Jason Mraz.

-we all go to blueberry hill b/c mark is in town and they have cheap blue moon pitchers. I run into the only penn people I know in st. louis while i'm wearing a ridiculous penn shirt. Its pretty funny. we all have so much fun just talking and laughing and being generally compatible people, even if I was the only common denomonator and though half of us never really hung out in high school, despite being in the same class...luckily we were awesome. And no worries, the reunion is going to be aMAZing now b/c we're all friends and life is wonderful if you'd just give it a chance...its magical sometimes, when you least expect it! Oddest couple of the evening, Ian and Carolyn M, who really have more in common than they ever thought possible (or at least than Carolyn thought possible, but I knew all along).

- mer and i take liz out, in the hopes of going to Kayak cafe, but instead get stopped by the moonlight ramble, and we get to cheer on like, 300 bikeriders, 15 (at least) from whom I got a high five! Only one creeper asked to see mer's boobs- the rest were quite receptive to our cheers of : "go bikes! Livestrong, lance armstrong, woo!"

- we go shopping and i find a beaUtiful suit, and Tony and Tina "lets go to the nightclub on our space station" makeup that I love so much is on sale. It's all very magical!

- Mer left for London today, after some magic last night and day - i went to Frizz's wedding shower at a winery in the mountains of missouri! it was bellissima! There were crags and everything, and i got to have a coffee beforehand! Frizz is so in love, she's not even scared of getting married! How awesome is that!? I'm so glad I get to stay for the wedding...Becca and I bought her matching robes with "Frizz" and "Jeremy" embroidered on the chest. THey will be perfect for their wedding love nest! Whee! i believe in love! I came home soon thereafter, my hair a little windblown, my brain still a little wine-o'd and we went to the chocolate bar, where we met up with always fashionable and always late carolyn and her friend, and where no one got carded, and la-la-la-life was wonderful and the cocktails were chocola-la-la-late. And there was a fountain outside to boot!

-I sang in church this morning, and even after the day long drinking extravaganza my voice sounded ok. I got pretty nervous while I was singing, and I was like, WTF i always sing in chruch, that is like my niche! Anyway, I love my church and my pastor, and everyone who was leading the service i knew and I was just like, my church rules! I missed it a lot while I was at school and I hope I'll be able to find a place like it wherever i end up. My grandma took me to brunch afterwards, and she told me all about how she lived in San Diego (which makes me feel a lot cooler - San Diego is so cool!) and how she had blackout curtains and all the roofs of the houses were painted to look like trees and greenery so the "japs" couldn't get to us - and how a japanese submarine came to her favorite sunbathing island but we caught it, and now its in a museum. Grandmas are awesome. I was happy we had so much to talk about - she has so many funny stories, most of them involving soldiers of some sort of famous movie stars and politicians - apparently California of the 40s was a lot smaller than it is now. Grandma was like, neighbors with the 40s equivalent of lindsay lohan, it seems. I guess its b/c all their husbands were in the service together, and if war's not a even playing field, then what is? My grandpa was in a movie, too - just as an extra playing a serviceman, but hey, how cool am i.

Anyway, that ends my summary...maybe I'll think of more glorious highlights. Whoever that guy was that said, "you can never go home," well he was full of crap! I like to think that the VIPs and I proved him sooo wrong.
Don't stop believin' in love!
~Lori