Wrapping up the holidays!

So, I guess you guys want to hear about my holidays, or just want me to write something so you know I'm alive!

First of all, I promise that I am going to get to catch up on everyone else's blogs soon!!! Promise, promise, promise!!

So, me and my holidays...
Well, let's start with Christmas Eve...
I went to Grace's house to participate in her family's massive (they're Italian) Christmas Eve celebration. Topher came too, so that was fun. The food was good. Grace's family is crazy in that way that Italian families often are. :-P

Then I went home to my own family's Christmas Eve dinner. From there, we went to church. Came back, did the traditional stockings and reading of The Night Before Christmas. You know, Christmas.

The next day was pretty quiet, my aunt and uncle flew in on Christmas so we were waiting until the next day to do our real Christmas. We did open a few gifts -- I got a bunch of books I wanted (cause I have so much time to read? I don't know why I keep asking for these things :P) and the Timbaland CD, as well as two Forbidden Broadway CDs. I also got a DVD of behind the scenes Broadway stuff (of course, Matt got two DVDs of movies I had actually asked for, but who's counting? :P No, my stuff was pretty awesome.)
We dropped in on Dad's side of the family for their Christmas -- and Brady was ADORABLE. Ashley, his mother, had a bunch of us shaking his gifts trying to guess what they were. It was pretty bad. :-P And he was having more fun drumming on his presents than unwrapping them, I think. Cutest baby ever. We gave him this stuffed lamb with all sorts of different colors. It reminded me of one of my favorite stuffed animals when I was little -- his name was George and he was a baby blue lamb with a pink and yellow plaid pattern over it. Frikkin' awesomest lamb you ever saw, and so badass too.

The next day we did Christmas fo' rizzle. I got a bunch of stuff, but honestly I was focused more on the best gift that my Aunt and Uncle got me: Darren Hayes' latest CD!!! Yeah, you know, the one I was all excited about this summer???? Aunt Susan and Uncle Robert got it for me!!!
It's been playing non-stop in my car since then.

Sooooo, then there was a whole lot of clubbing at Mirabar and Dark Lady.

And then it was New Year's!!! I worked at the Dark Lady -- it was an ice themed party. All I have to say about that is this:
I looked fucking hot.

Oh. My. God. You will never believe what happened to me.

See, I was going Christmas shopping and I got this gift for my grandmother and this car -- mall security believe it or not -- came tearing around the corner and slammed into me. So, that's it. I'm dead. Mowed down by mall security!

No, I'm kidding. I thought Sue would appreciate it though. :-P

Anyways, to start off with my life since Thanksgiving.....
I got back and immediately started hardcore prepping for tech week for my short play that I was directing. Tech week came and went and my show was good, if I do say so myself. It hit a few bumps in the road on the way there, but it was good.

One of those bumps in the road, however, was a bump in the road for all areas of my life.
You see, it snowed and iced in the middle of tech week. And driving home from school, I slid off the road and into a speed limit sign. Ironically enough, I wasn't going as fast as the sign said.

The car won't even begun being worked on until January. As you can imagine this has caused several headaches. How was I gonna get home for Christmas and New Year's??? We worked it out though! I have this rental (we have rental on our insurance!), and I am taking that home to Rhode Island!!!! I'm going home!!!!
Tomorrow, actually.

Anyways, it's been a nightmare trying to get this sorted out. But all's well that ends well, right? Right!

Uh.....huh?

I was having trouble finding a random image I liked for today. Nothing really fit my mood...a mood I couldn't really identify.

And then I went on Facebook. The mood was narcissistic, I think...the random picture is from shortly before Christmas:
Yes, I really am decorated. :-P
Yes, that is a really bad picture of me. :-P

Post Holiday Report!

Firstly, I want to apologize for neglecting the blog this week. It's been one of those weeks, y'know? I think everyone else has been busy holidaying as well though, so I hope nobody minded.

Honestly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. The holiday spirit was short-lived this year, partially due to this blasted house I'm stuck in. Love the people who live in it, but I can not stand this building. You guys will probably notice, I refer to Rhode Island as "home" but I don't call this particular place in Rhode Island that I'm writing to you from "home", ever. It's not. It's more like a hellhole somebody stuck in my home. If I owned a bulldozer, you know what I'd be doing with it.

Anyways, moving on...Christmas was fun. I got a lot of things I'd been waiting for a long time to get. These include several CDs:

• John Mayer - Room for Squares
• John Mayer - Heavier Things
• Original Broadway Cast - Avenue Q
• Lifehouse - Lifehouse

Also, I got Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway"...except I already own that CD so we're going to have to do something about that.

I also got my all time favorite movie ever on DVD -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Okay, so I wasn't born yet when it came out but it is such a classic and it so so so so soooooo funny.

I also got a bunch of books, most of which I'd wanted for a very long time.
- Stephen R. Lawhead - Patrick: Son of Ireland
-Stephen R. Lawhead - The Endless Knot
-Stephen R. Lawhead - The Silver King
-Charlaine Harris - Definitely Dead

I also got a book from my Internet friend Lenaria, she sent me Jonathon Livingston Seagull.

I also started playing a new computer game, but I'm not going to say anymore about that. I believe it won't be too long before I make an entry about it.

I went out Wednesday night while the parents had a dinner party. The clubs were not exactly the most exciting they ever are. Still, I was enjoying myself hanging out with Dom, Kyle, and the bartender Ivan (who is quite hot, and has a great sense of humor I discovered) at Club Energy. Then, to my surprise, my friends Chris, Bill, David, Josh, and Pat walked in. They'd been at Club XL, but came by Energy to say hi. A bunch of us headed to a nearby 7/11. I was the only one who wasn't high, and that is all I'm going to say about the magazine pages that were somehow all over the street when we got back to the club. It wasn't long before we decided to pick ourselves up as a group and head to XL, so we did.
I was pleased to see one of the really, really, really hot dancers remembered me from my one visit prior (this past Saturday, I went there with a date...I don't think I blogged about it. Whoops. It was really a very good date though!) He seems like a nice guy, and if I had the money I'd shell out for a private so I could get to know him. Oh well, I guess I'm just going to admire from afar and tip well when I have extra cash.

Tonight I wasn't planning on doing much, but my friend Emerson and I made dinner plans. We haven't seen each other yet this break, although this summer we were basically inseperable. We ate dinner and then, deciding we weren't ready to go home yet, we met up with some of his friends.
Cool. As. Hell. He, like myself, has good taste in who he associates himself with. (Although, that's questionable for me...we'll discuss at a later time...) Hopefully, I'll hang out with these people again before I go back to school.

I also have done a lot of thinking lately. Unfortunately, as confident as I am most of the time, and as great as my life is...when I get introspective like that, it usually has pretty devestating results for something -- be it my friendships, my self-esteem, it's never good....and that's my cliffhanger ending. Tune in next time! :P

PS: I finally got some more pictures from my first weekend dancing in PA!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there in the blogosphere!

The weekly random image is sort of themed to Christmas this week...

"Would you look at that! They're making a baby right in the front yard!"
"It's disgraceful!"

This is one of my favorite carols:

This is funnier than any picture I could have found...

Okay, so today is the random image day and all, but this is much funnier I'm going to hit you with a quote that I thought was hysterical from this article on CNN.com:

"The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults."

So says Wade Horn. Obviously, Wade Horn really does need his reality checked.

Anywho, this is what you have all been waiting for...........
Yeah, that was pretty much my thoughts as well.

Holiday Countdown
3 days til my grandmother's birthday
4 days til Christmas Eve
5 days til Christmas Day
6 days til Boxing Day
11 days til New Year's Eve

Number of Gifts Bought: 2
Oh snap. Time to get working on that, huh?

Deck the Halls

It's taken me a while to really get in a Christmas mood, mostly because I don't think people should act any more cheerful or generous or kind just because there's a holiday comin' around. It's not Santa's got short term memory loss, if you're an ass the rest of the year you're still getting coal. :-P

But there is something unique and special about this time of year, and I'm officially "in the spirit" now. My family, the mother of my mom's late friend, and I went to the Lasalette Shrine in Attleboro, MA tonight. This was my first year to see it, but every year they have a Festival of Lights. Literally, thousands of lights all over their massive park/shrine/whatever you want to call it. Thousands. It's incredible. It's the sort of thing that you should capture on camera.
...except none of us could think that far ahead. We also had to take it all in in a quick 15 minute tour before they shut the lights off for the night.

I've Googled it so that I could show some pictures from various places on the web. These pictures come from this site and the official Lasalette Shrine site. I don't think they're from this year, and they do not even come close to capturing the magic of the event, but I thought I'd give you a taste anyways.