then the wedding:

then the barbecue:

and then another barbecue, and tennis, in new jersey. good times, etc.

this weekend: man in gray at union hall, a record release show on saturday night. maybe a massage. maybe some stoop-sale shopping. i am excited. bring it on, summer!

and while i'm here: omg did you hear the 911 call from the cop who ate pot brownies? i think i died while listening to it.

we had tons of fun with ms. spinach (aka betsy) in town last week. we almost burned down the zombie hut, and she came bearing vintage housewares! good times.

party alert! party alert! you all know my other blog, fashion binge (now with new, spiffy, carl-designed banner!) and read it religiously, i'm sure. we are celebrating our one-year anniversary with a fantastic party at angels and kings -- yes, the fallout bar. DJ bard will provide the tunes, and tamron and i, mary-kate (as i am known over there; get it??), will provide the prizes: we have an impressive assortment of fashiony door prizes you could and very well might win. the booty includes yakpak bags, le tigre gear, modcloth clothes, fab t-shirts from campfire goods, even more cute tees from threadless, handmade goods from etsy stars girls can tell, niphty, bozack 80, and mua purses, and more. oh! and drinks are HALF OFF during happy hour, which runs till 8. if all that doesn't get you out, the remote possibility of pete wentz's presence certainly won't. it's all happening friday, may 25, at happy hour, friends. see you there!

this past weekend the brothers hopkinson and i feted our momma in the jerz with burgers and potato salad and fruit salad and various gift items. here's hoping she learns how to work her dvd player so she can watch the queen. steve and i went and saw 28 weeks later, which was 2 hours of seat-gripping fear and delicious bloody foaming zombies. it was awesome. and then i came home and carl had built a fantabulous curved desk out of a door. we now have the most awesome office area ever.

oh! and i almost forgot! we saw sloan absolutely rock the house at southpaw on friday night. i'd never seen them and am only familiar, really, with a smallish portion of their vast catalog (thank god for the a-sides collection), but oh my god what a fun show. so many bands pussy-foot around, but sloan came to rock, and they rocked. they are a ROCK BAND. and the crowd ate it up. the fists, they were a-pumping! concert nirvana, done and done. and done. their new album, "never hear the end of it," is highly recommended, if ridiculously long. here's (one of) my fave song(s) off it:

::: Sloan, "Fading Into Obscurity" :::

did you read that article about rock stars being all nerdy and internetty? it has a catchy title: sex, drugs and updating your blog. tad kubler from the hold steady is featured admitting that he answers every myspace message the band receives. pretty cool, considering i can barely keep up with my own inbox. or my, uh, blog. hi!

yesterday i saw one of the most divisive videos in recent memory. people either seem to think it is hilarious (WHICH IT IS) or shake their heads and act like you are a terrible person for even mentioning it. here it is, folks: breakdancing is dangerous. please comment so i can know which type of person you are.

i recently became netflix friends with my friend michelle, who has one of the most unique netflix queues i have ever seen. i have never been so delighted whilst looking at someone's queue, in fact. here is a short list of some of her selections:

Pet Emergency First Aid: Cats
How to Read Faces: The Ultimate Advantage
Disaster Preparedness for Dummies
English Grammar: Punctuation
Learn Biology
Make Me a Model: Vol. 1
Survival Basics I & II: The Adventure

obviously i need to hang out with michelle more.

what did i learn at the roof party friday night? a) bobby wants to be on the pita. that is my interpretation, anyway. b) there is such a thing as long boxers, apparently. who knew? c) there are only so many hours (five, it turns out) one can spend in an industrial warehouse in gowanus eating only pretzels before one starts to crack up. that was me on friday night.

other weekend activities included the revlon run/walk for women with michelle t. providing hilarious stories and girl scout cookies; randi and crew were so anxious to halt breast cancer they surged ahead and left us in the dust. nice seeing you, ladies! i forgot my camera (oops!) so no boobie shots for you. sorry! michelle and i then shopped midtown a bit, hitting the ginormous salvy on the west side and a craft fair here, church thrift store there. my dogs were barking at this point from all the walking. thanks everyone who donated!

i returned home to brooklyn to find my apartment painted: yay! finally! if you ever need a painter, get on the nadoban. they do an excellent job, and they've been on the bob vila show: impressive! carl and i immediately left the chaos of the apartment and headed to the cafe to place our bets on the ponies and of course drink giant mint juleps. we lost, but the juleps were on the house so i guess everybody was a winner! today we had brunch at the stone park cafe, then i shopped fifth avenue, continuing up to target to purchase a shredder to destroy all of my shopping receipts. i need a nap.

before i hit the hay, here are a couple of others items i've been saving for you:

tim harrington lives in a very pretty, feminine home, as illustrated in this design sponge feature. it's hard to imagine that a man so sweaty and mess-loving on stage could live in such a cute, pristine place. also that he owns a shitty record player (though perhaps it belongs to the harrington babe). interesting. i would do crazy things for these two chairs upholstered in a really fun deadly squire pattern. full set of pics here.

i laugh every time i see these pictures of kathy griffin "falling" out of her vehicle. even though they're obviously staged, her expression and body position are so perfectly awesome, it only reinforces the occasional genius of kathy griffin. i defy you to deny this!

also: you can stream the new comas album. it's called "spells."

before i go, here's a little story: i was walking to the gym this past sunday around 10 a.m., ipod on and in. a tall man in glasses stops me as i walk past him. being the nice girl that i am, and he not looking homeless, i stop and remove an earbud. "hello, neighbor," he says. "do you know where i can get a tow truck?" i make my best "i have no idea" face and he launches into the most ridiculous story ever. he just moved here three days ago; he and his wife bought a brownstone at 179 congress, just around the corner. his mother had just had a stroke while driving. she'd hit three people and was currently over at long island college hospital. the policeman at the scene of the accident had called him a "black nigger" but he messed with the wrong guy. my neighbor was a sound technician at nbc and this cop was well known as a bad apple. he'd beaten 18 people in the last 10 years on the job. there would be a story airing on nbc's 6 o'clock news. besides being bewildered by the twists and turns this story is taking, i am waiting for the other shoe to drop. here it comes: he doesn't have health insurance, and he gave them his credit card and debit card but he was short $11. i could call the hospital where his mother was in room 603; he would give me his telephone number; could he borrow eleven dollars, neighbor? eleven dollars. he needed eleven dollars, this cobble hill brownstone owner. the weirdest thing was the number of numbers coming at me over the course of this story. what a nutter. needless to say i lied that i was just on my way to the gym and didn't have my wallet with me, and needless to say this guy's story was NOT on the six o'clock news. (i tivo'd it just in case.)