i think my diary is jealous of my blog

i'm not sure where i should start tonight...
well, here's something - Friday, Danielle, Alex & myself chose outside the bun and went to the big T-Bell for lunch. It was the first time i'd had it since a drunk night on longuyland many moons ago. I like to people watch as you may or may not know, and so as i was eating my little taco, who do i spy walking in to the door? Kirsti Alley. As soon as she walked in, she kinda did an about face and left...maybe she was upset bc everybody knew her name and weren't so glad she came.
Friday night we didn't go back to see Billy Joel. Tickets were wayyyy to expense and my dad was scared Shea Stadium would collapse. I hear that lil bitch Paul McCartney showed up. I'm kinda really upset i missed it. =0/. And so instead of going out w/Russ or heading to a bar with Rocks or showing up to Matt's party in Spring Valley, me & my migraine sat at home playing Guitar Hero till my eyes burned and it was time to fall asleep. btw - i just beat it on medium.

Saturday Rocks, the Gavster & I braved the thousand degree heat and went to the Village Restoration to see the Civil War Reenactment. You're probably wondering why i went and if i've gone before and the answers are "i don't know" and "yes". It's not like i'm a huge history buff, but there's something about grown men playing dress up that amuses me. We pulled in to the parking lot and someone's license plate said "GEN HILL"...that also amused me. Because it was so hot, they cut the war short, but, if you listened carefully during battle you could hear some of the ridiculous things the dudes said when they decide they'd had enough, were "hit" and died. I was cracking up when i heard someone scream "WHY ME?!!" and decided that even though this battle wasn't as long, it was just as good. I also saw a pig that had balls bigger than Cisco Adler. It was nuts. (pun intended).

I wound up staying home again last night and watched "The Ex" starring Zack Braff, Jason Bateman and a slue of other A-Listers with my sister. I kinda back it...then again, I backed "Kicking & Screaming" with Will Ferrell (can't wait for Step Brothers Friday).

Today we had my nieces second birthday party at the house. My bro's mom & her side of the family came over as well as my dad's. I thought it was pretty cool that after 20 something years my dad could sit in between my mom & his ex wife and everyone laughed & exchanged recipes. I kinda felt like the 3 of them were like Kate Hudson, that guy w/the long hair she was married to & Lance Armstrong. My niece is so so so cute. I just wish she'd start saying my name!

oh! i got my Land Camera to work. After buying 90$ worth of film and blowing thru (threw? though? someone please tell me which one i use) about $20 of it in an hour with no results, i FINALLY got it to work. Here's some shitty pictures of the pictures...i'll scan em for reals when i get a hot minute. i'm happy w/the way these 2 turned out.


ok that's it for me. hope you all got a chance to see batman.

PS - this is awesome. I love love love Girl Talk & someone on youtube is making videos for all the tracks off his latest album. it's pretty sweet and looks like it took an amazing about of time to do. check it out.

"i'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints...the sinners have much more fun"

As i write this my ears are still ringing....

My Dad and I had been talking about going to see Billy Joel's last play at Shea for the past couple days but, like Cook's, did nothing about it...till today. I went on to stubhub and quickly snatched up a pair of tickets. All I can say say about tonight's experience is "HOLY FUCKING SHIT".
I met Pops by the 7 train at 7 and weeded through all the people to get to gate C. Dad brought my camera, bc i was told "digital/no video was allowed". We get to the purse only line where the lame ass security guard goes thru my shit and is all "this is professional camera, you can't come in here with this". I know you're only doing your job guy, but you're doing it wrong. You're plastic badge can't force me to make one of the hardest decisions of my life: Ditch the camera or ditch Billy Joel. A look of panic crawled across my face and i got the attention of another guard who i whined to and asked for help. He waved me in and i gave a big ole "nanny nanny poo poo" to the rent-a-cop.
We got to our seats and waited about 45 minutes for Billy to take the stage. It was insane. The scrims/the lights/the sounds. One of the best concert experiences i've ever had - and i was so far back i could only make out Mr. Joel's silhouette. During "New York State Of Mind" he stops the show and Tony freakin Bennett comes out. I was like "What?! How is this happening right now??". After a crazy rendition of Goodnight Saigon (where it looked like helicopters were about to land on the field and soldiers/marines/NYPD/FDNY members sang back up and i shed a tear) JOHN MAYER came out and played guitar while he made his signature crazy faces. I think my Dad had to pick my jaw up off the floor for me and I may or may not be developing my own man-crush on Mista Mayer. A couple more songs later Don Henley came out and sang "Boys of Summer." After that John (Cougar) Mellencamp played "Ain't that America"...really John? Really? Not Jack & Diane? I hate to say it, but i was kinda disappointed. Those were all the special guests but me & dad were sure Paul McCartney was coming out. At one point during "River Of Dreams" Billy broke out a Beatles song and we just looked at each other. I think my heart may have stopped beating....and thennn at the end, Bill is all "we want to thank The Beatles for letting us play at their house. They were and always will be the best band on planet earth" and then started playing "She Loves You". I'm pretty convinced Mr. McCartney will be there Friday for the final final show & so will I.
After leaving the stage & coming back for an encore, he played "scenes from an italian restaurant". This is my favorite Billy song and the song i wanted to hear the most. I should have prefaced this entry with a little note explaining that when i was in my early years of college i HATED Billy Joel while Ali was obsessed. She would play all these songs in our dorm room and i'd be miserable and all "ugh stop playing this shit. i hate him. he's so lame". The only song i would ask her to play every now and then was "scenes" when i thought the song was about someone named "Brenda Ranetty". Every year i learned to love him a little more though.

All I have left to say is that tonight was incredible. I'm so glad i shared it w/my dad. It's definitely a memory i'll have foreva eva and means a lot to me. (I wish you guys could have been there too...i know we woulda been dancin around, drinkin, making friends and screaming about heart attack-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak's). I'm also glad that the upper deck didn't collapse during "we didn't start the fire".

"I have the strangest feeling i forgot something"/"KEVIN!!!"

Helllllo Nurse!
What a busy weekend i've had....it kind of flowed in to the week, which is why i'm just getting to this now. Friday night Mr. Matt Greco came over for the first time in months and we watched one of the Resident Evil movies. Well, i partially watched it from behind my hands (zombies are my biggest fear in life if you didn't know). He laughed at me and played w/his new iPhone, which he waited online 6 hours to get. I don't understand all the hubbub. I love my blackberry. I will not trade it in 6 months from now, and if i do, someone point this out to me and call me an idiot if i start to complain about the iPhone. Saturday my dad woke me up and was all "you wanna go to the Mets game today?". I was like sure why not! So after putzin round the house for a couple hours we met up w/a neighbor and ventured over to Shea. My dad bought me my favorite Carvel treat (soft serve vanilla with rainbow sprinkles) in a baseball helmet and the mets won their 8th game in a row. I wish i had taken my camera but i was too lazy to carry it. Caturday night me, rocks, jamie & ali decided to try out the new Croxleys in Farmingdale. It's where the downtown was, which is kind of weird, but i think i back it. There are 70 beers on tap. Unfortunately i didn't get to try any bc i was sober sista, but it was solgoodman bc it was a blasty blast. A bunch of old faces showed up which was really awesome. Here are some pics courtesy of mizz D.RocksSunday Jamie & I went to the Tobay and relaxed for a while. The water was so so nice...except for the jellyfish forest. The jellyfish forest was not so nice.

Yesterday Shana & I went for a long walk and saw an extra special sneaky showing of "The Dark Night". Until you've seen it, all i'm saying was it was amazing and heath ledger is phenomenal. On top of all that i found out we have a new puppy!!! His name is Cruiser but i think i'll wind up calling him Cruise or Mini Me. He's incredibly cute but his breath smells like poop. Dylan keeps licking him to death. I hope they become bff's and i one day have to confront them about txting each other bc they're going over our family share plan. All he really does is sleep & wag his tail. Here are some pics of him. You can start "awwwwwing" now.

Here's another pic from Rock's collection. it's from my bday weekend in the hamptons & i think it's super cute. :

"FLAMING DR. PEPPER SHOTS"

In case you read this religiously (and duh..you should) i'm sorry that there's been a lack of updates and you've been bored at work. I was super busy the past couple week(end)s. We went up to Beantown to see FYS shoot their new video a couple weeks ago (which will be awesome) and been traveling around the globe. I'm kinda like Carmen SanDiego! Posting should resume as normal starting....NOW!

About 2 fridays ago, Kung Pow Danielle and I were talking about 4th of july and how we had no plans. We kinda wanted to do something awesome...the idea of going to Canada to see Jimmy Eat World was thrown out there, but as she said "it's kind of anticlimactic to spend Independence Day in Canada". This is when D brought up the idea of Austin, TX. Interesting. I've never been before. I wasn't allowed to go to SXSW and skipped out on the season of Real World: Austin, but i'm always down to try new things so we booked our trip. Everyone in the office started telling me how much i'd love it bc it's filled with beer. I decided to keep my expectations low so i wouldn't be disappointed.

The night before we left, we went to the jersey fair. I have only experienced the Nassau County Fair and i hate to say it, but the jersey one was pretty amazing...i saw 4 kinds of bangled tigers (and we watched 2 of them bang....totally something to tell the grand kids)....I fed a llama and goats, was dooped in to paying $1 to see the worlds "smallest" horse (which was just a mini horse), got to see a ferris wheel (hearts) and got my handwriting analyzed. it was pret-tee accurate.
A couple hours later (3:30 AM) we woke up and it was off to the airport. We landed in Austin around 11 and picked up our awesome Blue Toyata Highlander that had Maryland plates and headed to the Omni. Here's Danielle on our rooftop pool/hot tub:
After some R&R we went to Stub's for dinner. The cups were like buckets and from now on i expect all my water to be served in such large quantities. After that we headed to Cheer's Shot Bar. Now, let me explain this....once we booked the trip, my mind immediately went to the Tucker Max file in my brain and the subsection where he writes about the Austin Road Trip. I made mental notes of things he did and what i'd have to see...one thing in particular: FLAMING DR. PEPPER SHOTS. Tucker did them at Cheer's and so did I. They are the new love of my life. I will love no man as much as i love these shots. You can read that at my wedding reception. Once we had a couple dranks in us, we met up w/Danielle's friend Jeff who took us to Mugshots. Mugshots has everything i look for in a bar:

• a photobooth
• erotic photohunt
• good selection of beer
• outdoor seating
• great music

I was blown away. My heart was falling deeper and deeper in love w/Austin. We went to a slue of other bars that night i think...DeVille(?) gets an honorable mention. So does Mick's 7 foot wing span.

Friday morning we woke up and went to meet up with some of my favorite boys on the entire face of the earth for a lil bit. After working on my tan and dinner at P.F Changs w/the Charlotte Sometimes kids, we met back up with the boys @ the iron cactus and started doing shots. Ashleycat was happy. Then she screamed "FLAMING DR. PEPPER SHOTS". This is what happened next:


I vaguely remember Matt telling me that for the rest of his life he'd be disappointed because he'd try and go to bars and order them, but they wouldn't have them and his life would be over. After 2 rounds of shots, we went back to our hotel, raided the mini bar, tried to spit on people from the balcony and then went to the roof and watched fireworks. They were so so so pretty. If i love anything more than ferris wheels, it's fireworks, and to see the ENTIRE Austin skyline filled with them...ugh, it was beautiful. Once they ended we went back to the bar for more Flaming Dr. Pepper Shots (are you seeing a trend?). A "U-S-A" chant was started, dance wars broke out, & cowboy and balloon hats floated around the bar. Paul & I decided we wanted to go see The Bronx @ Emo's around midnight, so we left the bar for a little bit. I'm not sure if i was just really drunk or not paying attention on the way to the bar, but on the way to Emo's i realized just how crazy the streets are. It's like boardy barn, only better because block after block after block is blocked off and you can do whatever you want, kinda like an awesome levittown block party. Paul & I took a nap in the middle of the street and the police said NOTHING. This is when it clicked. Austin may be my one true love. We got to see The Bronx (who blew me away) and a little bit of Andrew W.K (which i don't really understand. Sorry Alex!).

Caturday morning Danielle & I woke up early to drive to San Antonio for Warped Tour. On the way there we spotted wait for it....wait forrrr ittt....SONIC!!!!! (my love for texas was written in stone). We went twice.
Warped was awesome. I sold merch for a lil bit, roamed around, saw lots and lots of friends i've missed and got to hear a bunch of new songs that sounded great. In the words of Sam Hollander, "it's all big".

best 4th of july ever.
thank you.

"1 margarita on the rocks please"

Aruba... arubaarubaaruba. let's review:

Thursday morning I was woken up at 5:45 to get on a plane to One Happy Island called Aruba. In the airport i bought 3 magazines and the new David Sedaris book (which might be my fave so far of his) - how it cost me $40, i'll never know. We waited and waited to get on the plane. When we finally boarded I was stuck next to the lovebirdies known as my sister & her boyfriend that read Cosmo together. I love my sister & i'm glad she's found happiness and love and all that jazz, but this is what i don't understand: how do you hold hands with someone for 4 hours and 45 minutes straight? don't your palms get sweaty? it made me sick to my stomach, but it's cool bc i didn't my stomach pill before the ride back. Use your imagination. Let's just say my sister & I are about even now.
So we land and we're greeted at the door by my family and a kind man giving out drinks. After mass hysteria/jetlag/chugging, it was off to the room i'd share with my SNORING parents for the next 4 days to freshen up and prepare for the beach. I got down to the water, beers in hands and it was amazing. exactly how i remembered it 6 years before. Crystal clear happiness. My bro rented us some jet skis and off we went. I have NEVER been on one before so i was terrified but after a couple minutes i was like "aright aright! i CAN do this!" i practiced some figure 8's and donuts. it was awesome. Later that night we went to a place called Texas De Brazil where my parents friend works. We had this sick glassed-in private room where we all sat, drank and argued. My brother started a fight with me spitting out phrases like "you'll never get a married bc you're not independent and still live at home and you're spoiled". I had been drinking and went right for the horrific stab in the chest comeback of "You're just mad they love me more". This was a bad idea. He left, my mom started yelling at my dad for not defending me, yada yada yada, they brought out a birthday cake (which was awesome - it had the Arubian flag & my name on it) and my brother refused to sing. Sorry Taylor.
Day 2 rolled around and it was time to go on an advencha. We decided snorkeling would be grand and boarded "Mi Dushi". Probably the best name for a boat in the entire world. It means "My Sweetheart" and will be my new favorite word. My cousin Peter was too hung over to go and spent the day at the hotel. While on our fishing trip i saw starfish, nemos and jumped - and by jumped i mean fell - off a rope swing. I landed right on my chesticles. I've never been in more pain. Blogger allows me to upload the video - however, it's way too embarrassing. Once we got to land i decided to drink. heavily. After a couple margaritas on the rocks, Ashleycat decided she wanted to play. I came to my senses and realized this was a terrible idea and passed out. I don't really remember the rest of that night. It may or may not have included losing money in the slot machines.


The next day or so was spent going to town (where were told Justin Timberlake & Jessica Beil were in town for Timbalands wedding) and laying around the pool/beach. I believe i was sitting in the pool sipping on a mudslide when i looked over and saw none other than Chris Cornell (not the merch God, but of Sound Garden fame). No one believed me. "That guys too skinny" "Chris Cornell would never wear a pink bathing suit" "That dude's European" they all said. So they started screaming "CHRIS! CHRISSSSS". I was mortified. Long story short - they finally all believed me, it was Chris Cornell and we wound up being on the same flight back to NY. I wanted to die.

So that was that. Most of what happened in Aruba. Once i upload the rest of my pictures, you'll get more posts.

EDIT:
Here are more pics:

the pen15 club.

Doug invited all of us to join yesterday.

anywayyyyy holy hangover batman! Monday night we to celebrate my birthday at the Habachi grill on bell with my family - aunts, cousins & all. Our cook thought i was turning 18 and threw shrimp at my mouth. Well after 4 bottles of Saki, Ashleycat decided she wanted to come out and play . I took the 4th to go, shoved it in my purse, tried to get to the parking lot by walking through Duane Reed w/my cousin, taking sips while we walked up & down the isles. I think i was trying to pull a Shia LaBeouf.
We all got home, where i found a bouquet of the most prettiest flowers from the one and only Russ on my bed. Every year that boy has brought me a bouquet and written a special note on the first thing he could find. A couple years ago it was a $1 bill. This year was the flowers wrapping. The first year he did it, my mom and dad sat me down and were like "Ashley, i think you have a stalker, we may need to call the police". After I opened up some cards and Golden Girls season 2 on DVD - which i'm currently watching - (thank you SHAN!!!), Russ took me & my cousin to the bar. This was probably a terrible idea and the place where i started harassing people via text. I'm sorry to all that were effected.

I woke up in my sisters bed in all my clothes, completely drunk, when my family left for Aruba at 5 am. I stood on our door step yelling "please let me come with you now. PLEASEEEEE!". I fell back to sleep and woke up 4 hours later still completely wasted. I was hungover till i woke up this morning. it was all bad, but a great birthday.

Tomorrow morning i'm boarding a plane to Aruba! See ya in a couple days bitches.


ps - feel free to use my new word "Guidon't"

p.p.s - why am i covered in extreme bruises?

happy 24.

this has been a great weekend. today, june 16, 2008, i turn 24. i get nervous around my birthday bc of several that didn't go so swell. here are a few examples:

• my 14th when no one at school believed it was my birthday and so i walked home all moopey, only to get home and find I was locked out, had to sit in 90 degree heat for a while, and had to bake my own cake.
• or my sweet 16 when none of the boys that i invited showed up. and the one that did, came with a girl i didn't even like that much and my entire family freaked out and my Chinese aunt ran around the house screaming "A BOY'S HERE! A BOY IS HEREEEE! TAKE THE FOOD BACK OUT OF THE FRIDGE"
  
• how's about my 6th birthday when i wished for a pink purple and blue cat and had my dreams crushed when my mom told me they didn't exist and then this kid Ryan took my play-doh and mashed all the colors together. i can't stand when people do that. Why would anyone want brown play-doh?
  
• maybe my 10th birthday party at splash splash when my sister & a very chubby me went down the really really big slide and bc i was so much bigger then her i almost flew off the entire thing and died? not only that i had to walk around in a soggy bathing suit all day and got a urinary track infection. TMI? maybe.
  
• perhaps my 21st birthday we celebrated on Bell bc it's the only place most people could get in? I did too many shots, lost part of my shirt, came home crawled to the bathroom and bumped in to a wall on the way to puke & passed out while my other friends crept around the house till 6 am while one friend gave another friend a blowJ and my mom caught them? My mom was nice enough to finish the dishes till they finished.
  
• my 22nd birthday where i was forced to go to the CRAZY DONKEY. Was that the time that a bride showed up in her wedding gown? i mean things could have been worse, i could have been her, right?
  

One of the most special bdays to date was last years...having a joint birthday party w/Doug at the bar and everyone showing up which meant so so so much to me. Taking the daily news truck home at 6am bc we were too tired to walk. Going out to the hamptons for long island party and the rest of the weekend, boardy barn, my aunts house, and the birth of the wormers.

This weekend was up there though. The tiki bar was awesome. i think i spent about 100$ in the photobooth. Thank you for showing up if you were there. Ashleycat came out, was dropped on the ground, harassed by a man named "Maltood" and later walked to 7/11 with Rocks at 5am for Pringles Selects which i later threw up. After a quick haircut it was off to the hamptons - sans Shana =0(. Our hotel had the cutest little dock (more on that in a minute) where we set up shop and read "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" out loud to each other till it was time to go to dinner.
We had Hamptons "Asian Fusion" and got awesome fortunes. Sorry for my "i'm gonna fucking kill you face":
After dinner we went over to Beach Bar to get fudup. I'll repost part of Darren's bulletin to explain this experience:

And a huge huge badge of props goes to my girls from queens that showed up at 8pm and all but one of them made it all the way till last call at 3:45am. Not only did you rsvp for the guestlist, you didn't even need to use it since you showed up when we opened the doors for business.

We showed up before there was money in their registers and stayed outside drinking in a monsoon till 4 am, making new friends and finding old ones. Ali was the one that didn't make it till 4, but it worked out great...i'll get in to that in a second. We took a cab that stopped at 7/11 and bought like 8 bags of chips so if company came over, we'd be able to feed them - that's the italian in Jamie - always wanting to provide. While in sevs, i vaguely remember meeting 3 new people and as soon as we saw the wedding ring on one of the dudes finger we ran away. We got back to our hotel and had a dance party/jumped all over ali and decided i should go jump off the dock. The water was so warm and awesome until i realized i wanted to get out bc the muddy bottom was freaking me out. Problem: I have no upper arm strength and everytime i tried to push off the muddy bottom i would sink a little more and couldn't get out of the water. 15 panicked! minutes later i somehow swung my leg around a wooden pole and got out, scraping up legs on barnacles. all bad. i look like a crack whore that skipped around a cactus farm in shorts. We all went back to the room and feel asleep with the radio blaring. (ps - i'm obsessed w/the new Pussy Cat Dolls song and hate myself for it)

Now on to Ali's departure: She left the bar bc she had the spins & wanted McDonalds. When we woke up this morning and looked at our phones to see the damage, ali had 4 missed calls and 2 texts. She was all "who's phone did you guys text me from last night" and the rest of this convo went like this:
Us: UHHHH no one?
Ali: Oh great, who'd ya give my number to last night?
Us: UHHHH no one.
Ali: Oh shit. Did i do this one on my own?
Us: looks like it, douche.
So we called the dude back just playing around. Her first question: Hey, i forgot - how do you spell your name? "R-O-B" he says. Duh! Turns out Ali made friends in the cab back home. After check out we wound up going to their house and spent most of the afternoon there hysterically laughing. those dudes may be the male versions of the wormers. I peed my shorts from laughing so hard when we were trying to leave and they got down on the dirt road in protest, in front of my car.

we got home and i gave my dad his fathers day presents - a card, framed picture of him & my niece and what i thought was a tank top from a store in the hamptons. He put it on and looked at me funny. Turns out it wasn't a tank top, but TOTALLY A FUCKING DRESS. yep. i got my dad a dress for fathers day. and like a great dad, he said "thanks so much!", put it on and walked around the house in it all night.


anyway: happy belated fathers day dads and a big thanks to my parents for getting it on and making me 24 years ago.