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Today, as I was walking into my building, from work, gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous September day, not a shred of humidity, nothing but blue, sun, and promise—- I had the feeling I get EVERY SINGLE TIME I walk into my apartment building:

I love this place.

So much. I love my building. I love every single thing about it. I love where I live. I love the front desk man who greets us all every, single, time we walk past. I love our mail room. I love the people I see every single day. I love sharing this place with them. I GENUINELY LOVE IT. I love where it’s located. I love the groups of guys that hang out out front, every single day. Without fail they are there, congregating, joking with each other, very loudly, teasing people who walk by, running after each other, talking about Madden. I hear their conversations every single day and can see and hear them from our window. We don’t even have a rapport, I just see them. And it makes me happy to just…see them. I’d feel sad if they ever weren’t there. It wouldn’t feel right. They bring life and energy to the sidewalk.

I love that our sidewalk is constantly buzzing with a car or a person, but yet it’s not like New York City. It still somehow feels homey. I guess like a side street in Brooklyn, just not the city-city. I love the park that’s outside of our windows, the natural sunlight we get, and the TREES that shake and rustle every time wind blows through them. I love hearing and watching them when there is wind, or a storm. I love the way the sun looks behind them. I love our Harris Teeter.

{Directly out our bedroom window, during the dead-middle of a recent storm.}

I love that we are in the most perfect fucking location IN ALL OF DC. SORRY EVERYONE, BUT WHERE YOU LIVE IS NOT THIS PERFECT. I LOVE MY BLOCK. I LOVE MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

I LOVE TRYST.

I love that it’s A TWO MINUTE WALK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love going there to get chai lattes and waffles, or coffee and nachos, or wine and flat breads. I love taking friends there. I am PROUD to show them my block/neighborhood.

I love Stroga. I FUCKING. LOVE. STROGA. I LOVE. THAT I WALK OUT OF MY APARTMENT BUILDING, WALK ONE CITY BLOCK, past the guys on the front stoop, and then, I see Stroga. The gorgeous ballroom that it is, where I do pilates and yoga and feel like I am together.

I love walking down 16th street to U, and going to Good Wood. And then 14th street, and hitting up Peregrine, and Estadio, and Pearl Dive, and Miss Pixies, and Standard.

{Me and Alex in overexposure at Pearl Dive this summer}

Back to my building.

I FUCKING. LOVE. OUR BUILDING.

I LOVE OUR WINDOWS.

I LOVE TREMAINE. FUCKING TREMAINE. WHAT A GUY. TREMAINE, WHO I CALL WHEN OUR CLOSET LIGHT BULB DOESN’T WORK, OR THE HOT WATER HAS GONE OUT. I LOVE HIM. I WANT TO JUST HUG HIM WITH THE HUMAN LOVE I FEEL FOR HIM.

I LOVE OUR MEN WHO COME AND FIX OUR LIGHT BULB AND OUR HOT WATER AND THEN LEAVE A LITTLE NOTE FOR US THAT THEY DID IT.

I LOVE THAT THEY ARE SO QUICK AND IT TAKES THEM 2 HOURS TO RESPOND TO A REQUEST TO FIX OUR LIGHT BULB AND HOT WATER.

I LOVE OUR HALLWAYS

I LOVE OUR ELEVATORS

I love. aldjfasljflsjfadsfadsjfldsajfkadslfjlasdfjsdalfs. this.

fucking.

place.

I want to walk out to the side of the building, put my arms around its concrete and just inject my love for it into the walls. I don’t know who to thank. or who to say this to.

I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH MY HEART COULD BURST

I love our sketchy basement and annoying laundry situation. I love getting into the elevator and seeing someone else’s hamper and sharing that human moment “ugh, brutal. laundry day. peace be with you.”

I love the WEIRDOS who live here too, who you get into the elevator with and are like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU. PLEASE DON’T GET OFF ON MY FLOOR TOO, THANKS.

I love our carpeted halls and ridiculously low watt lighting in the halls.

I LOVE OUR GORGEOUS, STUNNING, HISTORIC, BEAUTIFUL ROOF TOP.

I love 16th street. I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW FUCKING PERFECT THIS APARTMENT BUILDING IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I CANT BELIEVE THAT I GET INTO MY CAR, AND LITERALLY DRIVE FOUR FEET– FOUR FEET- LIKE MY CAR TIRES BASICALLY ROLL TWO FULL CYCLES, and I am at the heart of the city– 16th street– and I can look down and literally see THE WHITE HOUSE/JEFFERSON MEMORIAL/WASHINGTON MONUMENT. BECAUSE GUESS WHAT. THE WHITE HOUSE’S ADDRESS IS MOTHERFUCKING 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. AKA 16TH STREET.

I love that all I have to do is hop on to 16th and I am at WORK.

I am LIVING THE LIFE I WANT. I HAVE MADE IT SO. I am living the life I have always wanted. I couldn’t be in a house in the suburbs, or a small town in Ohio. I am living the life I want. My street. My building. The sounds of people outside our window. The grocery store next door. The park across the street. The walk to Tryst– DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE IT? HOW BOUNCY I FEEL EVERY, SINGLE, LAST, TIME, I leave my house to walk to Tryst and grab a whole-milk iced chai and recognize so many faces of the neighborhood? How much I love hopping out of my ‘house’ to go to the bank, or to see what’s new at GoodWood? This life, right here, right now, is the life I want. The city. The sounds of the city. The proximity of everything in the city. The boy I live with. My jobs.

I love my job.

God I love my job.

I walk out of the government campus where I work every single day and feel this weird, floaty, rising feeling in my chest. It’s a mixture of…pride, awe, happiness, peacefulness, GRATITUDE, love. I love every single guard who works there. I LOVE the campus itself. I love how its designed. I love its space, its size, its location. I love the geese and ABSURDLY FAT PIGEONS who roam the place, and how smart everyone is. I love HOW intellectual the work is. I love that I am a FED. I love that my badge says “UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.” FUCK YEAH. Literally I have to nearly run over 27 FAT. ASS. PIGEONS OR GEESE every time I roll into work. Because our campus is beautiful so if I were a pigeon or goose I WOULD WANT TO LIVE THERE TOO. AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE FINDING THE FOOD BUT THEY’RE REALLY FAT AND IT’S KIND OF ADORABLE.

I love that everyone I work with literally saves lives. I love working with patients and their health issues and getting to write and think and strategize. I LOVE MY FUCKING JOB. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I. FUCKING. LOVE IT. EVERY DAY– EVERY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I walk out of there HAPPY. LIKE I’M CLINICALLY INSANE AND SOMEONE PLASTERED A SMILE TO MY FACE. I AM NEVER UNHAPPY THERE. IT’S THE BEST JOB EVER.

I love my fashion world. I love getting to know people in this city. I LOVE WRITING.

I LOVE SHARING GOOD THINGS. I LOVE INTERVIEWING PEOPLE. I LOVE NETWORKING.

I love who I am right now. I love how confident I feel in speaking at meetings and interacting with strangers and just DOING WORK. I love putting ideas together and executing them and using my brain and speaking to people about business, life, whatever.

I LOVE MY BOYFRIEND.

AND OUR LIFE. AND OUR FRIENDS.

{Me and Alex’s best friend Farley at Beach Bar this summer}

I love our relationship. I love how he looks, speaks, and is.

I love our weekends when we go to Ikea and plan things for the apartment, and when we lay in bed watching Breaking Bad all day, and when we go visit his parents in Massachusetts and when we walk around our neighborhood and talk about everything and when he makes me laugh so. fucking. hard. because there is no one funnier than Alex. I love that he cooks, and has the greatest friends, and that he is sarcastic and sharp and sweet and confident. I love that we hate the same people, love the same people, think the same things about everyone and everything that ever happens, worship Seinfeld, and hate all humans. And that he is just the best fucking person EVER. I love his tall body and smile and floppy hair. I love that he looks like a skinny well-dressed Italian man. He looks like every guy walking down the streets in Rome and is everything I was ever, ever, looking for in another person. I love that he is magnetic, loves fucked up shit like Cronenberg and Lynch films, and observes everything. Nothing passes over his head. I love that he sits with me in the bathroom when I take baths, slays shit at work, and loves me. His brain, and his sense of humor, is the sexiest thing in the WORLD. EVERY TIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH I LAUGH. BECAUSE EVERYTHING HE SAYS IS SMART AND FUNNY. I would pay him to let me just listen to him say things about the world because it’s all THE FUNNIEST THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD. He is so quick. Humor is the most important thing in the universe to me. If you aren’t funny….what the fuck are you doing here. Get out of here. The world is for funny people. If a person doesn’t make me laugh, or doesn’t understand my humor, I can’t proceed. The way some people have deal breakers about other things. We just cannot see eye to eye if you aren’t funny and sarcastic. I cannot view the world through your eyes. I don’t understand you if you aren’t funny.

I love the talent in our world. I love the shit that people put out there. I want to thank them for their art. Like for stimulating my senses and bringing me joy. I love the films, and television shows, and books, and music, and photographs of the artists out there. I love it all. I love you, The White Panda, for bringing me so, so, so, so, much euphoria.

Every time I want to wake up, smile, be happy, work out, feel good, feel energized, get pumped up for working out, I listen to your music. Your mix tapes are literally a part of my life. I don’t actually know what my life would be like if you didn’t exist. I love you, Ratatat and Crystal Castles and COLD WAR KIDS and Florence + The Machine, and Two Door Cinema Club. I love you, the writers and actors and post production people of Breaking Bad, of Downton Abbey, of Entourage, of HOMELAND. I love you, the authors living and dead of all my favorite books. I love you, Michael K of Dlisted. I love you, genius fashion designers and photographers and bloggers and interior designers and small Etsy shop owners,  who BLOW MY MIND with your creativity. Thank you for literally exercising my eyes. For giving them something to WORSHIP. Thank you to the people who designed and made my favorite boots of all time, that literally make my soul sing with happiness when I wear them.

Thank you to the make-up geniuses who make the mascaras and eyeliners and lipsticks that make me feel pretty and not fugly.

I am so happy to know the people that I know.

To know Denis, whom I met via a BLOG– Just Jared– who reported that Rachel Bilson had gotten her hair colored by him. I’d been in love with Rachel’s faded brunette-copper hair for months and wanted the same look. I wrote about him on my blog. I called his salon. I made an appointment. I saw him. We fell in love. He made my hair look better than it has ever or will ever look. Ever. He has changed my life. Literally changed my life. I love knowing him. I love how talented and sweet he is. I love that he will be doing my color for THE REST OF MY LIFE. I love that when I’m 32, I’ll be calling Denis. I love that he’ll be invited to my wedding and will be brightening up my hair before it. I love that I have him in my life. I look at pictures of myself before Denis began coloring my hair and I weep.

I love that I know the Style Etoile girls. I love how hard working and sweet they are. I love that because of their talent, I have learned of other talents in the world, like Camilla and Marc, Michelle Siwy (don’t have words), IRO (OH MY GOD IRO!!!), Mishca Nonoo, Goldsign, MONA ASSEMI (worship) and What Goes Around Comes Around vintage. I love that they are half the reason I stay on top of amazing new things in the fashion world, just by being my FRIENDS. I love that some of the best, most well-fitting, most long-lasting pieces in my wardrobe exist because they had the EYE to buy them and bring them to their store. I love them and love that they are people who will be invited to my wedding and that I’ll have a lifelong relationship to.

I love Libby and Rachel, such FUN, AMAZING, CREATIVE, DOWN TO EARTH, SWEET, FUNNY (HIL-A-RIOUS) people with equally amazing significant others, because amazing attracts amazing.

I love Ellie, my dear dear dear dear dear friend from the time I was 4 years old, who was my friend regardless of whether we had clean towels, silverware, food in the fridge, or the ghetto-est car of all time. She accepted me unconditionally and is the only female friend in my life who knew me as a kindergartener, elementary schooler, middle schooler, high schooler, college student, and now. I love that we have memories of my pug Mingus, our Isuzu trooper, and my mom’s embarrassing antics. I love that she was the deliberate, measured, even-keeled half to my OFF-THE-CUFF, rash, acts-before-she-thinks personality. I love that you can take her word at EXACTLY face value. I love that she will never let me get away with being a tool, NOT THAT I LET MY OWN SELF, and that she’s just honest.

I love that she we meet for Pilates on Sundays at Stroga, and that no matter where we go in life, WE WILL HAVE THE SAME FRAME OF REFERENCE BECAUSE WE GREW THE FUCK UP TOGETHER. She knows me and my family. My brother. Our house. Who I was as a child. It’s incomparable. She’s also fucking HYSTERICAL. I love Ellie for her dry candor. She thinks I’m insane and always has the TRUEST observations re: my interests. One time, I wrote a blog post ALL about how obsessed I am with the Casiraghi’s and Santo Domingos and Dellals (look it up) and Ellie just goes….” dude wtf. I mean, I’ve never been more confused. If you PAID ME MONEY I couldn’t have followed the  dynamic of these families. I don’t even think THEY understand how they relate to each other. You’re a freak.”  But she loves me for it and I love her for not understanding how the Casiraghis and Dellas and Santo Domingos connect to one another and not wanting to.

I love that she introduced me to Dlisted and thus is basically half the reason I write the way I do. We have the same criteria for whether a human in life passes our test. We have always shared this. We attribute it to growing up with really cool older brothers and going to public school from kindergarten to 5th grade where boys were our friends and not this mythical other species to have issues about and be weird around. We share this implicit understanding of who is a tool and who is legit and we never disagree. The amount of times in our life we’ve shared a moment where someone is referring to someone or introducing us to someone and we just kind of look at each other like “yeah…no. #nope. #nothappening” and it’s all said with a look and a wink and like one word but we just AGREE on the character assessment of the person at hand– IS MANY TIMES.

Are. Her. Glasses. Kidding. Me.Us and her mom

Us and our brothers, at the very same place Alex and I have a view of from our apartment today

Us and my grandpa in our front yard when we were no older than 5

Us and Marlie and our two brothers on our front porch when we were 4 years old. ELLIE’S GLASSES AND STRIPES OMG IT KILLS ME!

This picture. Our brothers. Their soccer uniforms. Ellie’s boots and pants and glasses. The way she is holding me. Our pug Mingus. I LITERALLY can’t. It’s one of my all time favorites.

Us with my mom

We are sisters. Period. Being with her is like being with your sister. I don’t have one “technically” but Ellie is literally my family. It’s going to be A FUCKING SOB FEST at my/her weddings. Like I can’t even think about it because I get so emotional about our childhood and growing up together and the rock that she is. I feel like I would not have an identity without the friendship of Ellie since I was 3. It’s defining, to have a friendship like that in your life.

{Me and Fitz on her rooftop pool this summer}

I love my friend Fitz, who is as completely insane as I am. Equally spastic, equally able to switch from hyper to introspective in a flash, and equally hedonistic. I love that if I want someone to go off a ledge with, it’s her. HAHAHAH. I love that if I want to OD on a bag of doritos, shop with money I don’t have, or make bad decisions (aka– FUN decisions) she is my partner in crime. I mean literally we are the same person. Her name is Fitz, my name is Alina, but other than names we are the same person. I love that if I want to discuss astronomy and how it is that the earth doesn’t just decide to drop one day, she’ll be like “dawg…..I don’t know man what the FUCK is the earth.” And then we’ll talk for 3 hours about space, physics, and how we aren’t just all dead. HAHAH. I love that she is loyal to the fucking DEATH, and would fly to Mexico to bail me out of jail if I found myself in Mexico in jail. I love that she just takes life by the fucking horns and lives it. I love that she understands everything I ever say. Ever. Whether it’s the weirdest, whackest, or most absurd thing ever, she’s not only understands it but she agrees and then further articulates the thought in a way I wanted to but couldn’t. We literally share a brain. I once told her that I feel like a little railroad man had constructed an invisible railroad track between her brain and my brain and a train of thoughts is just constantly traveling back and forth between her train station destination and mine and she was like “DUDE EXACTLY.” hahahahah god I love her. She’s pretty much the only person who understands my sheer confusion at how humans live life– like how they just continue to do laundry, run errands to CVS, and cook dinner, and pretend like nothing’s happening. The amount of times we have had 3 hour phone conversations about how we are too tired to chop lettuce and how does anyone ever live their life and provide for themselves with a dinner that isn’t a bag of goldfish and also provide for other human beings aka their children, is in the thousands. She is a throne of UN judgement and all we ever do is talk about our deepest flaws and fears and issues and crack up and applaud the other one for being confounded by life because I don’t think anyone will ever understand my sheer confusion at life better than she does. Except Alex.

Me and Fitz after running into the Pride Parade this summer by accident:

In her pool:

On the rooftop of Brixton a few weeks ago:

Me, Fitz, and Ellie (we all used to be roommates!) this summer, about to eat at Sundevich, after we took a fun make-up class together:

And I LOVE CAIT’S PUG TYSON, THE GREATEST ANIMAL THAT’S EVER LIVED ON PLANET EARTH:

COME. ON. WITH. THAT. FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IS THIS PICTURE A REAL PICTURE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING. IF YOU DON’T LIKE PUGS, YOU’RE A SOCIOPATH. GET HELP.

I love my friend Kate that is a 4 foot tall ball of energy, passion, and hilarity. I’m FAIRLY certain that our group of friends would agree she is the most funny. Maybe. I mean we’re all pretty funny. But I THINK Fitz AND Ellie and everyone would agree on how hilarious Kate is. Maybe it’s me. OK WE’RE TIED. Her wit is unreal. She’s very very very quick. I love that she is game for anything, and takes such a genuine interest in everyone around her. She always wants to know how your life is doing, what’s new, what’s been on your mind lately. She just genuinely wants to know. I love her hilarious family, her obsession with her dogs, and how OCD she is. She also, like Ellie, is almost polar opposite me. I am a walking mess. All I ever want to do is “fling” things. She coined this term and it’s the most accurate thing anyone has ever said. When I get home from work I literally take my shoes off with force of gravity and just fling them into a corner. I throw my bag down and dump it out when I want to find something in it. I fling my shirt off. When I’m done with dinner I would rather fling my plate onto the floor instead of deal with it. I AM CONSTANTLY FLINGING. When I open a drink in the car and take the wrapper off of the cap, I INSTINCTIVELY just fling it onto the floor of the car. When I get home from shopping, I fling the shopping bags onto the bed. I don’t want to take 2 seconds to put anything down properly in their place. I just want to fling it to the fastest possible place. Kate is the most careful, precise, particular person I know so it’s a point of hilarity between our friendship. No shoe she has ever taken off has ever not gone perfectly into its designated home in her closet. I love our dynamic, being the tall mess and her being the short task master. I love that she just exudes a “buzz” of energy. She is always buzzing. I love that when I ask her what she did over christmas break, she wrote this to me, VERBATIM, THIS IS COPIED AND PASTED DIRECTLY FROM MY GMAIL:

LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT MY BREAK:
i took a half day on friday, december 23, 2011, which is when my break began.  my break ended on monday night, january 2, 2012.  i did the following things during break: watched the most recent season of dexter start to finish, watched THREE DAYS worth of law and order SVU, ate out every meal because i was too lazy to even grocery shop, slept for an absurd number of hours, laid on a couch under many blankets, took 1209809348 baths, washed my hair once, got on facebook occassionally, read your blog (which you need to update), discovered pinterest via my mom (who is obsessed and is sure you know about it [let me guess - you invented it? LOLOLOL!!!!]), drank guinness, made brie one night and ate the whole thing by myself, meant to call you like 10 separate times about boston but would forget or pass out EVERY SINGLE TIME (i took 6000 naps), aaaand watched scarface.  that is all. i. did.

HAHAHAHHAHAHA. I MEAN—->  ” ate out every meal, took 0234383082 baths, washed my hair once, discovered Pinterest (let me guess– you invented it), drank guiness, made brie and ate the entire thing, and meant to call you 10 times but passed out or forgot every single time. And watched scarface.” hahahahah RESPECT.

Me and Kate is 2005: And nearly the exact same picture, 7 years later in 2012– MY HOW WE’VE CHANGED:

On a boat, in 2009:

All smiles in 2009:

Me, Ellie, Fitz, and Kate have taken LOTS of pictures over the years. A little comparative history of the 4 of us over the years:

I love my Portuguese friend Rita who went to Montessori school with me and MY MOM was our teacher.

Us, in our Montessori school, at Halloween– me as a princess and her as some…clown I think, directly to my left! Rita you were so cute!

Rita, who gave me the greatest tour of Portugal a person could ever have DREAMED of when I visited her in 2006 as a 20 year old after having not seen or talked to her for 15 years (since pre-school) and we simply connected over Facebook and were both like “fuck yeah, why not.” I love FACEBOOK for giving people opportunities like that. I mean I literally reconnected with a friend, and enriched my life through experience and knowledge and culture, because Facebook exists. Rita and I would not have reconnected if she hadn’t just…seen my profile through 7 degrees of mutual friends and friended me. Rita’s just cool as shit. She’s just cool, and legit, and down to do anything ever. If I were like “yo let’s go to London and then fly to New York just for the night” she’d be like “alright let me see if I can get out of this wedding I have to go.” She’s also awkwardly intelligent, fluent in like 11 languages, well versed in current events, and confident– AKA EUROPEAN. hahaha that is literally the definition of all European people. Fuck. I want to be European.

I love Stephanie, my roommate and soul sister from Dartmouth, who is Cuban like me, fiery like me, lives in Miami (like my entire family), doesn’t take shit from anyone or anything like me, who makes fun of exactly the same things as me, who ruthlessly makes fun of me for my ridiculousness, who makes me laugh out loud with her sheer disgust for most of the trolls on the planet earth, like the teenagers who hang out at Barnes and Noble, and the trashy trolls who wear their g-strings out of the back of their pants at the mall in Miami, and the guy who worked at the coffee shop at our library in college who thought he was so cool because he would blast like, Led Zeppelin with huge headphones around his neck–unrelated to the music blasting out of the portable speakers he brought that served no purpose– and who would act nonchalant  and we’d be like YOU ARE NOT HOT, stop trying to project an effortless vibe, you are a tool, we are trying to study because IT’S THE LIBRARY and cannot hear over your Nickelback, thanks.

She’s a genius, gives the best advice, understands everything, listens, and lead me to the right path during the most convoluted period in my entire life. Her ability to know a person and give them amazing advice without telling them what to do is uncanny to a degree that she should make it her profession. I am blessed to have a friend like her. She’d listen to me talk for 5 hours straight and give me the best advice while being hilarious at it. She is so beautiful and careful and protective, and every time I’d just, make out with a guy in the basement of some fraternity in college she’d be like, “I mean are you fucking retarded? Why don’t you just wear a sign around your neck that says ‘TAKE IT ALL, I’M FREE.’ You know what you’re like? Like those girls on South beach who just take their bathing suit tops off and SHOW IT ALL to the world– just A FREE SHOW, GIVE IT ALL UP. HERE I AM NAKED GUYS, TAKE IT ALL FOR FREE.” I’d be like “whatever I wanted to make out WHO CARES” and she’d be like “OH! OH OKAY! I DIDN’T KNOW WE ALL JUST DID WHAT WE WANTED WHENEVER WE WANTED. SURRRREEEE YEAH, LET’S JUST IMMEDIATELY DO EVERYTHING WE ‘WANT.’ I wanted to have sex, but OOPS NOW I’M PREGNANT, OKAY! GREAT! YEAH, GO FOR IT. YOU’RE THE DUMBEST MOTHERFUCKER” and she’d start to get the Latin edge to her voice as she said it. I like, flirt with her about it. We literally flirt with each other. In Miami this May, Alex and I were on the beach and for about 2 minutes I felt like just taking my bathing suit top off and TANNING IN THE SUN–SUE ME– and I was like, excited to tell Stephanie because I knew her reaction would be HILARIOUS HORROR and she would tell me all the reasons I’m a fucking idiot and how creepy men now know what my boobs look like and how she’s so happy for me about it. And how she totally understands why I needed to just “feel free” for a moment. {drippppppppppppppppppppppppppppping in disgusted sarcasm.}

Me and Steph at a party in college:

At a club in Miami:

In our room when we were roommates our junior year!

In Brooklyn for Halloween two years ago:

This past May, over Alex’s birthday, in Miami, at this INCREDIBLE garden park she brought us to:

I love my friend Carolina who knows the depths of my soul.

Who is a little philosopher and poet and says things more beautifully in English than I have ever been able to, even though it’s her second language. I spent one of THE most special and formative years of my entire life with her (last, final, year of college) and her friendship changed the course of my life. I love how DEEP she is, how we can talk about death, love, friendship, marriage, violence, art, betrayal, ANY TOPIC EVER, and she literally blows my mind with her words. I love what a beautiful soul she is, how she FEELS so deeply, how joy or pain is felt unrestricted by her. How loyal she is to friends and family, how thoughtful she is about sending Christmas cards or buying thoughtful gifts (we SO have this in common. She, like me, will truly search high and low to find something special that you open and can’t BELIEVE she found for you, and I love her for it). I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE how she appreciates music the same way I do. How both of us would BLAST reggaeton or rap or any amazing music ever, and just dance for hours. I love how she, like me, can be so moved by a poem or song that she just cries and doesn’t even give a shit about it. Yeah I just cried because the poem I read was beautiful, you’re a freak if you don’t cry when you read it. I love how she travels, tries new things, and just LIVES LIFE. She’s a girl after my own heart.

The two of us on our graduation day!

She is the kind of friend who, when I told her that Estee Lauder stopped making my FAVORITE LIPSTICK OF ALL TIME THAT I HAVE WORN EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. FOR THE PAST 2.5 YEARS AND LITERALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT, she made me swear not to worry– that she would FIND IT IN PUERTO RICO. I thought “oh you’re a doll for trying to give me hope, but there’s no way.” She made me get out one of my old tubes that I keep around (I have about 7, that I’m still scraping from since they decided to ruin my life by discontinuing it), and she took a picture of it, wrote the info down, went back to Puerto Rico, and called me LAST NIGHT TO SAY SHE’D FOUND THREE TUBES OF IT. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHO HAS A FRIEND LIKE THAT?!!!!!!!!!!!! I. FUCKING. LOVE. HER.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is also another pint-size of hilarity. Ellie is pretty particular about who she thinks is funny, and Carolina CRACKS her up. Alex was completely obsessed with her too. She visited 2 weeks ago and when she left he was like… “so……………..Carolina may be my favorite person of all time.” I’M JUSTSAYING.

I love my friend Whitney, who honestly of ANY OF MY FRIENDS is the most identical to me in terms of our interests. She loves blogs. She loves Pinterest. She loves indie movies. She LOVES meeting new people. She loves ANYTHING cute. Cute restaurants. Cute stationery. Cute shoe boutiques. Cute outdoor patios. Cute portions of a beach. “The cutest little wine bar.” “The cutest little mexican taco joint with $2 dollar tacos.” “The cuttttttest French bistro.” “The cutest view of the city from this path that you climb.” And more importantly– OUR DEFINITION OF CUTE IS THE SAME. She LOVES EXPLORING NEW CITIES. She loves walking for 6 hours in a new city, stopping into 9 coffee shops, 6, restaurants, and 27 clothing boutiques. She loves meeting the owners of the places, making connections with bartenders or other patrons, and ending up going to a party with them even though we just met them 2 minutes ago.

She loves decorating her apartment cute, making a red-pepper-and-goat-cheese frittata for dinner, and waking up early to go to spinning class. The months that I spent living in Barcelona with Whitney were the greatest in my LIFE. She is my soul’s other half. We LIKE EVERYTHING THE SAME. She is basically female Alex. There is nothing– NOTHING– NOT ONE THING– Whitney likes that I don’t like, or that she doesn’t like and I like. In Cabo, she brought me to the coolest hookah bar that she said I would love that had “the best chai lattes in the world.” They were the largest, most amazing, chai lattes and I sometimes lay in bed at night and FEEL myself on the roof of that insanely cool hookah bar in Cabo San Lucas Mexico, with Whitney, drinking that chai latte.This picture she snapped while I was doing it, is maybe my favorite picture of all time:

In Barcelona, we created some of the best memories I’ll ever have at smokey wine bars she discovered, or little hole-in-the-wall joints with amazing happy hours. We’d spend hours, 4 nights a week, at Juicy Jones– this unfathomably good vegan place that we didn’t REALIZE was vegan for 3 months because the food was so good we did not even notice that nothing on the menu involved meat, cheese, or dairy products. If I were in prison, I would ask for my very last meal to be from Juicy Jones. I want my honeymoon to be me, Whitney, and Alex at a table at Juicy Jones. It signifies pure happiness to me. She introduced me to Intelligentsia coffee in LA. To all these cute places that are so ME. And I’d be like, I can’t believe I have this friend who knows so intimately what I like. She might as well be my romantic significant other because SHE KNOWS. Every time she takes me anywhere I’m like YOU DID IT AGAIN. HOW DID YOU DO IT AGAIN. HOW DID YOU KNOW I’D NEVER BE SO OBSESSED WITH A PLACE EVER, WTF, I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, THANK YOU, FOR KNOWING ME AND INTRODUCING ME TO SUCH INCREDIBLE THINGS.

I trust her recommendation on any venue, any spot in town, any person, LIKE GOLD. I love EVERY HUMAN BEING Whitney has ever introduced me to. She attracts THE BEST FUCKING HUMANS. Whitney is amazing. She is soooooooooooo sweet. So thoughtful. She taught me how to be an adult. She really did. Living with her in Barcelona, and spending time with her at her apartment in Portland Oregon, she taught me how to grow up, without even knowing it. At the same year in college as her, I was living in a dorm and she had moved off campus in Portland Oregon to this amazing studio with all this furniture she had found herself, with all these cooking tools and cook books and cute things, and made herself legitimate dinners at night, (instead of frozen pizza), and took the trash out when it was full (instead of observing it passively for 3 weeks at a time), and could cook all these things, and hosted dinners and I was..in a dorm, and I was like, Whitney, You are INSPIRING and I feel like a joke compared to you. When I visited her apartment in LA and I was still living at home after college, I again couldn’t believe the life she’d created for herself and wanted to copy every aspect of it. I have copied her on so many occasions.

Whitney is also the kind of friend who, when Alex and I visited LA this past February, she f*cking showed up with a picnic basket that had PLASTIC FUCKING CHAMPAGNE GLASSES, a bottle of red wine, nuts, granola bars, bottled water, and more, so that we could go have a picnic together in Griffith Park. I mean WHAT!!!!! I LOVE YOU WHITNEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She also is super dry, hilarious, and will both totally indulge and totally joke at my ridiculousness. Sometimes she looks at me when I’m squealing and jumping up and down and is just like “I….just don’t know.” hahaha she is like Stephanie and Ellie. CALLS ME OUT and is like “Alina, you’re being completely insane, no, the man you just made eye contact with on the street isn’t going to follow us to my house and murder us in the middle of the night, RELAX.”

I love my friend Kristin, who was my VERY first friend at Dartmouth and who I actually get butterflies/slightly choked up thinking about because of how she shaped my first year and all subsequent years at Dartmouth. She was and is that one friend. DAY ONE, she lived directly next to me in my dorm. She shared every love story, heartbreak, party, and all-nighter with me. She would get AS emotionally overwhelmed (if the moment struck us right) by the beauty of snow falling outside of dorm room window as we studied and learned together in cozy sweatpants on a Saturday night. Her brain did and always will astound me. There’s some like, CS Lewis quote about how friendship is that moment when you are like “WHAT? YOU TOO?”, that moment when someone says something and you CAN’T believe they’ve not only ever had the same thought but put it into words into a way that you’ve been trapped and confounded by since the moment you had the thought? Her. Her mind is beautiful, period. She has a beautiful, beautiful mind- she and Carolina are the same like that.

Kristin is an amazing friend, never phased by anything and always making me HOLD my stomach with pain from laughing so hard. FUNNIEST. FUCKING. PERSON. I mean like, genius funny. So funny that 99.9 percent of people don’t understand she’s funny because her humor is SO from a place of genius. If Kristin makes you laugh, then you have passed any test in my book. Like Larry David and Louis CK combined funny but not remotely overt. She ALSO didn’t let me get away with shit, like Ellie and Steph. And she is my Whitney of college and New York– knows every thing I’d like, everything I’d think is cool, everything that would blow my mind. The THINGS she has introduced me to in New York– Everything cool that I have ever done has come from Kristin. I met The Cobra Snake and had a love affair with Jared Leto, because Kristin nonchalantly took me to the places they were at. Obviously without knowing they were there, just because..those are places she genuinely goes in her actual real life, and people like that go there too because they are impossible-to-object-with cool places. I basically do not feel cool enough for Kristin. But also, she is that friend who is most like me in terms of wanting to spend a quiet Saturday afternoon, in solitude with each other, reading books instead of being out in the world with humans. Sometimes we just want to do that and somehow when we want to do it always lines up.

Me, Kristin, and Carolina together at a Halloween party in college:

I love my friend Beth, who ALSO shares the same sense of what a perfect weekend is like.

{Me and Beth in highschool. I love this picture. I think it’s fucking hilarious.}

When I lived abroad in Barcelona, I visited Beth in Paris and the pure, raw, HAPPINESS I felt on that trip is so indicative of what it’s like to be together just she and I. I was broke and she didn’t care that my $20 a day budget (YEAH, NOT EUROS, DOLLARS, I’M NOT KIDDING), limited us– she saw it as a challenge and we had a fucking BLAST. It was an out-of-the-movies, forever memorable, life-time topper of a trip. I can feel, smell, hear, see every single second of those 72 hours. Seeing Notre Dame and Musee D’Orsay and the Lourve, eating french onion soup, falling in love with a French man, staying up ’till 7 am, eating store-bought bagueete + brie + wine for dinner every night, sleeping on her air mattress. Oh my god I can FEEL it. When Beth moved to Brooklyn after college, I continued to have some of the best years of my life on account of HER. I’d go up for the weekend and she’d have my little bedroom ready, and we’d hop on down to Trader Joes and buy their $5.00 bbq chicken pizza and split it for dinner to save money, and we’d go shopping at LF and walking all over the entire city until our legs were violently throbbing. Beth completely understands me– my frenetic-ness, the way I’d stay up till 6 am just from sheer EXCITEMENT at being in New York, and live off iced coffee and bagels, and have questionable love affairs with 21 year old skaters (I was single). Her motto is basically “game on.”

{At a bar in New York together}

BETH, with whom I spent my very first ever Fashion’s Night Out, the first time it ever existed as a thing. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun. We just ROAMED every square inch of the Meatpacking district, got schwasted, got free blow dries at John Frieda, crashed the private invite-only part at the Stella McCartney store, and ended the night with drunken street pizza. Classic.

Photos from our FNO together:

And she is also just someone whose work ethic and ambition I majorly admire. We’d go into Soho together mid-afternoon and sit at Cafe Gitane or Fiat, and get a coffee, and just talk about work and life and future plans, because our conversations never had to be about boys or other people. They were always about LIFE, because we connect on a life-level.

A photo of me, Ellie, and Beth together after walking over the Brooklyn Bridge one beautiful Saturday:

I love Tory, and Maura, who I was sitting in math and history class with when I was effing 12 years old. Who I can share memories of Sister Smith with (the evil nun at our school). TORY, who is a comedic genius, with whom I put on a live public performance of Craig David’s “What’s Your Flavor” in front of our entire highschool and people were telling us for WEEKS that it was the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

YEAH. WE WERE HILARIOUS AS 14 YEAR OLDS TOO, GET OVER IT. We planned a choreographed dance to the song for WEEKS, bought big gulps from 7-11, went up to the podium in front of our entire Catholic school where everyone was in uniforms and being all demure and shit, deadpan asked each other “hey tory, what’s your flavor?”; “it’s funny you ask Alina, ’cause I was wondering the same thing myself.” HIT IT— WHAT’S YOUR FLAVA, TELL ME WHAT’S YOUR FLAVA. We had hired someone to be standing at the back of the room to flip the switch to turn the music on at the exact moment we paused, and nobody knew what was happening and all of a sudden we were conga-lining around the entire auditorium with a choreographed dance to CRAIG DAVID. WHAT’S YOUR FLAVOR. Excuse me sorry, what’s your FLAVA.

WHY YOU ASK? THERE WAS NO REASON. WE WERE HILARIOUS AND WANTED EVERYONE IN THE SCHOOL TO BE LIKE WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. We had our teachers up and dancing to the song, like an Old Navy ad. YEAH.

Tory, who bought me what is probably my favorite present of all time that I have used, photographed, and blogged about ON SO MANY OCCASIONS. AN ADORABLE, GLASS CHALKBOARD CUTTING BOARD WITH THE WORDS “CHOP CHOP” ON IT. I HAVE NEVER LOVED SOMETHING SO MUCH.

Maura, my little “moral Maura” who is THE REASON I KNOW ALEX. YES, YOU GET A SPECIAL TOAST AT THE WEDDING, THANK YOU FOR BEING A WONDERFUL ENOUGH PERSON THAT YOU BROUGHT THE MOST WONDERFUL PERSON I’LL EVER MEET INTO MY LIFE, VIA YOURSELF. You’re just the most solid, trustworthy, kind soul and have always been just….yourself. Hilarious and not afraid to stay in on a Saturday night with me while everyone else was partying. And you’re also a gourmet cook and it’s awkward. I had THE BEST TIME when you visited me in Barcelona and we had lunch down on the water and talked about how growing up has changed us and then I got a concussion and was immobile for the rest of your time there. You are wise and wonderful and I would ask you advice on ANYTHING IN THE WORLD because I trust your view of life that much. See you at our wedding.

I love my friends who came into my life at a later stage. Laura, my little blue-eyed friend with our shared love for Florence and Kid Cudi and all other good music in the world, who introduced me to the Gotye song 10 months before the rest of the universe because you’re ahead of the world like that, and whose been a devoted blog reader of mine since DAY one. And Jessica, beautiful beautiful soul Jessica, who sees the world through the same lens that I do. Whose photography and appreciation of art and music mirrors mine to an uncanny degree. Who sent me the cutest care package in the world, filled with smells and pictures and anecdotes that blew my mind.

And Alissa, how close we got after college!! You MAY be funnier than Kate. #Sorry. Alissa who ALSO magically knows exactly what I like and introduced me to such all-time New York City favorites as Mermaid Inn and Water Taxi Beach. HOW DO YOU KNOW ME SO WELL??!?!!?? Alyssa is one of those people who ACTUALLY follows through when you say you’re looking for a job and do you know of any openings. NOBODY EVER ACTUALLY HELPS OUT WITH THAT. And Alissa is the kind of person who actually goes to work to help you find a job and follows through and sets up meetings and gets you interviews when you only even really said it in passing and didn’t think anything would come of it. Do you know how rare that is in a person? A follow-through-er who actually means what they say? SHE’S A GEM. YOU’RE A GEM, ALISSA.

Kendall, Alex, and Theresa, who I’ve known since SO LONG ago at Stone Ridge, I LOVE YOU for reading my blog so sweetly and for sending me personal notes on certain posts to express something the post made you think or feel or remember. That makes me happier and feel luckier than I could even describe, and I LOVE YOU for taking the time to write something like that to me. It means THE WORLD and is a forever thing to me. In like twenty years I’ll still be yammering/blabbering on about how much I love you for being an ear to my writing and actually taking the time to send me amazing, personal, thoughtful notes about certain posts of mine. It’s like…..that’s all I could ever want, is for someone to connect with what I’m saying; and I have cherished the comments you’ve left either on the blog or in an email because they’re little human pieces of connection from people that knew me as a 12 year old and that share a certain something with me. I LOVE YOU and am glad we’ve all stayed in touch as adults and have our memories of Stone Ridge and Bethesda together, and could hug you a thousand times over for being an ear to my words. You’ve reached out to me at times when, unbeknownst to you, I was totally over blogging and ready to shut the ‘ole thing down and stop putting myself out there, and the things you said totally reaffirmed why I carry on with this ridiculous public diary of mine.

I love my Dartmouth network of people. People who maybe I wasn’t even THAT CLOSE WITH at college but who’ve been my little virtual friends in the years since, through Facebook or this blog, because no matter what phase of your life you’re in, you SHARE a certain something with the people you’ve been with during that phase. Thank you for liking a blogpost I’ve linked to on Facebook, or leaving a comment. I COULD KISS YOU FOR IT.

I love everyone who has ever spent their own time reading my own words. I am grateful for that. Even if you’re making fun of me or judging me or mocking me afterwards, I LOVE YOU FOR being part of my audience. And to the complete strangers who have ever left me a comment, I. LOVE. YOU.

I am SUPER high on life right now and just want the world to know that I love everything in it.

My friend Carolina, the philosopher linguist genius, gave me a rough translation of a Spanish phrase that’s “show me what you’re bragging about and I’ll show you what you’re lacking.” And it’s totally true right, that person who says “oh my marriage is SOOO GREAT!!!” you’re like “aw poor thing, her marriage must suck. Pathetic that she feels the need to broadcast it.” I KNOW. I THINK THAT WAY ABOUT EVERYONE ALL THE TIME. BUT I DON’T CARE RIGHT NOW. BECAUSE I’M NOT BRAGGING. I’M JUST BEING JOYOUS AND USING MY WORDS TO COMMUNICATE MY JOY. I DON’T CARE IF YOU THINK I’M UNHAPPY BECAUSE GUESS WHAT, IN LIKE 3 YEARS OF BLOGGING I’VE NEVER WRITTEN A POST SO DEDICATED TO MY PURE HAPPINESS, BECAUSE I DON’T JUST MAKE THINGS UP. BECAUSE I DON’T FAKE ANYTHING. I COULDN’T IF I TRIED. I AM A GIANT, GAPING, BLEEDING, OPEN BOOK. IT’S MY NATURE. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LIE. IF I’M MISERABLE, YOU KNOW IT. IF I’M HAPPY, YOU FUCKING KNOW IT!! AND GUESS WHAT?? THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE I’VE BEEN 22 THAT I’VE FELT THIS. THIS PEACE. THIS PURE, SPREADING, INVASIVE JOY. BECAUSE I’VE BEEN PRETTY TRANSITIONAL. AND PRETTY UNHAPPY. I WAS WORKING AS AN INTERN MAKING $300 A MONTH AND SLEEPING WITH A 33 YEAR OLD ITALIAN MAN WHO WAS RUDE TO ME. I WASN’T HAPPY. I WAS IN AND OUT OF A RELATIONSHIP THAT WASN’T WITH MY TRUE MATCH. I WASN’T HAPPY. I THOUGHT I WANTED TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL AND STUDIED FOR THE LSAT AND “FELL IN LOVE” WITH MY MARRIED MORMON LSAT INSTRUCTOR (FOR LACK OF ANYTHING ELSE SATISFYING IN MY LIFE)– I WASN’T HAPPY.  I WAS WORKING AS A TEMP AT A MISERABLE JOB– I WASN’T HAPPY. I LIVED AT HOME WITH MY HIPPIE BROTHER AND HIS 4 DOGS AND STRANGER ROOMMATES FROM CRAIGSLIST– I WASN’T HAPPY. I LIVED IN A BLOODSUCKING, BOX OF AN APARTMENT IN CLARENDON (MY WORST NIGHTMARE) WITH NO CHARACTER, NO CHARM, AN EVIL CORPORATE LEASING OFFICE THAT FLEECED US OF MONEY AND I HAD A 2 HOUR COMMUTE TO WORK— I WASN’T HAPPY (MY ROOMMATES NOT WITHSTANDING HIIIII ELLIE & CAIT). I MEAN, I WAS HAPPY ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS, BUT I WASN’T LIVING MY ZEN. MY SWEET SPOT. MY ME.

BUT NOW I AM.

AND I WROTE THIS POST FOR ME. AND FOR THE PEOPLE AND INANIMATE OBJECTS I WANTED TO EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE AND LOVE FOR.

I AM HAPPY.

I AM BEYOND HAPPY.

MY HOME. MY NEIGHBORHOOD. OUR NON-CORPORATE BUILDING WITH ITS ART DECO CHARM AND 1950′S TILED BATHROOM AND NO DISHWASHER AND AMAZING, ATTENTIVE, CHARMING, QUIRKY STAFF.

MY COFFEE SHOP.

MY YOGA STUDIO.

MY JOB.

MY BOYFRIEND, FUTURE HUSBAND, FUTURE BABY DADDY. MY BEST FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE.

MY FRIENDS.

MY NETWORKS.

MY JOBS.

MY FUTURE.

MY ROUTINES.

MY WEEKENDS.

THE FACES I SEE AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND DON’T EVEN KNOW BUT BRING ME JOY JUST THROUGH RECOGNITION.

THE INTERNET. WORDPRESS. FACEBOOK. TWITTER. THE JOY IT ALL BRINGS ME.

I AM IN LOVE WITH LIFE AND I LOVE YOU FOR LISTENING.

THANK YOU.

The best Los Feliz side street

Yesterday in LA, we:

• Woke up at 6 am after going to bed at 2
• Drove straight to West Hollywood {it was the most gorgeous day IN THE ENTIRE WORLD EVER}and had breakfast outside at Urth. I got a croissant and latte (tsk tsk, but all rules go OUT THE WINDOW on vacation because life is short and it’s an even shorter vacation), boyfriend got croissant with brie and raspberry jam and a latte
• Drove 2 feet around the corner to Andy Lecompte salon where I got my hair done for free. Entirely free. Zero dollars. Free. (that story to come later).  In a nutshell, Denis told me he wanted to color my hair as complimentary Valentine’s Day gift to me for always being so supportive of his work!! His words. I had a panic attack and was like AYFKMRN— it’s easy to be supportive of your work, YOU ARE A GENIUS AND THE MOST AMAZING PERSON EVER. How insanely sweet is that??!!! He is the nicest person in the WORLD. I could not believe it. But there’s still a little more to the story which I’ll tell ya later. Was there from 9 – 1 (!!)– I could write a whole blogpost on spending four hours in the Andy LeCompte salon and I will. It’s probably my favorite place on earth. Like I want to just hang out there every day. It’s like a giant party no matter what time of day it is. The best music ever, the most artistic and creative types all milling about using their skill and making people hotter with cooler and prettier and edgier hair cuts and color, totally tatted out (literally like I feel like a massive loser that my skin is NOT covered in  tats), surviving on coffee that is literally like rocket fuel because they were out till 5 am the night before (they have a literal like…coffee bar in the back of the salon where they serve up the most insane iced coffees you’ve ever seen and everyone just drinks them all day and it’s LITERALLY rocket fuel, like total crack- so good) and just hang out looking/being cool in their summery, chill, skater clothes. All the bro stylists are in like…RVCA tanks with long hair and beanies and lace-up boots– CLASSIC. It’s literally ALWAYS a party in there. Just such a fun and energetic vibe with really cool people and I literally want to live there- no biggie. When I move here I am going to be Denis’ apprentice. Like..what if I actually did that. I’m going to. I literally wouldn’t be surprised if you talked to me in 3 years and my day-job was learning how to give people beachy Gisele hair at the hands of my brazilian male model coloristDenis. It’s happening.
• While I was in the salon, Alex drove through the hills- HE’D NEVER BEEN TO CALIFORNIA so I mean…he just wanted to DRIVE.
• Pick me up at 1 and we drove back through the hills to Runyon Canyon- more on that to come.
• Drove all over Mullholland, and then down through Beverly Hills- like THE Beverly Hills
• Drove to Los Feliz for a drink from Alcove and a little shopping
• Had happy hour drinks and apps at my favorite restaurant in LA, Figaro– always the best vibe, the best people watching, and the best next-to-you seating company. We sit outside on the sidewalk tables and I’ve never NOT made cool friends from the people sitting next. This time it was George, a regular, who orders the BIGGEST lattes iN THE WORLD- apparently they put them in a special cup for him, and they’re non fat and decaf, which he calls “the why-bother.” We talked about the awkwardly tall giant of a man who kept walking by us on the sidewalk which George used as an opportunity to make fun of Alex for being a freak since he’s also a yetti, a new drug in Russia called croc-a-dill that like..rots your skin off or some shit (lovely dinner table chat!), and George called Alex a hall monitor because he tried to tell me I should have dinner before dessert when I wanted to order the opposite. ALL joking. Like basically the two of us were flirting with George for an hour straight. We got in the car, and all we talked about for one hour was how amazing George was. We made other friends but no one compared to G.
• Thennnn we went to back to our hotel, got changed, and drove to Bottega Louis (oh my WORD do I NOT have the words to describe my love for this place), and then went across the street to a reallllllly cool Whiskey Bar called Seven Grand that had an old school boy’s club lodge feel to it, with plaid walls and deer’s heads and whiskey bottles everywhere.
• Went to bed at 2, woke up at 7 (I always can’t sleep on vacation out of excitment), and now we are about to go have breakfast at Blu jam!
• PEACE!!!!

Friday: My boyfriend and I went on a lil’ date to JALEO. If you have never been to Jaleo, my advice is this: go to Jaleo. It is authentic Spanish tapas cuisine and I am in heaven when I am there and feel like I am back in Barcelona. The Sangria, the fucking amazing milk and goat’s cheeses that come with orange marmelade and honey and macadamia nuts…BACON WRAPPED DATES [a literal taste orgasm in your mouth], delicious sausages and gazpacho and papas fritas…it’s just a veritable carnival of deliciousness. I am also a really big fan of variety so I would rather have 10 small-bite dishes of olives and cheeses and bread and cured meats and and small portions of soups and vegetables, rather than one large entree. Basically Jaleo is my favorite.

After dinner, we saw a 9:30 showing of Win-Win a.ka. THE BEST MOVIE OF MY LIFE. I can’t….I can’t even start on how good this movie was. You MUST see it. I would watch it 3 more times in a row. It was the official selection at Sundance, for a reason. I was dogsitting all weekend– gotta get that monayyy– so after the movie, my boyfriend slept over with me because I’m always scared to be in stranger’s houses alone– not that weird of a thing to be scared of haha. On Saturday morning he made me scrambled eggs, potatoes, and cinnamon rolls [he's a keeper that one], and we effed around with nothing to do because as I’ve said before- SATURDAYS ARE SO BORING, if the weather is cold. Saturdays in the summer– the best. Saturdays when it’s cold– just don’t. Hung out with my friend Kate for the afternoon with intermittent dog walking, and then my boyfriend made pork chops, asparagus, and leftover potatoes with rosemary from breakfast for us for dinner [I won the lottery because there is nothing I value more than not having to cook], and then we got ready for the Cold War Kids concert. They were……..UHHHHH MAY ZING. I’ve loved them for yeeaaarrss and Nathan Willett, the lead singer, blew our MINDS with how insane is voice is. His voice/their sound is like a combination of Pearl Jam/Eddie Vetter, Kings of Leon, Rolling Stones, and Muse. They were SOOOOOOOOOOOOO lively and charismatic and such forces on stage. I have seen a billion concerts, and of all the people I’ve seen live, there are four who I would say to friends/strangers that they mustmustMUST attempt to see in their lives– only four who astounded me with their talent and who are better live than on cd because of how their personalities and raw talent come across live in person, without any producing or tweaking:
Cold War Kids, Crystal Castles, Ratatat, and Florence and the Machine. If I had to pick ONE of those, I would pick Ratatat. Amazing, huh? And if I had to pick two it would be Ratatat and Cold War Kids. And if three, Crystal Castles would make the cut. Florence would be 4th. Second group up after those 4 would be The XX. My rankings may be different though after I see Adele live in a few weeks here. It was pretty unintentionally cute because the first night my boyfriend and I kissed/I slept over at his place, we stayed up till like 7 a.m. listening to the Cold War Kids pandora station. And this concert haaaaaaaaaappened to fall on the night of our six month anniversary! Sunday he made homemade bacon, egg, and cheese mcmuffins [wtf], and we hung out until I went shopping for his food surprise. And then we met up and watched The Fighter. And now here we are. Monday night. Me blogging, and him wishing I would exist in the real world and stop blogging. Hope ya’ll had a good weekend too, and GO. SEE. WIN WIN!

My boyfriend started a new job a few weeks ago and as per usual with new jobs, especially jobs in sales, he pretty much never has time to eat lunch. He, like his girlfriend, doesn’t pack a lunch because it’s just not his style to make a pb & j and ziplock-bag some apple slices, so the poor guy calls me at at 2 o’clock every day being like “I AM STARVING.” He keeps running out of time to run off campus to grab something in between appointments. And so I was always like “you need to have stuff stocked under your desk- granola bars and crackers and nuts and energy bars to keep you going until you have time to zip away and grab takeout.” But I knew he would never get around to doing it because he has better things to do than grocery shop for nuts to store at his desk.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I decided to whip up a little surprise for him. I went to the container store yesterday and got a big plastic bin [ps- the container store is CRACK for me. I spent an embarassing amount of money. Like I literally think I need therapy because of how helpless I am against container store merchandise]. I got crinkly orange paper, metallic silver tissue paper, and a big sparkly ribbon, and a whiteboard that he could keep at his desk, since it’s an office-y thing, but also worked perfectly to stick in the bin with my message explaining the present. Side story: I have such a HARD time shopping for boys because I just don’t know how to think outside of being a girl. I saw this supercute pastel blue whiteboard, and I wanted to get it but realized at the last minute that pastel blue wasn’t exactly masculine. So I faltered at the cash regsiter and asked the lady “ughhhhh is this too feminine for my boyfriend?” And she was like “Girl, it’s pastel. I have sons. Please do me a favor and put that whiteboard down.” And I was like “UGHH BUT IT’S SO CUTTTEE!!! are you SURE?” And she just stared at me, knowing I knew her answer. We had a great rapport. So I went back to look for other colors and the only other one was orange. And I brought it back and she was like, verbatim, “CHILD, PLEASE- I HAVE. TWO. SONS. THEY WOULDN’T BE CAUGHT DEAD WITH A PASTEL BLUE OR NEON ORANGE WHITE BOARD AT THEIR DESK. Please go get this poor boy a plain white board.” She was shaking her head “NO” like I had just brought back a “Hello Kitty”-themed whiteboard. And I giggled and begrudgingly went back and got a white one. I can’t understand boys. I was like- BUT IT’S SO PRETTY!!! The last thing I wanted to do was let go of those colored whiteboards. But I did. SO after the Container Store, I got yummy salted pistachios from Whole Foods; two boxes of nuture grain bars; a box of peanut-butter Cliff bars; two bags of chex mix; two boxes of goldfish; a thing of ritz; slim jims (Here I started to think more like a boy. I was like- there are zero boys that DON’T like slim jim even though I think it’s sickkkk); a six pack of gatorade; a pack of Starbucks bottled espresso drinks; two instant mac&cheese cups that you just microwave; and a biggg bag of potato chips. I think there were some other goodies but I can’t remember. I got one of those plastic Chinese takeout containers from the Container store and filled that with the ritz and slim jims and mac and cheese, and then stuck that into the big plastic box and surrounded it with everything else…I wanted to break up the boringness of a big plastic box with something additional for him to have to open, i.e. the Chinese carry-out box. I wrote a cute little note for him on the white board, stuck a big red heart on it, added a card to the outside, and then had my friend who works with him (and also happens to be MY ROOMMATE!) take it to work with her and sneak it to his desk while he was at lunch. I was very excited and he was thrilled : )