Poshdeluxe

music for the trail, brought to you by dolly parton (obvs)

URBAN HIKE!!!!!

so, a while ago, josh, kc, henri and i decided to go on an urban hike.

basically, like an onomatopoeia, an urban hike means what it sounds like.

and yes i did just write onomatopoeia.

anyway

henri called it:

GRAND THEFT OREGON TRAIL

supplies:
pioneers (us)
food (optional, cos you can buy it on the way)
drink (optional, cos you can buy it on the way)
money (so you can do the above)
camera (so you can post about it on xanga)
pick-up service (so you don’t have to walk aaaaaall the way back)

here we see three brave travelers, at the starting point.

why yes, kc’s camelback is full of lone star. that’s cos we, like boy scouts, are v. v. prepared.

challenge #1: CROSSING THE DITCH

although we had the option of bartering with an Indian to take us
across, we opted to ford the ditch ourselves, even at the risk of
drowning and/or severe snake bites. eeeee.

whew! that was close, but we made it. bonus points for everyone staying alive.

hike hike hike

mystery #1: WHO DRIED UP ONE SIDE OF THE CREEK?

perhaps we’ll find more clues along the way…

(note: open container laws don’t apply on the trail. the frontier is a v. lawless place, full of wild men and loose women)

i looked for arrowheads to no avail (zero bonus points).

suddenly, we came upon the statue of a saint! perhaps left to mark the grave of some unfortunate traveler.

we asked for blessings for our journey but chose not to leave a lone star offering (must conserve supplies).

the trail can really change people. josh, once a fine, upstanding lawyer, was reduced to a recklass outlaw. see?

no regard for the rules of society whatsoever.

hike hike hike

the trail is relentless and often rocky.

challenge #2: HUGE RAVENOUS BEARS

we narrowly escaped a gruesome fate by climbing a tree…. all of us, except one.

kc was later found in the bears’ den, being raised as one of their own.
we rescued her just in time by distracting the bears with henri’s
dancing. 100 bonus points!

there are many strange characters along the trail. one must constantly
be vigilant and wary of things like “colorful shirts” and “balloon
animals.”

we stumbled upon the largest birthday party i have ever seen (two sheet
cakes from HEB… such opulance!), a beautiful reminder that hope and
joy survive in the wilderness.

however, this party brought with it…

challenge #3: THE CUTEST KIDS, EVER
(otherwise known as the Sirens of the Pease Park)

the party was populated by thousands of children, all attempting to
distract us from our mission with their adorability and waddling walks.

here we see one siren attempting to hypnotize us with some sort of tribal balloon animal dance.

sure, they look innocent, but this little girl probably has dysentery.

we run to the Swings of Mercy to escape (and to refuel).

whoah, that was a close one.

sometimes, pioneers leave marks and symbols to aid future travelers along the way. the possible translation of this drawing:

“poisonous flowers may lead to brain fever and tooth decay. BEWARE!”

a sobering sight, to be sure.

hike hike hike, towards the light…

josh considered establishing his homestead inside of this hole, but we
talked him out of it (which was hard, cos look how excited he is!). the
dampness would have probably caused consumption.

towards the end of the trail, we discovered a secret hideout, perhaps
used by outlaws or dangerous Indians. unfortunately, i can’t display
any pictures of this place, cos then it wouldn’t be our secret hideout
anymore. obvs.

but here are the steps leading down to it…

the rumor is that jesse james used to flee to this place after robbing
banks and cheating at cards. as you can see, he left his mark.

hike hike hike

and… what’s that in the distance?!!!… is it… is it the promised land? the end of the trail?!!

YES!!!! we have reached the glittering oasis of town lake!!!!!!

WE WON!!!!!!

now we can build log cabins and shoot all of the buffalo so the Indians don’t have any.

kc and i celebrate the moment on the pedestrain bridge, with the glorious city behind us:

beautiful art reminds us that we have returned to civilization.

(mermaids by marielle)

we feast upon the native food at maudie’s and discover the wonder of a
beverage called mar-ga-ri-tas. a million billion bonus points!

however, the journey has not left us unscathed. i fear that josh may
have eaten a poisonous flower or two, as evidenced by the appearance of
his new friend, jennifer lopez. on his hand.

yes, the price of the trail is high. but we hope to cure him with the careful application of more mar-ga-ri-tas.

GRAND THEFT OREGON TRAIL NEW HIGH SCORE: PANTS WORLD!

try and beat us, weenies.

one fine shining example

this is what happens when you transfer old mp3’s onto yr work computer

so last night, i was packing for my mini-trip to boston (eee!), and i
decided to play some music on my home computer (which i never do, cos i
haven’t updated my playlist in aaaages). as song after song rolled
through my itunes, i realized…

I HAVE A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF MUSIC, thanks to heavy abuse of
rice’s high-speed internet connection back in ye olde college days.

holy CRAP.

in the midst of one of the most ridiculous solo dance parties i’ve ever
thrown for myself, i had a *brilliant* epiphany: i need to bring these
songs with me to work!!!

yes of COURSE! what better way to perform as an administrative professional than by listening to real mccoy while filling out important and v. official documents?

oh that’s right. it’s a link to the song, xanga pants. and that’s what
this post is all about. i want to share the JOY of these cray songs
with you. then you can have yr own shameful dance parties. like this
one:

that old guy in the green shirt is totally a flashdancer. i mean, you can just *tell*.

the beauty of this post is that no one has to know that you actuallly WANTED to download, say, shaggy’s “it wasn’t me.”

cos, you probably haven’t even HEARD that song. nor do you care. at all. really. i mean, these people obviously hate it.

especially the cowboy hat guy.  it looks like he’s actually
arguing with his girlfriend, as if attempting to convince her that she
did not, in reality, see him with the girl from next door, getting busy
on the bathroom floor.

she’s not buying it. and i think shaggy would tell him to lose the hat.
or else start hitting on the girl behind him with the weird half-shawl
thing. she looks loose.

but HOLLA i bet you can’t way to RAWK OUT with crazy town!!! i can just hear these boys screaming, “you’re my pretty baby, YOU MAKE ME GO CRAZAAAY!”

because, hey, it makes them feel cool.

a dance party wouldn’t be complete, of course, without a little slow
dance action. and this isn’t really a slow dance song, per se, but it
IS richard marx. gah i wish my last name ended in an “x” so that i, too, could be a god of rock. or easy listening pop, as it were.

and yes i really did download that song in college.

anyway

pants world will tell you that, whenever i go to mugshots, i am drawn
to the jukebox like a moth to a flame. a flame that costs money. and
there’s one song in particular that i ALWAYS play, cos i think it sends
a JOLT of heavy metal ENERGY throughout the bar.

that song, my friends, is panama.

when i hear it, i feel like all of these looney children are inside of me:

all shouting “PANAMA!” over and over and over again in an eternal anthem of sweet rock bliss.

you know, when you google “dance party,” sometimes strange things come
up. images that perhaps you feel sort of weird about posting.

the ribbon dancing, however, beat out my ethical concerns.

plus, it seemed really appropriate to pair with don’t stop believing.

so, the main message here is: throw yrself a dance party.

and don’t be ashamed. when salt n pepa tell you to push it, you don’t want to disappoint them. or else they’ll get pissed.

trust me.

and now, for something completely ridiculous…

in spite of the anxiety gnawing at my heart and the sadness that has
settled there, i’m still a silly, silly girl. and i still have to
laugh. because if i can’t laugh, i don’t know what i’ll do. therefore,
it is appropriate that i’m finally getting around to posting some
extremely ridiculous photos from meredith’s “trainwreck celebrity”
birthday party and our “posh night” the following week (all of this
happened in july. i’m slacker pants).

i look at these photos and marvel at the fact that i’ve found people
who can be just as retarded as i am. it’s incredible, really, how fools
find each other.

so i hope you get a least a bit of amusement out of these shameful
displays of PURE AWESOMENESS. i know i did. and smiling feels really,
really good right now.

THE TRAINWRECK CELEBRITY PARTY
or How We Couldn’t Stop Staring At Mandy’s Plastic Boob

you can probably figure out the costume theme of the night– dress up
as yr favorite celebrity gone bad/wacko/slutty/drugified. here we see
the two birthday girls: meredith as natasha lyonne (no dogs were raped
during the creation of this persona) and mandy as tara reid (awesome
awesome awesome);

seriously, it was really hard not to do a double take every time i
looked at mandy. unfortunately i didn’t get any pictures of other
people trying on her, uh, prosthetic…

next we have casey (as paula abdul, straight up!) and sarah (as paris
hilton). we didn’t realize that we would TOTALLY MATCH, and even though
paris would have probably bitch slapped paula, i decided to play it
cool. cos that’s hot.

special props to hilary, my dog dresser. dahling, i don’t know how my
little poochie would have survived without yr fabulous skills.

here we see kc, who came as tonya harding– AW YEAH– complete with a
nice shiner and a baseball bat… which she managed to involve in most
of her choreography during the dance party. damn, that girl has skills.

notice my hugeass engagement ring, people. that’s cos paris loves me.
no, the other paris. the one who can’t dress. i mean… uh…

also i lurve how meredith could actually be nekked in that photo…

moving on!

POSH NIGHT AT THE BIG HOUSE
or How Champers Makes Us Giddy Like Schoolgirls
or How Wealth Doesn’t Equal Taste

meredith scored a great housesitting gig at place on mount bonnel, so
the night before she had to “move out”, we had a little shindig and
pretended to be rich… rich and foolish. it was fantastic fun, and i
even brought hats and boas, cos, you know, that’s what wealthy people
wear. and also my silver scarf. because it sparkles.

here we see some fine upstanding ladies of leeeeeisure:

this next photo is probably my favorite of the whole evening… it
looks like some sort of weird diesel ad or something. plus i don’t
usually do TABLEAU photos (and i don’t know why not, cos they rule).
plus this bathroom just kills me. it KILLS ME.

there are so many stories you can find in this picture, kinda like one
of those children’s books. except with alcohol. and faux vomiting.

the evening involved a few key activities.

#1: making fun of various CURIOS and “art” pieces around the house.

this was really too easy.

this pillow is obviously trying to tell us a story. i think it has to
do with a fox eating grapes and then pooping out a sunrise. but i could
be wrong. i mean, art means so many things to so many people…

sometimes, it means phalic things.

btw, that’s matt (meredith’s boyfriend) underneath the, uh, tribal sculpture.

but rich people don’t dwell on such uncouth matters, so moving on…

#2: drinking champers (champagne to all of you common folk)

btw i think kc looks like some warped 1940’s champagne advertisement.
also my grandmother really wore that hat at some point. yeah, she ruled.

speaking of stylish hats…

i never knew my pink hat could look so JAUNTY!

#3: dancing in an extremely reckless fashion (cos rich people can do whatever the hell they want and not care)

some people, however, had to be, uh, persuaded to joint the dance
party. here we see henri (sporting the ugliest, ugliest shirt i have
ever seen… the rest of us didn’t know how it fit in with our posh
theme but we let it go. after we made fun of him a whole, whole lot)
gently luring hilary to the dance floor:

other people didn’t need any persuading. even though other people look
really, really dumb when they dance. but they post pictures of
themselves anyway. cos other people have no shame.

#4: creating salacious gossip for the tabloids (rich people are really good at this)

best cover photo for the national enquirer, hands down.

ok, well, i think i’m done embarrassing myself and my friends for the amusement of the internet. at least, for the time being.

happy friday, plebeians.

the 2005 austin city limits festival
or how dust and sweltering heat can’t stop the rock but can make sarah really, really gross

yesterday totally ruled the school. and even though i’m now coughing up
dirt every two minutes, and even though it was like 108 degrees (no
really– it shattered the previous record of a mere 97 degrees. crikey!), it was SO COMPLETELY WORTH IT.

to give you an idea, here’s a picture of my feet by 6:00 PM yesterday:

no, that’s not a tan (are you kidding me? have you SEEN my whiteness?).
that’s DIRT, people (notice the dead, dead grass under my flip flops. i
blame this grass
for not doing its work to stay alive and keep the dirt where it should
be instead of in my eyes, nose and lungs. stupid grass). which was in
plentiful supply yesterday, along with sweaty people and fantastic
music. which of course means that it was a great day.

the fact that i feel this way says a lot, as many of you know i’m a
complete germphobe. i mean, simply LOOKING at this pictures makes me
feel queasy. and that’s just my feet.

but enough about the dirt.

let’s talk about the bands and how much i lurve lurve lurve them.

first, m83. honestly i’m not really familiar with this band, but i’ve
heard a few of their songs and liked them. well, they’re coming back to
austin in a month or two, and i’m *so* gonna be there. they have a
great electronic/rock sound. not to mention cute little french voices.
tee hee.

next i saw the doves, which are the perfect band to listen to while
sitting far away under a tree. in semi-shade. while drinking honey mint
tea. oh sweet leaf tea, you are my savior!

after the doves, we got off our asses and saw the kaiser chiefs. as i
expected, they were a total BLAST. the lead singer is hilarious (”today
we’re going to play many kaiser chief classics for yr enjoyment.”) and
managed to get full on audience participation even though we were all
standing in the killer sun. meredith and i actually *danced* even
though this made me sweat more than i thought possible.

we left that show early in order to get close (well, kinda close) to
the stage for arcade fire. holy crap. ARCADE FIRE. ARCADE FREAKING
FIRE. they were INCREDIBLE. all of the hype: believe it. this band is
amazing. i *completely* forgot about the dust and heat and the nasty
sweaty bodies of other people touching me as they sang with carefree
abandon and beat drums (and helmets) and tore up violins and plunked
away on xylophones.  i have decided that when i grow up, i want to
be régine chassagne. she is the coolest girl in the universe. see?:

 
apparently, chris martin and gwyneth and apple were all backstage
watching the show too. meredith and i were *really* hoping to see them
but they wisely stayed in their cushy-free-food-lots-of-fans VIP area.
le sigh. the statesman has a cute picture of apple watching acrade fire
with huge eyes and pink headphones. i probably looked the same way,
sans headphones.

after arcade fire, other bands just seemed… well… eh. i mean, the
decembrists were super fun (and they even had props!) and of course
wilco was brilliant but still. jeff tweedy actually pleaded with the
audience to show more enthusiasm. “groveling. it’s the new cockiness.” it
was cute but c’mon, jeff, if you want us to freak out, start tearing up
the drumset. i mean, that’s what acrade fire did.

by this time, the sun had finally set. merciful twilight! we stopped by the black keys on our way to coldplay but… yawn.

so imagine over 160,000 people (well actually i have no idea. that’s a
completely wild guess but it certainly felt like that many) tromping to
the same destination
over dead, dead grass. suddenly the air was filled with dust, and all
of the lights glowed like orbs in the murky, muddy darkness. everything
felt surreal, like a dream… until i started coughing. and coughing.
then i felt really sorry that we had been previously making fun of the
people with kerchiefs over their mouths (insert lots of old west
highway robbery jokes here) and started wishing i had one.

but as soon as coldplay came on, i forgot about the dust. i forgot
about my stinky tired body. i forgot about how much i really wanted to
drink a bazillion gallons of water. cos this band, this show, was
incredible. honestly, it blew me away. the band had a huge screen
behind them which projected all sorts of awesome images, from shots of
the band live to explosions to space ships… and there were these HUGE
yellow balloons filled with golden glitter that the audience tossed
around until they exploded in shimmery glory. and chris martin
absolutely sang his heart out. he went on and on about arcade fire,
which was really cute in a totally goofy way. i mean, this guy is a
huge dork. which is why i lurve him. he’s incredibly earnest and
somehow manages to get the entire audience to sing in high falsetto
along with him. when “clocks” came on, i almost started crying. and
when i heard the first note of “talk”, i just couldn’t handle it. i
started jumping around and flailing my limbs like a crazy person. i
probably looked like i was being attacked by bees. but i didn’t care.
even after seven hours in the insane heat and horrific dust, my body
and my heart just filled up with the music, with the soaring sounds and
the feeling of connection with thousands of people around me. i stared
up at the sky in amazement, in awe of this moment. i felt so thankful
to be there, exactly where i wanted to be and nowhere else… for a few
shining moments.

so thank you coldplay and arcade fire and ACL workers and the people
that sold me water and the nice lady that sprayed us with her water
bottle and my awesome friends that danced with me even when i looked
ridiculous and austin for being the most awesome town in the universe.

and thank you hot sun for keeping me dehydrated so i didn’t have to use
the gross gross gross port-a-potties at all. not once. a-men.

oh this weather this weather this WONDERFUL weather!

it’s positively CHILLY outside! i had to wear my bright green courderoy jacket!!!

oh tra la la la la!

this is *really* the first day of fall, which pretty much makes it the
best day ever. as i walked from the bus to my office, the cold breeze
woke me up and i felt all bubbly and excited and ready ready ready for
LIVING.

today’s weather makes me want to do the following things:

1) drink a yummy holiday drink
2) run around a pumpkin patch!
3) wear a scarf!
4) play hide and go seek
5) have long conversations with friends by a fireplace
6) eat a pumpkin scone
7) sit on a bench with lots of sweaters on and watch people get all frisky cos it’s cold
play in leaves
9) drive to a scenic spot and sit on thomas with fall music blaring
10) eat mellowcreme pumpkins (duh)

and i’m totally progress pants cos i’ve done #1 already: meredith and i
got cinnamon lattes at the coffee shop nearby. and it was absolutely
the right thing to do. and our drinks were delicious and warm and
spicy, and we hugged by the stand with the milk and sugar.

oh fall, i’m so glad to see you again.