it's chocolate chip cookie dough month!!!

megan: laura has a large collection of scarves.
rachel: it's better than having a large collection of other things.
megan: like what?
rachel: subautomatic machine guns.

conversations of this type occur on a fairly regular basis in suite 213.


it's been a rather good weekend. friday night we (by which i mean anne, ryan, and myself) went to another football game at jess' student teaching high school. this time we got in for free, which was great. we were standing around outside watching jess deal with the various assorted members of the mighty mercer mustang marching machine, when their band director walked over and was like, "you guys know to stay near the band so you can get in for free, right?" he was a grove city grad and gets the biggest kick out of the fact that we come to the games. it was really weird being back in a high school band room before a football game. brought back a lot of memories. seasons may come and seasons may go, but high school band remains the same: the drummer with two-tone hair, the freshman trombone player who is shorter than his trombone, the senior saxaphone player who thinks he is God's gift to women. there was even the prerequisite group of band guys trying (key phrase being trying) to play football in the parking lot. my favorite was the kid who is called "deerslayer". by everyone. the second he could take his jacket off in the stands, he produced a flannel shirt and camouflage ballcap. the ironic thing, according to jess, is that he's never actually managed to shoot a deer.

this brings me to a realization i have come to in the past few weeks: i absolutely adore friday night football. i didn't realize how much i've missed it until we started going to jess' games. in high school, football season was the best time of the year, and everybody in the school came to the games and rabidly supported the football team. in talking to my friends here, i've begun to come to the conclusion (once again) that i come from a different world. i guess people just take high school football much more seriously at home. and college football too, for that matter. but we don't even come close to the utter devotion people around here have to professional football. i mean, i've seen some pretty devoted redskins fans, but steelers fans take that to a totally new level. it's kind of scary, actually.

i slept til noon on saturday, due to the fact that after the whole "randomly starting a blog" moment on friday, i proceeded to watch tv until 5am. i do not really have much sense very late at night. then i spent the whole afternoon in pew hanging lights for the guest artists. what a delight that was. at least i got paid. and i got laundry done. then came the mercer band festival and the joy that is cramming sixy-something college students, instruments, uniforms, hat boxes, clothes hangers, and black shoes onto a bus. dustin had come back to visit, and, in true dustin form, he rode the bus with us over to the festival. that made me very happy. i sat next to him and told him all about the europe adventure with anna. he got a big kick out of it. the festival itself was uneventful, other than the fact that i finally had enough of allen's spastic marching and made him march like a normal person. i filched ian and kristin's "good for $1 at the concession stand" tickets, so by the time we marched, i had two packs of skittles and a blow pop stashed in various pockets in my uniform. that made life interesting. jess also repeated her line of "hypnotizing a chicken" in announcing for mercer's show. the highlight of the festival, however, was the "airgram" dustin sent to mel: "to mel, from the grand poobah. 'smile. it makes people wonder what you're up to.'"

afterwards, a bunch of us went to rachel's. and by "a bunch" i mean about 30-odd people, all music majors except for me, julie, and anne. our waitress was a saint. i had a great time. chris was in a mood, meaning that he was absolutely hilarious, and matt + alcohol always equals an amusing time. i also had a breakthrough, because for the first time, i sat down and thought to myself "i want a beer", instead of some fruity chick drink. ian was very proud.

however, the highlight of the weekend occured tonight in the cafeteria, when i realized that it is now...(drumroll please)...chocolate chip cookie dough month!!!!!!!!!!!! for those who never witnessed me at meals last year during january-february, i got slightly addicted to cookie dough ice cream. and when i say slightly, i mean very. six to eight scoops of it per meal. as in football players who i've never met before coming up and saying things like "whoa, that's a lot of ice cream". bad sign. my goal this year is to not eat so much of it. i'll try to limit it to five scoops.