Great success! We arrived at the beach a little after 2pm and managed to find Nina and KT! ˆ katie ˆ nina ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Meredith had recently developed a squishy, painful bump on her wrist that her doctor diagnosed as a ganglion cyst. He told her that she could have surgery to remove it, but warned that the cyst could reappear.

After doing some (dubious) online research, Meredith discovered that you can sometimes "treat" a cyst by whacking it really hard with a giant book or rock (!!!). This causes the cyst to "rupture and drain into the surrounding tissues." (I swear I'm not making this up!). Anyway, Meredith loves gross shit like that and tried for weeks to get me to take my giant dictionary and slam her wrist. That shit gives me the heebie jeebies so I was like "No way." ˆ cyst ˆ

Enter Nina! Always one to make her Teutonic ancestors proud, Nina is always up to do stuff that would make most (read: normal) people squeamish. (Like, if you had to do home surgery on your cat or something, Nina's the girl you'd call). Anyway, Meredith told Nina about her cyst (which you can see in this photo if you look to the left of Nina's thumb) and before Meredith had even finished describing the procedure, Nina had a hardcover book out of her beach bag and was like "Let's do this." ˆ book ˆ cyst ˆ

Here's Nina taking a few practice swings to line up her shot. "Ready? 1...2...." ˆ meredith ˆ nina ˆ beach ˆ book ˆ far rockaway ˆ

"....3!" WHAM! Nina didn't hold back AT ALL! (BTW, check out Nina's face, you can totally tell how much effort she put into her swing! Hahaha). ˆ meredith ˆ nina ˆ beach ˆ book ˆ cyst ˆ far rockaway ˆ

The post-procedural patient. Hahaha. Meredith had read that if the whack was successful and the cyst had been ruptured, it would take a few days to for it to go away. Nothing to do but wait! (Spoiler: the cyst didn't go away). ˆ meredith ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ sad ˆ

Siege was on the scene taking pics of the ladies. ˆ katie ˆ siege ˆ camera ˆ far rockaway ˆ

Meredith, Nina and KT. ˆ katie ˆ meredith ˆ nina ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ

I had brought my waterproof camera case so I decided to go for a swim and take some pics! Nina came with me (and if you look closely at the right-hand side of the pic, you can see her pointing her toes and doing one of her famous "I was a former synchronized swimmer" moves). Hahah. ˆ nina ˆ best ˆ far rockaway ˆ swim ˆ

Perfect beach weather. ˆ nina ˆ far rockaway ˆ swim ˆ

Floatin'. ˆ nina ˆ far rockaway ˆ swim ˆ

Going underwater. ˆ underwater ˆ

This is what screaming underwater looks like. ˆ nina ˆ teeth ˆ underwater ˆ

Boobies through the brine. ˆ underwater ˆ

I swam way out and took a bunch of pics. I love the fluffy clouds behind the buildings. ˆ far rockaway ˆ swim ˆ

We came back from our swim to find Siege, KT and Mer in the midst of a heated game of beach Scrabble. ˆ katie ˆ meredith ˆ siege ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ scrabble ˆ

After the wind had dried my hair into a salty mess, Meredith snapped some sweet pics of my beach hair! ˆ me ˆ beach hair ˆ far rockaway ˆ

Hahaha. ˆ me ˆ beach hair ˆ far rockaway ˆ

Meredith took a nap of the beach: face down and covered in a towel. Hahaha. ˆ katie ˆ meredith ˆ asleep ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ

I took KT's tiny, velour hoodie and put on a fashion show for Siege. Sassy! ˆ me ˆ beach ˆ far rockaway ˆ gay ˆ hoodie ˆ

Meredith put on Nina's goggles... ˆ meredith ˆ best ˆ far rockaway ˆ googles ˆ

...and we teamed up for this incredibly hot photo. (I don't know if you know this, but I'm going to let you in on a huge secret: WE ARE HUGE FUCKING DORKS.) ˆ me ˆ meredith ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ far rockaway ˆ gay ˆ googles ˆ hoodie ˆ us ˆ

Hahahaha. ˆ meredith ˆ best ˆ goggles ˆ laugh ˆ

But, now that I think about it, you probably already knew that . ˆ me ˆ siege ˆ hoodie ˆ moustache ˆ

After we were finished dorking around, we took a walk around the beach and collected seashells and Christian literature! Hahaha. ˆ book ˆ jesus ˆ seashell ˆ

And Siege snapped a few funny pics of Mer and I goofing around on the beach with his fancy cam. (Thanks for sending these over, Siege!). Here's our impression of that old Coppertone advertisement where a little dog is tugging at a girl's bathing suit. ˆ me ˆ meredith ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ coppertone ˆ far rockaway ˆ us ˆ

And here's the original ad. (Yep, I'm a little black dog). ˆ coppertone ˆ

Hahahah. And then he took this amazing photo of us jumping! (Meredith looks like a frog!) ˆ me ˆ meredith ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ far rockaway ˆ jump ˆ us ˆ

A little after 4pm, we decided to pack up our beach gear and head back to the subway. ˆ meredith ˆ siege ˆ camera ˆ far rockaway ˆ

Later that night I met up with a whole bunch of old school friends to do a little bar pre-gaming before going to see Lifetime (one of my fave bands) play at the Bowery Ballroom. Here's Vin and Dave. ˆ dave g ˆ vin ˆ

Debbie and Aya. ˆ aya ˆ debbie ˆ

We were at some new bar on Rivington because Debbie's friend Angelique was bartending. ˆ angelique ˆ

Debbie took this pic of herself and when I looked at my camera, I noticed a new tattoo peeking out of her shirt. ˆ debbie ˆ

I asked her about it and she busted it out. Heart less. (Heartless! Get it?) It turned out, that she and Angelique had gotten matching heartless tattoos! Debbie was happy with hers... ˆ bad ˆ tattoo ˆ

...but Angelique wasn't. When I asked her why, she told me to take a closer look... ˆ bad ˆ tattoo ˆ

...and then explained that she thought that the aorta coming off the left-side of the heart looked too much like a "hangy penis." Hahahaha. ˆ bad ˆ tattoo ˆ

And when I took a closer look, I couldn't help but notice that she was totally right. Check the side-by-side comparison! Debbie's "Heart-less" tattoo is on the left, Angelique's "Dick-less" tattoo is on the right. Hahaha. Amazing. ˆ bad ˆ tattoo ˆ

Vin & Dave (making their extremely intimidating "tough" faces) and Aya. ˆ aya ˆ dave g ˆ vin ˆ

On to the show! ˆ lifetime ˆ

The band came out and said hello... ˆ band ˆ lifetime ˆ

...and Josh Teixeira nearly creamed his jeans! Kid's a bigger fanboy than me! ˆ josh ˆ

By the start of the first song, I had managed to wriggle my way up front. ˆ band ˆ lifetime ˆ

The show was off the chain. The band rocked so hard that hey actually inspired one dude... ˆ band ˆ lifetime ˆ

...to do this. Hahaha. ˆ crowd ˆ

And they even managed to get another guy to flash his man-tits spring break style! ˆ crowd ˆ

I keed, I keed. Despite what the above two photos would lead you to believe, the band actually whipped the crowd into a frenzy. ˆ crowd ˆ

It was first time I ever saw a crowd at the Bowery Ballroom drop their "New York cool" and freak out. ˆ crowd ˆ

Shit ruled. ˆ crowd ˆ

If you ever get a chance to see Lifetime play - you should check them out! ˆ crowd ˆ

Right outside of the Ballroom's exit, I found Sarah's friend (whose face and name have been removed because he was horrified about these pics showing up on the interweb 18 months later...hahaha) totally fucking face-down passed out on the street. I helped him up and put him in a cab... ˆ censored ˆ drunk ˆ passed out ˆ

...but not before I took a whole bunch of photos documenting the awesomeness of it. ˆ censored ˆ drunk ˆ passed out ˆ

Hahahaha. Yes! ˆ me ˆ best ˆ censored ˆ drunk ˆ passed out ˆ

Saying goodnight to Vin and Aya. ˆ aya ˆ me ˆ vin ˆ

After the show I went over to Meredith's place to hang out with Ellen... ˆ ellen ˆ

...and Grant who were there watching a movie... ˆ grant ˆ

...totally crunked out of their minds on Sparks. The end! ˆ sparks ˆ