Even after seeing it a bunch of times, the views are so beautiful that it literally makes you go "Whooooooa!" every time you see it. I managed to snap this pic of Mer mid-gasp.
After filling up, we drove back north into town, got some dinner and then went and saw Shaun of the Dead. And afterwards, we went to the Sony store and Meredith got herself...
Here's me picking her up at the airport. See how excited she is? I told you that my Nissan Sentra rental drives the bitches wild! After we'd caught up, I made good on something I'd been promising for weeks...
So after a week of living together, my new roomies and I decided that we were long overdue to head out and hit the town together. We were in our kitchen trying to figure out where we should go when my new roommate Christine uttered nine magnificent words: "Hey, there's a karaoke bar right down the street!" I was like "Shut the fuck up!" Christine replied "No, I'm serious, it's called The Mint and it's one of the biggest karaoke bars in town. They have karaoke every night. It's like 3 blocks from here! And you gotta hear Kareen sing - she's really good." Talk about fate, huh? (You'd think "Where's the nearest karaoke bar?" would've been one of my standard questions while apartment hunting, but I swear it never even came up!).
On Friday night, I finally ventured out for my first "social experience" in California when Tara put me in touch with her friend Adrianna who throws a party at a place called Rickshaw Stop.
Speaking of fuckers, here's Grant and me. I met this fucker working at Nerve back in the summer of 2001 and aside from his short-lived stint out in LA, we've been inseparable ever since. Here's me making a face and trying my best to pretend I wasn't going to miss the shit outta him. (Awwww.)
Since we were all pretty much recovering from my going away party earlier in the week (and also since I'd used "Hey, I'm moving" as an excuse to party pretty much every single night for the past five weeks) we decided to play it low-key and have a mellow last night at Misshapes. Here's Fatty, Amy and I on the cab ride over.
The mover's had already come and taken all of my stuff (to California!). Meredith was out of town for the weekend and was nice enough to lend me her apartment.
With T-Minus four days until my big move to SF, I headed out to Clark, NJ to have dinner at my Grandparents and say goodbye. Here's me and my mom with G-ma and G-pa.
I was so hot and sweaty that I actually snuck into my room and changed out of Black T-shirt Number 3 and into Blue T-shirt Number 7. (Yeah, right - like I have seven shirts!)
Lorelei and I kicked off the festivities with a duet. (By the way, I'm writing these caption in May of 2005, almost a year later so I pretty much have no idea what song anyone was singing in these pics).
Awwwww! Thanks so much guys! You are the best friends ever. (Sorry I moved back so soon!). I started to put my gifts away and they were all like "No, no, no. After all the time we spent rounding that stuff up, you're wearing it at the party, CALIFORNIA BOY!"
"Those are for when you go to Burning Man with your new California friends. Keep them in your mouth and when you're in the desert at night raving in the dark, it'll help ensure that no one crashes into you."
The next few gift were to help me fit in with "all of the homeless people that you're sure to be hanging out with." Fake moustaches (because my friends all know that I can't grow a real moustache to save my life).
Some incense. ("After you're done humping hippy chicks, you might want to burn some of this. It'll help clear the air in the room.") I wasn't sure what the next gift was at first...
First up, a sweet Haight-Ashbury tie-dyed shirt. When I was like "This shirt's way too big!" They replied "Don't worry, you're going to start smoking lots of pot and do nothing out there. You'll get real fat and grow into it."
Grant, Leigh, Meredith and Sarah (none of whom were super-pleased with my decision to move) came over to my apartment early to give me a series of presents they'd named "The New Yorker in San Franciso Survival Kit." My interest was piqued.
Candy stopped by early with Matt to drop off the karaoke gear for the party - and she and Leigh took a minute to laugh at my "getting ready for the party" outfit. Suh-weet.
Doug was still in town visiting and was kind enough to run all over town with me and help set up for the party. It was a BYOB affair, but because all the bodegas in my hood close at 9pm, we scored a shitload of cases of PBR and a buncha bottles of booze for back-up.
I'm not sure I handed my camera over to at this point but as you'll be able to see over the next few pics, they managed to grab some clutch snaps. I didn't even know I was capable of making a face like this. (Check out Leigh in the background losing her shit. Hahaha).
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