redefining awesome

today was the first annual champaign county bocce ball championship classic, complements of kortny and jeremiah. although slightly reluctant, i decided to participate in this amazingness, and therefore needed a teammate. luckily anne came to my rescue, so all we needed was a team name. faced with this dilemma, we resorted to the obvious "team awesome".

despite the self-proclamation, team awesome went 0-3, putting up a good fight for VERY last place (out of 16 teams). i blame the heat.

as i headed home somewhat discouraged, i remembered that there is always next year. team awesome will prevail!


random side note: when i got back to my apartment, some strange male of latino descent looked at me and said, "hey val". panicking on how this man knew my name, i kind of stuttered back a "...hey?". he then informed me that i still had on my name-tag!

not so average joe

earlier this week i was very disheartened at the idea that i'm just not really good at anything. now, i agree that i'm decent at several things, but there's nothing in particular that people would say, "oh, well have you ever heard/seen val do that? she's amazing at it!"

you know, it's kinda like the whole "we're all in a boat and we need to defend why we shouldn't be thrown overboard" deal.... or rather, "we're all on a deserted island and we need to defend why we shouldn't be eaten by anne" situation. well, anyway, i was coming to terms with being average, with realizing that i don't have anything spectacular to offer, until i went to the quest cook-out.

it was there that celina said, "val, everytime i see you, i want to eat chocolate". most likely this was due to the fact that i was wearing a hershey's chocolate t-shirt (and last sunday i also wore a chocolate/chemistry shirt), but it opened my eyes! i discovered that i'm good at sitting on my ass, watching tv, and eating junk food. in fact, i'm so good at that, i inspire others to do the same! in the long run, i guess i'd be on the deserted island convincing people that i SHOULD be eaten first, because that's my contribution to society! sweet!

anne-ibalism

Lauren: ......and so within 24 for hours, this squirrel in our parking lot was completely devoured by insects - bones and all!

Me: wow.... that's amazing.... i wonder how long it would take to completely eat me?!

Erin: for insects to eat you, or people?

Me: people

Anne: well, it takes a family of 4 about 6-8 months to finish off a side of beef, and i would say that a typical human is about 1/2 to 1/4 a side of beef.... so maybe 4 months?

Erin: yeah, but it's not like the family eats beef for every meal.

Lauren: so, would they be having you occasionally, with sides, or just... VAL for every meal?

Me: oh, i'd say this would be for at least 2 meals a day

Anne: well then.... (mentally calculating)

Erin: are we having this conversation?

one martini, two martini, three martini, floor!

yesterday was a break from the usual.... i had no official plans! haab called me to see if i had a desire to take a bet with skin cancer, so i invited her over to my pool. long story short - we ended up in her backyard in our bathing suits, with no water, while fighting off japanese beetles.
after an hour or so of relaxation and ultraviolet radiation, we parted ways and i went home for some more "nothingness" in front of the tv. later, i was invited to go out for the evening... destination: boltini. following a brief internal conversation of "do i want to have to look cute tonight?", i opted to be social.

boltini is a yuppi-esque martini bar downtown (by "yuppi-esque", i mean "21 and older", and by "downtown" i mean, "champaign") famous for.... well... martinis. after a fabulous "vanilla sex" i had yet to lose feeling in my tongue (a sure sign i was not yet borderline), so i decided to share a cosmo with lauren.

i cut myself off before i started saying things i normally wouldn't, and luckily we headed home shortly after. once i laid down in my bed, i realized the half-a-martini was probably not the best idea, proven by the spinning room. i moved to the bathroom, got rid of some alcohol and dinner, and soon fell asleep.

i felt better today, but decided to go lay-out at "paradise lagoon" a second day in a row. bad idea! i'm coming to realize that possibly i ate something yesterday that was slightly troublesome, and mixed with a little sun and a lotta alcohol, i became sick. add some sun in today... and you get a perpetual taste of vomit in the back of my throat, severe halitosis, and mild "ugh"-ness.

ugh.

half-ass job

well friends, i am currently in the month-long process of moving into my new apartment. my couch came in.... and i love it! i just lay on it all of the time (primarily because i have no other seating, but also because it's awesome).

thanks to my wonderful mother, i am an interior decorator at heart (note i didn't say "good interior decorator") and have a passion for "fixing up". well, upon first walking into my apartment, my brain was flooded with visions of "what could be", and i decided to spruce up my new home.

those who know me best would say that i am ambitious, but lazy. oftentimes i begin a project, but then get bored in the middle, and leave it half-way done. for example: sometimes i get this urge to clean out my junk drawers (note the plural), and start by dumping everything out onto my floor. 20 minutes later, i get distracted, and leave the contents under foot. needless to say, i am good at preparing for future injury and/or lawsuit, but my jobs rarely get finished.

ideally, i would love to be one of those interior designers that says, "paint this wall" and "move this over there", but due to lack of finances and talent, i have yet to become such an entrepreneur. thus, i get stuck with the dirty work. i think you can see where this is going.

anyway, i have officially finished painting my living room (with the added bonus of extremely toned arms, thighs, and butt), and currently have a half-painted hallway and unpainted bedroom. painting is a pain in the ass (literally and figuratively).

i also decided to update my cabinets. i opted to shy away from the $50/month extra in rent for wood cabinets, so my kitchen is furnished with rust.... i mean, metal cabinets. now someone somewhere along the line decided that metal was just not cool. then they got the great idea of puting vinyl on the metal that "looks" like wood. what a clever disguise.... i almost couldn't tell (until i got within 10 feet, noticed all of the rust, and realized my grandmother had the same pattern on her panelled walls). with the aide of anne, i rushed to the famed target (tar-jay) and found some contact paper to undo the mess. ironically, we chose "faux metal". that's right folks, i'm putting faux metal on my wood-covered metal cabinets! well, there's gotta be more drama to this story.

and there is..... i was almost finished, and i ran out of faux metal adhesive. running frantically to target, i was alarmed to see an empty bin. we had bought ALL of the adhesive. "oh well", i thought, "i can just look online". i will have you know, that the company no longer supplies faux metal covering. so now, i'm stuck with a half-metal, half-wood covered metal, full-rust kitchen. damn you TLC!

oh, and just a side note.... my AC is broken.... it's frozen up and they can't fix it until monday.