my room, newly cleaned

blogging

i’ve been reading a lot of blogs recently. just kind of seeing what’s out there. there are a lot of things i really like about the concept of blogging, but by nature, i’m not a completely open book when writing for a public forum.

when i was on rmp, i always read things over and over before pressing “send” or “post” or whatever it was. i always wanted to make sure that what i was saying was what i meant to say, and that it was articulated as well as it could be, etc. there were some people who could just BAM! post. right now, stream of consciousness. and their posts would be just as informative and thought-provoking as one that i sat poring over for a couple minutes. i’m jealous of that kind of writing. of that style in general.

i guess i could do it. i could write about my life openly and tell all the little dirty details. but i don’t know if i want to be that completely honest. is that weird? on livejournal, you can make posts friends-only and limit and customize who sees what you write. but i’m talking about a blog. like a professional site that documents my life, or a certain aspect of it at least. i wish i could write one thing and have it be seen by everyone i know and not care. it’s a challenge.

anyway, one particular style of blog that i’ve come across that i really like is the kind that is peppered with pictures. i like it when, while recounting something, there is a clear visual to go along with it. or blogs of just pictures with little to no explanation.

thinking about all of this writing and styles and so on makes me particularly envious of dooce. she does all of that: honesty, openness, and really cool pictures.

me? i’m going to start small. baby steps. i just want to post pictures. it’s a weird urge that i’ve been getting from vicariously living others’ lives. photographs.

i’m not promising that they will be stunning or anything worthwhile. i am just promising that there will be visual representations of certain aspects of my life on this blog from now on.

see next post.

totally safe

i took this video last night on the way home from liana’s house.  just a brief glimpse into normal life in buffalo.  snow.  a lot of it.  all the time. 

probably really safe for me to video my drive home (for a mere six seconds) on a sheet of ice.  icy roads, heavy snow falling.  yes, safe.

 

driving in the snow from maggie connelly on Vimeo.
 

and some pictures:

 

a very good week (except today)

monday (today)– i’m sick.  i plan on slathering myself in vaporub, drinking screwdrivers and falling asleep on the couch.  (again)

tuesday– seeing these guys.

wednesday– amanda’s birthday.  drinks with the ladies.  sleeping here.

thursday– thanksgiving!  doing this.  will be wearing a feathered headband and making the male of our party wear a pilgrim hat.

friday– seeing this man here.

saturday– seeing this lady here.

past summary, future outlook

since july i have:

–cut and dyed my hair

my hair is still mad long, but now i have fringe.  one of the things that makes me an absolute neurotic mess is that i hate the word “bangs.”  i don’t want to have bangs.  i have pieces of hair in the front of my head that lay on or cover up my forehead, but those are not bangs.  that is my fringe.  i associate bangs with awful feathered hair and acid washed jeans and i’ll be damned if that’s ever me.  FRINGE!

–saw g. love at the brewery

g. love was awesome.  the fight that liana and i got into afterward was not awesome.  it started to mist right at the end of the show.  josh was a trooper.  we made the whole night a dedication to danny glover, and were randomly high fiving strangers and toasting with them to the fine cinematic prowess of “d.g.” as we came to call him.

called up brendon while in rochester and he gave us the wrong directions.  liana started talking shit, but i think it was because she was drunk, and it all became really uncomfortable, but was put over the edge when we got in a fight about darts.  that’s just silly.  after this, we didn’t talk for a month.

last weekend, liana and i had a really good time together, so i think all old wounds are healed, but i admit that it will be hard for me to try to forget about this incident.

–decided to go to nyc

cole got a credit card application in the mail from priority club, and i got one from jetblue.  we decided to look together to see if there were any hotels in nyc where he could use his points for a free night.  we found one.  26th and 6th.  going there oct. 23, 24, 25.  possibly seeing my uncle’s show?  rollerblading in central park.  being all cute and fall-ish in the city.  hitting up some gay bars.  dinner with johnny, jenny, coral, mark karwan, everyone else in the entire world who lives in nyc?  brooklyn bridge, history of nyc museum.  mass at st. patricks.  i’m not particularly religious, but i told cole i would go with him, and i love the arcitecture of old churches.  i’m excited about this all around.

–went to a beer festival in pittsburgh

i went with adam and katie.  stayed at their house, watched news and sports all weekend.  drank too much beer and threw up about 9 hours after getting home from the beer fest, not even due to beer, but due to bad spinach dip.  how ridiculous.  we brought e.t. to the beer fest and made him pour some of the beers.  the brewers were quite pleased at our ridiculousness.  got a customized grocery bag made out of an old t-shirt.  video taped katie and me shouting “fuck them” at every passing car due to our annoyance that adam and the other roommate, chris, hadn’t waited for us to walk to another friend’s house.

–watched the bills go 4-0

this is amazing.  go bills!  beat the cardinals tomorrow and they’re undefeated into the bye week.  fuckin a!

–switched departments at work, and thusly switched shifts at my disposable job

i now work monday through friday at the hotel from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.  weekends off, all the time.  except that i work saturday at my other job, but you know, beyond that.  i now work in the catering department and i help people plan and book parties.  menus, food, set up, tables, cooking, cleaning, table linen, silverware.  these are now my main concerns.

this has been a really nice switch.  i have an office.  with windows.  and a desk that i sit at all day and listen to great music at.  i print, i file, i copy, i hole punch, i sort, i label.  i’m so relaxed and happy.

i work nights at the other job now, and it’s all right.  my friend syd got a job as a manager there.  this is awesome for her because i feel that she lacked self confidence a little before and that this will be good for her.  however, she has been monitoring and reporting back to me about things that she noticed about my performance in such a way that it makes me feel like she thinks i’m incompetant.

the other day, a young teen answered the phone, and was trying to be funny and kept saying the same stuff over and over.  sometimes, i want to play those games, and i want to stay on the phone just to be like, what what… i’m not hanging up.  you don’t win.  i’m not annoyed.  i was playing along and syd called out my name and was like, maggie… end the call.  no shit, end it.  i’m just injecting some personal satisfaction into my otherwise boring drone job.

if i had applied for manager when the position was open, i would have gotten it in a heartbeat.  i am very good at what i do and have a natural lack for leadership.  however, i make more money in commission on a weekly basis than i would as a manager, so when someone nonchalantly asked me about whether i would be interested, i responded with “hell no!”

anyway, this is how thing have been going.  a lot of work, and as much fun as possible.

upcoming in fall–

10/8– old 97s?

10/10– gwar?

10/18– black crowes?

10/23– go to nyc

10/25– return from nyc

10/31– pittsburgh halloween party?

11/4– VOTE!

11/4– ub bulls game with lindsey

11/9– drive by truckers in boston?

11/11– drive by truckers in pittsburgh?

11/25– dark star orchestra

11/28– david byrne

11/29– ani difranco

12/10– bela fleck

in which the last sentence is the most important

last night, i had two cans of pabst blue ribbon and fell asleep on my couch watching good will hunting on tnt. great movie? yes, absolutely. probably in my top five. but on tnt? not so great… commercials, for one thing, ruin it, and worst of all: no swearing. good will hunting is all about the swearing. i remember it being so controversial at the time because of all the times they say fuck. i think i saw it in theatres. it made me think. about what, i can’t really put my finger on it. i guess about relationships, and about intelligence and friendship and pressure. i don’t know. i do know that any shot of matt damon shirtless in that movie is fine by me.

my friend ashley is staying with me right now. she was living with her parents, but there was some issue there. they got into a fight and she was kicked out of her house. so i told her to come stay with me. i could not imagine my mother saying to me the things that her mother has said to her. it’s really ridiculous. now her mom is trying to get back into her life. and it’s really not happening. good for ashley.

anyway, one of cole’s requirements when she moved in was that no one sleep on the couch. so ash and i share a bed. i told that to paul yesterday, and he was like, HOT! no, no, it’s not as hot as you think. i mean, us girls are, sure, but there’s no touching, no cuddling. just two gals in a big bed. but somehow, i’ve ended up falling asleep on the couch several times since we started sharing a bed. oh well. i need to remember that if i’m tired, i should be in my bed. not on the couch. in my room, not the living room.

this has been a really weird summer. yesterday, i was supposed to go see the gin blossoms, but it rained, and it ended up being cooler than expected. around 6:30, it was about 67 degrees. where are the 80s? i mean, i don’t want sweltering, but 67 just won’t cut it for mid-end of july. seriouslah. and in may, there was the whole s-word in the forecast.

my friends discussing a topic on many people’s minds:

amanda: why do we live here?
megan: because our parents made us here and we’re too poor to move.

that’s not really all true. buffalo is a great place to live. i love it here. but sometimes the weather leaves something to be desired. is that completely insensitive considering the fact that people are currently evacuating because of a hurricane in texas? hmm…

so instead of gin blossoms, i went to dinner with amanda (at gramma mora’s, a cute lil’ mexican restaurant around the corner). then i came home and watched so you think you can dance. then did the pbr and good will hunting thing. i’m up far too early for my own good and that’s making me hungry. i’m going back to bed otherwise, i will need food.

more to come…

i love ellipses…

i haven’t updated in forever.  i need to do that more often.  today is a lazy day with no work.  no jobs today.  off from both jobs.  it feels so good–and unusual– to say that.  NO WORK.

there is a reason behind this, though.  the heavens didn’t just open up and grant me a day off.  i called into my telemarketing job.  and was unscheduled at the hotel because tomorrow, i leave for rothbury.  i’m going to this festival with three girls in a minivan.  it’s going to be amazing.  i’ve never been to a festival with all girls before.  usually, we’re the minority in any jamband group of pals.

ahhh… rothbury.  clean air, woods, camping, live music.  PRIMUS, DRIVE BY TRUCKERS, and a bajillionty others i’m too exhausted to mention.  i can’t wait.  tomorrow i leave.  we’re staying overnight at a holiday inn (where else?) wednesday night and then heading a half hour to the campgrounds the next morning.  wooo.

pictures will follow.

why, buffalo, why?

last night, i worked from 11 pm to 7 am. we always keep the flat screen in the lobby on the weather channel (unless there’s a major sporting event… or… american idol). i stopped to check out the weather because we were freezing all night long, and yes, that awful four letter word was on the tv screen: SNOW! not a for real forecast for snow, but it was saying that since it’s a balmy 38 degrees outside, some of the light rain may have snow mixed in.

it is may 19. more than half way done with may. I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS!

one of the saddest days of my life

i just found a piece of paper that i had scribbled on at work. it was written to remind me about a story that i wanted to share. i feel like many people have already heard this story, but it definitely bears repeating.

when i was a freshman at canisius, for quad party, my friends and i made matching t-shirts. we called ourselves the core. CORE! on floor four! and yes, i was in room 420, which made me very popular with a certain demographic. which i was very happy about.

anyway, for this particular quad party, we made a bunch of jello shots. about 400 in all. literally. i was 18 and two months at this point. how the hell i got my hands on enough liquor to make 400 jello shots, i don’t even remember now, but it gives me hope and confidence for the safety and wellbeing of my younger brothers right now (ages 17 and 18).

they had a carnival in the parking lot of the athletic center. there were games where you could win goldfish, fried dough, cotton candy, and even a sumo wrestling mat and suits. i have always wanted to do that sumo thing, so i put my name on the list with my friend bob grabowski.

bob and i were gunna sumo wrassle.

finally, after what seemed like an eternity, our names were called. i was certain that i was vicious enough to take down bob who was about 3 inches shorter than me and about 50 pounds heavier than me. sure i was tall and lean, but he didn’t know what was coming!

we strapped into our gear, and the helmet felt a little loose, the suit felt a little tight, but alas, i was drunk off jello and going to sumo, come hell or high water.

the whistle blows. we start to wrestle. walking in this thing is a huge spectacle. all our friends are cheering us on. i bump into bob, we both stumble backwards. i just enjoy myself walking around in this hilarious monstrosity. bob takes a half hearted belly bump at me and i fall over backwards.

i fall over backwards and black out for three seconds. apparently, the helmet was really too loose, and when i fell, the helmet hit the ground and my head hit the helmet. damn. this was at about 1:30 pm. quad party lasts all day.

so this is the story of how i got a concussion on quad party day from sumo-ing. i couldn’t drink for the rest of the day so i went to my room and burned cds for people. i made my boyfriend at the time come to my dorm room (and stop drinking) and keep me awake so i wouldn’t die in my sleep from sumo-related injuries.

what did i write on the piece of paper to remind myself of this?

concussion in a fat suit.

something i forgot to mention

if you read in the previous post about how i spent a night swimming naked in a waterfall (many of you already know this story and/ or this detail), i need to include an amazing part of the story that i somehow left out.

i thought that this was one of the most amazing nights ever.  i got into the guy’s car when the sun was already up and the birds had been chirping for hours.  he drove me to my house, and i want to say that radiohead was still playing in the car.  i was starting to sober up.  i got out of the car feeling like sex goddess 2007, maniacal, redhead, diva, lover of the year, etc.  i went inside and peed (i don’t want to think too hard about what kind of creek nastiness was in my vagina), and still was beaming from being so naughty.  and then i looked in the mirror.

apparently, i didn’t wear waterproof mascara that day.  i had black streaks ALL OVER my face.  consider my bubble burst-ed.  it was a black mascara bubble and it burst all over my face.  hahahahaha… wow.  why wouldn’t he say anything?  oh lord, i thought i was hot shit, but nope!  mascara-face!  note to men:  tell us when we look like assholes.  it will be better than us finding out after the fact.  wow…