Thursday, January 17, 2008

You're Heavy in My Mouth

I'm gonna start opening my blog with scenes from the movie version of my blog, like they're doing on The L Word with Jenny's movie. JK, this is a blog, not a teevee show. Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. I find the pressure of an opening paragraph simply too much to bear. Still with me? OK so, someone suggested "Top Ten Things Riese likes to Put in her Mouth" (re: "Top Ten: You Tell Me") or something to that effect. I believe this stemmed from the initial suggestion for "10 Ways to Eat a Reeses," which was an amusing convo I enjoyed watching from my emo cave (also, I provided the answer to this in the comments, should anyone be interested). One week at band camp/boarding school we were plagued with a series of random, lengthy power outages, during which we could perform small bursts of anarchic behavior in the safety of temporary pitch-black-night. Somehow biting and sucking on each other's fingers became one of our favorite past-times. Like many of the witty anecdotes I share here, that looks a lot weirder on the page than it seemed at the time. Anyhow,that'll be number 10.


9. Ice Cream and French Fries...

Are my favorite foods. This seems to surprise people, 'cause unless you're my mother, Ingrid, or it's Summer '07 and your name is Carly, you've probs not seen me eat a lot of french fries or ice cream. That's because I don't want to be happy. In fact, I don't talk much about food on here --probs 'cause: 1. I did once and Hav didn't read my blog that day, 2. My Mom was a nutritionist and taught "food, facts & fun" at the Y and used my bro & I as taste-testers and class-testers, thus the topic is old news to me, 3. 'cause I'm about as qualified to discuss food as I am to muse on Russian literature ... clearly my Lean Pockets & Peanut-Butter-Crackers consumption rate suggests I've got no taste when it comes to food. HA! no TASTE! Get it?!

But since I'm talking about things I wanna put in my mouth, I'm gonna really open up. Let you see the Real Riese. Here's my opinion, in great detail, regarding ice cream & french fries ...

8a. Ben & Jerry's ice cream is the best ice cream ever. E.g., Phish Food, Everything But The ..., Chubby Hubby, Half Baked, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, Cherry Garcia, Peanut Butter Cup, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

8b. Obvs hands down totes Arby's, re: french fries, but there's some noble efforts that challenge the Arby's lockdown (it's the curly fries, specifically). These include Grandma's Kitchen @Interlochen, Red Hot Lovers @Ann Arbor, Applebees, Zen Palate's yam fries, In 'n Out, and the kind made from real potatoes that you get at foodstands like at fairs and stuff.

8c. Also, I like Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche, cheap Neapolitan ice cream from the deli, Edy's whole fruit bars, those ice cream bars you can buy in Vending Machines or at the case right by the cashier a the corner deli -- Strawberry Shortcake is the best flavor, you know what I'm talking about?, also; Breyer's Cookies & Cream, also ... when eating soft serve: the first bite that is both cone & soft serve is the best, Butter Pecan, my Dad's sundaes = hot fudge & mixed nuts & Breyer's Vanilla, push pops named for cartoon characters, the time I chased the ice cream truck five blocks in my socks 'cause my parents said I could have some if I caught the truck and they figured I wouldn't but I wanted to be Maniac Magee and I did, creamsicles, Friendly's (their sundaes are out of this world, the one with reeses pieces and stuff? OMG so good), walking to Stucchi's in the summertime for the Raspberry Cheesecake Ribbon, Vanilla Almond Fudge Toffuti, Colliders, Dairy Queen Blizzards, dilly bars, the magic shell butterscotch and chocolate when we first discovered it, the final reward of the sundae area at cheap buffet restaurants I loved as a kid, like Ponderosa and OCB, when we went to London for three weeks and all my brother ate was chocolate ice cream, Superman flavored sherbert at Washtenaw Dairy, ice cream with my grandpa at United Dairy Farmers the summer I stopped eating and all the bicycling we did right after because I had to compensate and because that's what he'd been doing, that summer, to compensate for his loss, was fix antique bikes and then we'd ride them. It was a perfect afternoon -- the weather-- Ohio, oh, Ohio. And also; green tea ice cream and mocchi balls -- the gelly outside, the ice cream inside, omg --

We'd bike to Baskin Robbins too, in the summer, Kristyna and I, we felt like adults but also in an Audrey Hepburn movie, and we'd eat our cones outside on the barely stable plastic picnic tables and watch our bikes and look at people and cars. We'd go across the street to Panorama and rent a movie like "The Craft" and ride home and watch it, our legs pulsing like hot ice.

8. Cigarettes
I don't smoke, really, I totally don't smoke. I don't smoke because if I did smoke, it wouldn't be so unbearably delicious when I do smoke -- I wouldn't get lightheaded and dizzy, I wouldn't feel like I was having Grown-Up Candy instead of a pump of an addictive substance.

7. My Fingers
The real reason I get regular manicures is 'cause when I don't, I have a bad habit of eating my fingers. Like, the sides? And biting my nails, obviously, which's why I get black nail polish. Also because I'm cool and I want to be like Linsday Lohan. Was. In 2005. Or whenever. The years just bleed together, when it comes to famous people and wtf they are doing with their super-important lives.

6. Pens & Pencils
Apparently? I don't recall eating my pens, but there's some telling bite marks.

5. I can't talk about because there are children reading this (also, just to be perfectly clear, it does not rhyme with "dock")

4. Milky Way
I used to be the straight-edged innocent, so I'm still surprised every time I find myself in the position of the corrupter rather than the one being corrupted. It's the "me"/"not me" thing -- it's always the "not me" who inspires other people to do "bad things." Like, for example, psychedelic mushrooms. (I am hereby sacrificing my ability to be employed by anyone besides my present employer). But [redacted] months ago, I told a curious friend that when I'd done shrooms before, it was totally mild and not weird, and therefore she should be enthusiastic about giving it a go. I figured since it was a drug that affected psychological capacities, it was best that the psychology be optimistic and determined regarding the next few hours of its function. Howevs, I was totally lying! When I'd done them before ... it was soooo weird! I'm actually totally unexperienced in most areas of druggery, despite my rugged and street-wise exterior. Thus, my one prior shrooming experience was the weirdest I'd ever felt in my life (this second & more recent time -- where I was the one suggesting it, instead of the one it'd been suggested to-- was not weird at all, perhaps you saw the video), fo' sure, like I was making love to a Milky Way bar with my mouth and throat.

Spring Break, March '03: my U-Mich friends were mostly abroad, I was in New York, staying with my ex Mike (all names have been changed) in Astoria. I'd just purchased a coat that was hybrid Bob Dylan/Jordan Catalano (brown, wool lining, sheep whatevs, vintage) and I was wearing it with overpriced jeans and a green Hollister hoodie. My hair was platinum blonde. My mood that (near) spring was a kind of bursting optimism & fluttering excitement because I'd just left a dull domestic relationship and was working on my senior thesis -- as a creative writing student, my thesis was a short story collection, a culmination of everything I'd done thus far in life. I felt very much on the verge, etc. I'd doubled my eyeliner application.

I had a small dinner & several drinks at The Yaffa Cafe in Soho with an Interlochen bestie while texting Blake, my new paramour back in Michigan. After dinner I went to the Olive Garden to meet up with Mike -- I'd met Mike there in '00, we'd worked together as servers and he was a bartender now -- I had a few more free drinks while everyone finished their tables. Blake called: he was drunk, he missed me ... he told me he was falling in love with me. I said something that meant "I've had a great deal of free drinks and I feel like a shooting star" but sounded like "Me too." I was also falling in love with me, too, though (not Blake yet, but I would eventually), and I was falling in love with falling, and so, when Mike asked if I wanted to do shrooms, I said okay. A group of OG employees -- friends & strangers -- returned to Mike & Brian's apartment in Astoria.

And so we did said drugs. There was lots of Hospitaliano. The ceiling was moving like a tricky Magic Eye cartoon. Things were carved in the ceiling -- animals, maybe, or just a design, maybe the animals were in my mind. I opened and closed my eyes, but saw the ceiling just the same. I opened my eyes and was faced with Mike's eyes and he told me to open my mouth and I did, and he put a half a tab of ecstasy inside my mouth (which I'd never done before, either), and when it was in my veins he told me what he'd done.

Brian played Dave Matthews on his guitar, and Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley. Mike's ex-whatever came over and lounged on his couch like a siren in an old movie and rolled a joint with a joint-rolling contraption she told me Mike'd bought her in Amsterdam. Her hair was beautiful, dark red.

I went to Mike's room and lay on the bed and next to his bed there was a bag of miniature Milky Way bars and I realised I was starving, and so I started eating these Milky Way bars and it was like the candy was making love to the inside of my cheeks, like the caramel was a sleek sexy fish on my tongue, like the entire Milky Way galaxy had been crammed into my mouth by an ambitious cosmonaut and was now exploding inside my cheeks like cotton-coated pop-rocks. Brian came into the room and lay on my back while I ate Milky War bars. The inside of my eyeballs danced. He put his hands on the backs of my arms, and then on the backs of my legs, but he wasn't touching me, he was just feeling around, like you might touch a wall in the dark on your way to your room. Then he got up and said "I'm sorry," and dashed out of the room. A chocolate-caramel-nougat angel climbed inside my mouth and curled up and slept there, and then I did too.

This is what I said about it, when endorsing it to aforementioned coruptee: "All I remember from doing it before was that I had these Milky Way bars and they were really good, and I don't even like Milky Way bars."

3. Push-Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Ring Pops, Blow Pops, Dum-Dums
I used to keep a push pop in my bag like it was chapstick -- wholly necessary, better be prepared, you never know when I'd want a suck. I've been accused of an oral fixation, but I think that's lame, like something girls used to say they had to let boys know they were easy. Do you know what I mean? We all have oral fixations. We have teeth, they want to bite/chew, we have lips, they have very little purpose except the obvious.

I go through serious long addictions to these things. Like, I used to have a giant three-tiered push pop that took me about a week to finish, I'm basically seven years old.

2. My Toothbrush and Toothpaste
I get scolded at the dentist 'cause apparently I brush so often that I'm brushing away my gums. I don't care, I want minty fresh breath, obvs. I go through a toothbrush a week, about, and keep extras almost everywhere I've ever worked or played. Ingrid and I used to like to get in each other's faces and brush our teeth for no reason. Again: boarding school. We do these things, I don't know why, but we do.

1. Other Mouths
When it all comes down to it, there's really nothing else on earth as wonderful as kissing.

I love how lipstick can suggest
a grammar, and how, in sleep,
the mouth gives up its posture
like something defeated.
Isn't a morning kiss, then,
a kind of restoration, a love test
for the one who wakes first?
I love what we must forgive.
So good to find them, the people
who've discovered fraudulence
in their lives, who've cast off, say,
a twenty-year lie.
I love how they listen to poems
as if words were necessary
daggers or balm, their faces proof
that the soul feeds on wild riffs,
every sort of truth-scrap, the blues.
I love that the normal condition
of the soul is to be starved.

-from "loves" by stephen dunn

33 comments:

eric mathew said...

so that was a really good blog. like really really good. very intensely written. i also have to agree that ben and jerry are amazing men. they are really the only ones i can trust with my feelings. they will never hurt me..or stand me up. they are just there and like to listen. in conclusion ben and jerry are great...and your flavor choices are wonderful.

Unknown said...

Obvs, you're a great listmaker, but sometimes it's amazing how a list of foods can bring a whole slew of sense-related memories to the surface. Just the words themselves function like electroshocks and make me recall things that I might have forgotten. So keep doing that.

For me, instead of Milky Way bars, it was fresh lemonade drunk with a straw. I think I wandered around for several hours wearing a blue medical mask and mumbling "Liquid gold! It's like liquid gold!"

YOU ARE TOTALLY THE REASON MY DENTIST SPEAKS STERNLY TO ME ABOUT MY BLEEDING GUMS.

I love it: "we do these things, I don't know why, but we do."

Chrissy said...

This was seriously one of my faves of your bloggetry.

Highlights were:
- the GOOD HUMOR (I googled it for you, hehe) ice cream bars, love them a lot.
- Maniac Magee, omg. Thanks for bringing me back to 4th grade, I appreciate it.
- Push Pops are are my crack, holla.

All in all, I'm closing my browser with a smile on my face. Holla!

DH said...

I didn't really recognise any brands/food stuffs mentioned. However I like to put cigarettes, coffee and gum in my mouth. And Nestle products, obvs, 'cause I get a massive discount on Nestle. I guess in theory, you do too.

I have never done shrooms, despite my street-wise and rugged exterior. If I wasn't a reforming junkie, I would have been sold on that story. I wear black nailpolish too, but it's because I want to be like Ian Thorpe.

Anonymous said...

WOW! This is the best blog I have ever read. It is also the only blog I have ever read. The way you describe your trip on shrooms makes me want to read everything you have ever written.

Anonymous said...

Ian Thorpe and not Daniel Johns, Crystal? Both very almost gay!

Speaking of Sherbet, I love candy, I always had a candy necklace, better than a pick up line, and can lead to spontaneous kissing.

Actually, right now I would settle for some M & M's.

lawlaws said...

It's all about Haagen Dazs strawberry cheesecake. That is the crack of all ice creams.

In fact it's probably more addictive than crack.

"Say crack again"
"Crack"

kazzie said...

Your shrooming experiences - hilarious.

Oh. You know what's really good - fries dipped in ice cream (more specifically soft serve, preferably from McDonalds). It's the flavour bomb. Deadset.

Anonymous said...

Im yet to read this, but I'm sure its good.

I just had to say, OMG!!!! The Spice Girls were amazing! I think I love them all. It made me feel like I was a kid again. It was just sooooooo good! Unfortunatly no making out with geri though.

Anyways I will read this later, I now have revision to do for my maths exam this afternoon, seriously, revision+exam, not good when you have a headache, sore throat and got very little sleep the night before.

Adam Tiller said...

"Waiting for Ice Cream" is v. probably the cutest picture on the internet. I spend a lot of time looking at pictures on the internet, and I know from cute.

Also, there is a frightening amount of overlap of things we both like to put in our mouths. I strongly suggest the lemon sorbetto (served in a frozen lemon, how amazing!) at Edgar's Cafe on...bah...83rd I think? (84th teh intarnets tell me). Added bonus, best coffee I have ever tasted. Ever.

I was a little disappointed number five didn't include a link to your top ten skills you'll likely never use again.

Anonymous said...

kazzie: I love french fries dipped in milkshakes. I thought I was the only one. McDonald's fries with a chocolate shake, Wendy's with a vanilla frosty, Arby's (curly) with a Jamocha shake.

UDF made college lovable. 24 hour access to 40 flavors of ice cream was amazing. Although it always weirded me out that it was ice cream at the gas station. I was rarely sober, though.

word verif: fbpig = fal bellied pig. Does blogger know we're talking about ice cream and french fries?

Bourbon said...

I could have bet my life that someone was going to mention McDonald's fries with the soft serve ice cream.

I'm scared of psychedelic drugs, I'm already too paranoid I think I'd just have like a cardiac arrest and die right there.

Also, I cannot believe that vodka wasn't on this list. Maybe that's what you meant by #5? Nah.

frank said...

"There was lots of Hospitaliano."

you have no idea how hard this made me laugh at my desk. i then giggled thinking about that line all the way through the kissing poem.

i'm still giggling. i think i'm drunk.

oh, and does the secret word rhyme with "bagina?" really, i just wanted to type "bagina."

Anonymous said...

Ha...dock...

Ms. Jackson said...

"All I remember from doing it before was that I had these Milky Way bars and they were really good, and I don't even like Milky Way bars"

That is the most convincing arguement I've ever heard.

Oh, and fries dipped in ranch is all sorts of delicious.

jordan said...

because obvs you all care, i feel like the only wayi can respond is with a top 10 of my own... so here are the things i prefer in MY mouth.

10. coffee. bold. black. no funny business. maybe it's because i work in the coffee business (aka at starbucks) but i refuse to follow any of the suggestions that some out seasonably. no maple mocha frap skinny with an extra shot steamed to 5 million degrees with room for me thanks... just a coffee. grande. bold. no room. no i don't want to go to a venti for 10 cents more, i know your game bitch. moving on.

9. raw fish. uhm... if i could hire some professionals to follow me around i would absolutely hire a profession back scratcher, a separate but equal hair player wither, a laundry doer, someone to turn off my tv the second i fall asleep, someone to keep up with the my necessities (ie make sure i never run out of tp, tampons, nail polish remover, soy milk and special k with red berries), and a full on kung foo SUSHI CHEF! i would eat sushi everyday for every meals except for....

8. breakfast because that is reserved for special k with red berries and soy milk. my cat and i share a moment every day where she sits on my trib (holla chicago!) only so i become more concentrated on removing her than defending my cereal. gets me every time. yum. i think i'll go get some cereal now.

7. fried mushrooms. my one vice. ok, so probs not my only, but still delicious. the best in town is a straight up tie between an italian pizza place by my house that delivers 24/7 and an equally convenient gyro drive through. whether i'm up town or down town, in bed, or coming home from the bar... fried mushrooms are available. i couldn't ask for much else.

6. my toothbrush. i agree riese. remember that scene in season 4 of tlw with paige and shane where they are in bed reading the paper and shane is all chewing on her toothbrush. i really connected with that moment. dental hygiene is maybe my favorite obsession. maybe.

5. if you number 5 is what i think it is, i'm totally with you. le sigh....

4. strawberry lemonade. blended by me. vodka optional.

3. Iranian food. the gf makes such good food. i don't know what's in it. she promises no meat, so otherwise i don't really worry about it. if her step mom wasn't insane and only 10 years older than we are i would insist she moved in with us. i could hand with these people for while, we'll keep em!

2a. puppy chow. hands down totes my favorite snack food ever. before we started dating said iranian made me something like 3 gallon sized freezer bags worth of puppy show. rice chex, peanut butter, chocolate, and powdered sugar? sign me up! when i graduated i told my mom i didn't want a cake at my party, just enough puppy chow to go around. there was a cake. i was almost mad enough to be in a bad mood, but obv as the day went on and creeps were all in my space all day and i couldn't leave cuz like it was my party... i had bigger problems on my plate than stale grocery store graduation cake.

2b. sara lee frozen cheesecake bites. i'm way lactose intolerant, but i will deal with the consequences for these things. perfectly bite sized. not too rich. delicious!!!!

1. other peoples mouths (but really, what else would i say?) more specifically her bottom lip. i will bite. sorry. i can't help it. you can bit me too. see. it's give and take.

alright time for number 5...er... number 8!

jordan said...

wait i take it back! our number 5s are not the same. not at all. i was talking about girl anatomy. i think that was not what you were talking about. woops.

also i forgot gum. i have gum for every occasion. gum for right after i brush my teeth because it's not so sugary it makes the mintyness of my toofpaste go away. gum for anytime like an orange flavor. gum for after beer. gum for after dinner. gum for before numbers 5 and 1. gum gum gum.

jordan said...

hi spelling and grammatical errors, i'm jordan. nice to meet you. maybe i should not try to type while i'm laying in bed anymore...

and i'm officially done blowing up this comment thread.

Anonymous said...

I don't think its a coincidence the "Self-Destruction" and "Semicolon" tags are right next to each other... just sayin.

#5 can be so many things! it's killing me.

riese said...

I'll respond to all the comments later, but I just wanted to state for the record, lest there be any confusion, that 5 does refer to girl anatomy.

FIN

frank said...

mulva!

Stephanie said...

Ben and Jerry's cinnamon bun ice cream is the best ice cream because you can have it for breakfast. Cinnamon buns are a perfectly normal breakfast while ice cream is not always acceptable. MMMmmm, ice cream.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it rhymes with Delores?

The Brooklyn Boy said...

I was totally about to use a Maniac Magee reference in a poem I'm working on (mention of skill at untying knots), but scrapped it b/c I thought that was too obscure. Cheers for having faith in yer audience.

Also, kissing gets a full-on TBB seal of approval. It's safe to say I'm a fan.

its the jeans - Pukk has AMAZING fried mushrooms.

riese said...

eric mathew: I also feel that the real Ben & Jerry, the people, would be really good huggers.

Ingrid, my sweet flower of Jesus: I love it: imagining you wandering around for several hours wearing a blue medical mask and mumbling "liquid gold!"

(I clearly avoid the stern speaking by um ... avoiding the dentist?)

I'll keep on keepin' on, clearly.

Straws: another thing I like to put in my mouth, regardless of liquid at the other end.

chrissy: I'm glad Maniac Magee is still thriving in the younger generations.

crystal: I like getting discounts in theory. In practice, everything just seems to fall apart.

anonymous: WOW! THis is the best comment I have ever read. Actually it kinda is.

gobstopper: Totally, like want some candy and then they're like, that's not all i want, and then you're like, okay, eat it, and then, so on.

lawlaws: Did somebody say CRACK?!!

kazzie: Also, fries dipped in frosties at Wendy's. Dead set.

dewey: If the spice girls made you feel like you're a kid again, then they'll probably make me feel like an early-20s person again? Hm.

adam: I don't spend a lot of time looking at pictures on the internet, but it happens to be my favorite photo of myself ever taken because I love the tank top (wish I still had it) and I feel like I'm doing a really awesome dance move (wish I could still do it).

allie: Yes, yes, the frosty idea has been seconded. I'd always wonder driving up to UDF "Are we here for ice cream or are we here for gas?" bc my grandparents never really announced our plans, but rather just went ahead and did them usually.

razia: The night in question I also was slipped a tab of E, had drank about 10 drinks, and I believe had some of the ex-whatever's joint, and I did not explode. Also I take prescription medications with heart palpitation side effects. In short: you'll be okay, let me corrupt you.

lozo: That's totally the spirit of Hospitaliano too: desk - giggling. I swear it. Bagina. Bagina Bagina. I wanted to say "rhymed with debussy" but then I remembered last week when Hav said "debussy" out loud, I learned that it is not pronounced how I thought it was pronounced, because I am stupid.

anonymous: dock dock tick tock

ms.jackson: I know, it's too bad it wasn't carrots.
The fries at grandma's kitchen we mentioned are delicious with ranch dressing, always.

it's the jeans: I agree about coffee and I also love breakfast, especially cereal with berries, and mushrooms (they sell great greasy stuffed mushroom delights at the olive garden, fyi) I also forgot about gum, I love the new Trident flavor explosions gum most of all.

I am very confused re: puppy chow,
but we are on the same page re: number 5, bottom lips and the rest of it.

a;ex: I'd say "i'll give you a hint," but I think Lozo's already taken care of that for me. It's a good thing I don't call you alex in my labels, because then you'd be stuck next to adolescent angst and boarding school.

Lozo: Phulba!

Stephanie: I don't think I've had that flavour but obviously it sounds delicious.

Allie: Sephora!

Brooklyn Boy: I think it was my only hyperlink, so perhaps my faith isn't as strong as it may appear. I didn't realise so many people would recognise it though, and it warms my heartstrings.

Anonymous said...

I just read the comments on your lword blog on the lwordonline, the one where someone complains about the use of shortened words, e.g obvs, and the "you can be quite amusing" made me lol. Obvs not a fan of this here blog.

And yeah ten years ago i was 8 so the concert did take me back to being a kid.

Ellen said...

Dilly Bars! I LIVED for Dilly Bars in the summer, they were the ultimate. Especially when the store made the chocolate-on-chocolate ones.

dorothy said...

I read this earlier today, appreciated it, and went on with my work day. This evening coming home all I could think about was getting McDonald's fries and could not figure out why, it was bizarre. Then I came back here to check out the links and it dawned on me. Silly Dorothy.

jordan said...

oh riese i wil make you some puppy chow and ship it your way. it involves a melted chocolate and peanut butter deliciousness covering pieces of rice chex cereal all topped with a layer of powdered sugar. for reals, when is your birthday. you will never look at any other snack food the same.

oh i want all of these things in my mouth now. now.

Haviland said...

1. it's amazing how many pics you have of things in the process of entering your mouth, and one of them is Heather with her hand on me.

2. i skipped most of the food paragraph, but i feel like it's a popular subject, based on the immense comments re: food, so you know, keep the auto-winners happy...

3. i forgot about the pushpops. you were mid-obsession when i met you...srsly, you'd just pull them from your bag.

4. and...packing the bikini now...

5. just had to have a number 5 bc it seems to be the most pop one...p.s. this is pure coincidence (or is it?) that my lesbian cousin lived with us when she was 19 and I was 5, and she called me "Number Five."

Anonymous said...

You should do the top eight worst places for lesbians to live.

Bourbon said...

Hm, I've never thought that I was corruptible - mostly because I've always been doing the corrupting. Maybe you'll prove me wrong...

amjja said...

Ooooooo Red Hot Lover's fries - luv em.

Luv the blog.

Luv the recaps.

Rock on.