well, this boisterous young fellow almost saw two 3 am's back to back.  that was the craziest fucking road trip of my life.  i'll blog later.  sleep now


update now.

okay, so i went to this charity golf tournement.  we left at 4 am friday morning.  took 6 hours to get to the town, about an hour or two northwest of poughkeepsie.  played golf for 5 hours.  it was a scramble, meaning each person took a shot and the best ball was the one we played.  it made golf amazingly fun.  except for i lost maybe 10 balls to water, brush, forest, and such.  our team, made up of 3 maybe golfers and someone who never played before.  we were 5 over.  but i did quiet well for myself.  i parred 18 all on my own.  plus i got 2 green in regulations.  which was awesome.

on the way back, we rode with an ex nfl player.  the car was the most beat up thing ever.  the fumes were killing us the whole way home.  plus the guy was  telling the stories about his life and it was kind of scary.  he beat up a cop once and thought nothing of it.

the only other item of note really is the fact that driving home, i watched two cops drag racing down my street at about 2 in the am.

color day tomorrow.  hope to get some photos of this one for you.

i'm going back and forth on discussing my girl adventures.  what is a blog if not for my thoughts.  so i'm going to walk the line again.
i realized i'm not accustomed to be forced to initiate things (duh) and it will just take time and prodding. tonight at dancing i didn't let myself take more than 1 song off in a row.  i asked a bajillion girls to dance.  if my club excuse is that i only like to partner dance, i certainly can't use any sort of excuse why not to ask a girl to partner dance.  so that was good for me.  so on the same point, i think i need to dance with 5 or maybe 10 girls this saturday night.  that will be a good start toward being comfortable asking girls to dance.  there is no friday night clubbing because i'm going to a charity golf tournament.  its for a charity close to the heart of the company and we have a foursome from work going.  rumors have it theres a number of super d-list celebs going, so i'll have to keep you updated.

many many things to update.
so saturday exploring with james, we walked all over boston, to the sea, and all over the back bay.  but i think i talked about that.
saturday night michelle from dartmouth showed up and we went to skyzone.  the place is full to a T of trampolines.  we did backflips, frontflips (michelle learned how!) and played basketabll and dodgeball.  for $15 and 2 hours of fun, theres no better sober saturday night activity in all of boston, maybe the world.
Sunday morning we got up, went and got some bagels/donuts and went to keggs and eggs IV.  michelle was taken right in and we had a great time drinking and not really eating since most everyone else brought booze - which is fine for the most part.  michelle was taking it easy, but i was enjoying my mamosas.  we got to the field and michelle had been recruited to play for red team because they never have enough players.  not only that, the red team got its first win!  michelle did well too, i heard from an inside source.  my team took our first loss, but i had a run and a ribbi.
then we went to the bar and michelle got to play in the real games.  i sang a little eagle eye cherry solo and she got the jist of things.  eventually she was ready and we sang Barbie Girl duet.  all good fun.  as she had to be back for work monday, we left pretty early.  no big deal, we had a good time.

yesterday JANET and i met up for dinner!  she went to ellen's grad party i guess and was in boston.  I said i had to see her, and made it happen!  we met up and i threw her a curveball and said, instead of going right to dinner, lets go to this great costume store.  so i took her to the garmet district - 'its a store, not a district'.  next week is colors week, for fourth of july, and so i got an entire purple outfit.  and these pants may be the tightest i ever worn.  how come everytime time i go buy costumes I end up with tight pants?  anyways, my costume is ridiculous and wonderful.  I also realized, my mom is visiting for sunday, and i am planning to do a duet with her at courtside (the bar) but i'll be in these ridiculous pants.  oh boy.
then, after getting the costume, we went to dinner.  and we hit the jackpot.  we found this irish pub that served Innis and Gunn, and was super duper delicious.  it was well worth the walking.  i had an excelent chicken pasta thing, and janet had avocado crabcake pasta.

life is pretty good.  you just have to get through the workday to get to the the funday

i went dancing again on thursday.  it was fun, but there were more guys than girls by a bunch.  then yesterday we had a beer afternoon at work, which was good cause i wasn't feeling work so much.  then we went to redbones, a really good barbeque place.  it was good.  then today i'm about to go exploring with james.  i'll tell you about it when i get back

james and i walked a huge chunk of boston.  they have this thing called the freedom trail, its a big walking tour of boston.  we jumped on that for a while.  went to the harbor, touched the atlantic ocean. then we walked back all the to the boston common.  we then went and found the bench from goodwill hunting.  we took some photos, then went and had bolocos for lunch.  that stands for boston local company.  they have it at dartmouth too.  so that was fun.  then we went to a bar and had a beer and watched some euro 2012.  finially we headed home

tonight we're going to skyzone, the amazing trampoline filled building.  michelle is coming down from new hampshire to join us and then go play kickball tomorrow.  should be fun.

today was an awesome day.  first of all, i found out i have a reader.  someone cares :P  no but its good to hear i'm not just talking to the world.  although really i'm just talking cause i feel like if my friends blogge about what they were doing, i would want to read it.  so i blog how i would want them too.

but onto the interesting stuff.  i actually enjoyed work all day today.  i realized yesterday if i'm giong to accomplish my project before i have to go to dartmouth, i need to order parts right away.  and that means the guy i'm doing the project for needs to stop giving me half-thought out instructions and fully fledge out the project.  anyways.  i ordered $1800 of parts today and hope to order just under $3k tomorrow.  then i'll spend the next couple days doing mechanical engineering stuff (which is good, I'm a mechE hired as an EE and don't really know what i'm doing, so whenever i get to do something i know how to do, i'm happy).  In th afternoon I started programming the system and that was enjoyable too.  I even worked an extra hour today, cause i was enjoying it and getting paid along the way.  pretty good right?

then i came home and made some leftovers before going to west coast swing.  that was fun to do the lesson.  its all stuff i've done before, but not in a long time, so i need touch up.  after the lessons there was free dancing.  even though i would like there to be tons of cute young girls, its just way more fun dancing with middle to later aged woman.  I'm more relaxed, they're totally unthreatened.  we laugh and have fun.  i danced with prolly 8 or more of them and each of them was awesome.
I may also go back on thursday.  they have thursday lessons which are mostly the same stuff but maybe a little different moves.  we'll see if i go to that.

but i have to tell you what happened during the free dancing tonight.  it was great fun and such, then they paused the music and someone got on a mic and said "we have a birthday"  it was some woman's birthday and they put on a sweet song and the dancefloor cleared, with only her and a man in the middle.  they danced and then he spun her out and she was taken by another man who danced with her for a bit.  i noticed there was a big line.  everyone who wanted to got to have a small period of center stage dancing with the birthday girl.  it was totally amazing.  they played two songs there were so many people who wanted dances.  men, woman, everyone dance wither her.  it was awesome.  clearly it was only for people who had been going to this thing a long time, since she was kick-ass and they all were too.  but it would be fun to be at that level some day.

until next time

I realized the last couple post topics has been about darren overcoming girl fears.  riveting as that is, the only two places that topic can go are things that I don't need to post about.  So this is my last post on the topic (until I undoubtably forget that resolution and bring up the matter again).

Yesterday was really fun.  Sundays always are now.  It started by going to a brunch where pink and purple teams met up for food and drinks.  never gone out for pre-noon drinking before.  that was cool.

then we went to the fields and i played two games.  one of the teams is way under staffed, so some people were lent out to this team.  between that game and my team game, i had 4 hits!  it was awesome.    my team got a tie and the other team i played with lost a heartbreaker.

then the real games started.  the karoake competition was pretty fun.  I'll hopefully get some photos of my outfit.  I thought i did pretty well.  i certainly had fun.  i sang and mostly danced michael jackson's thriller.  there should be video somewhere as well.  some of the other good performances were beastie boys sabotage, queen bohemian rhapsody, and grease summer nights.  i didn't win, but i got plenty of complements on my costume - a sign perhaps.

after the competition there was regular karaoke and drinking.  my day goal was to get a number.  but even before I could ask the girl (who i had been crushing on last week), another girl told me she spoke with this particular girl and heard she thought i was cute.  a good sign.  during my song, another boy sat next to this girl and just wouldn't leave.  i enlisted a teammate to run distraction for me.  then it was just me and this girl.  time to jump in.  getting the number was surprisingly easy.  its not that big a deal, we're already friends, so it was just a friend thing.  but with the new cute datapoint, i had a greater goal.  i wanted a date.  so, i chickened out a couple times, then just went for it.  and she said no.  not ready for a relation right now blah blah.  but you know what.  it wasn't that bad.  we kept talking for a little while and she sent me a nice text later that night.
 
but thats really a great thing.  i asked a girl out and she said no and i'm alive.  not crushed, not hurt, just fine.  so i'm actually content with things.  

Maybe I can do this thing

I've come a long way in the last three days.  I went out on thursday and got the perfect during-week buzz.  I went out on friday and I asked a girl to dance and got shut down.  and last night, i took a couple more steps.

it was jame's 21st birthday, so we went out for dinner and drinking.  dinner was good, and it was late enough that there was a bachelorette party going on in the area.  we had a group of maybe late 20s early 30s come up to us with a list of things they had to do and take photos of.  the first was to take a photo with a "jay".  james is close enough.  done deal.  the next was to get a piggy back ride from someone.  matt is a big dude, taken care of.  I said, why don't you just show us the list and we'll do as many as we can.  the next one on the list was a body shot.  ...  it was my turn to do something for them, so i said i'd do it.  i went and bought a tequila shot and did a body shot off lisa.  matt got a photo.  there is proof.  they thanked us and took off.  we were still giggling.

next we walked around for an hour or something while i was being too picky about where to go.  covers suck.  stupid bars.  anyways, when i realized i was the one keeping us from going somewhere, i said fuck it we're going here.  we bought drinks.  danced a while.  james and matt are both in relations, so they were scouting for me.  (that was weird, they would point to a pretty girl and give me the "hey" eyes).  I asked to dance and got turned down, but immediately was asked to dance by another girl (per james' doing).  then we bought another drink and i went and asked another girl to dance.  she was skeptical but i must have been convincing or something.  so i taught her to swing dance.  that alerted her to my not being a creepy dude.  (which i'm not by the way).  we got to talking and talked and danced for maybe 6 or 7 songs.  she's 24 and doing a masters in marine biology.  sarah.  very pretty.  so we were dancing and matt had to go to catch a train back home.  james mentioned wanting to leave.  and i knew what they were doing (leaving me alone with her) but i freaked out and said something and ran away with james.   i didn't even get her number.  stupid darren.
BUT!  that was some huge steps for me.

And theres still one day of weekend left.  friday's goal was to talk to a girl.  saturday's goal was to dance with a girl (it was supposed to be grind with a girl, cause that's the scariest of all, even more than asking for a number.  i can't just come into your space and touch you.  that's just crazy talk).  sunday's goal is to get a number.  I'm coming home today with a girl's number.  that's going to happen.

big boisterous plans!

went out last night to a super awesome area.  its near quincy market.  it was really lively and awesome. i talked to a girl and she gave me the immediate cold shoulder.  but its a start.  also i relearned that there is a perfect drunk level for me, where i'll talk to anyone no problem.  i need to get to that level THEN find a girl to talk to.  in such a state of mind, i found out that my new friend james doesn't by default have game because he's from canada.  good to know

also, the reason for this post.  i'm going to stop being a scaredy cat and just go out into the world.  its happening.  here i go.

man, life picks up sometimes.
i went to the most awesome amzing costume/random clothing store ever.  two floors of endless crazy clothing.  i went in, thinking I would pick the craziest thing in the store and that would be my costume. but there really was no greatest or silliest - they all were silly.  i ended up getting something that was pretty good.  you'll have to wait and see for yourself.
then i got home and immediately went back out to a bar.  sam grant was in the city and we met at the bleacher bar.  the place was inside the green monster.  it was really cool.
then today we played basketball and a tried to take a charge by ex-NFLer.  wasn't called.  but it was physical.  we were playing football with a basketball on a court.
tonight we're going out somewhere near northeastern.

tomorrow, who knows

swing dancing is awesome.  i'm so happy right now.  i just love dancing.  its great.

i went to the west coast swing dance lesson and there were more girls than boys (which is not always the case, but is good).  There were young people too.  boys and girls!  it was a great mix of aged people.  and the teacher of the class had so much spunk it was wonderful.  she was as big a dork as me, talking about silly off topic things and having a fun sense of humor.  she even guessed that i was an engineer.  then said, half of everyone in boston is an engineer.  I said, balogne, take a poll.  considerably less than half of the people in the room were engineers and we had a laugh.

after the class, there was free dancing.  this was the best part.  i danced and a lot of the moves i learned at dartmouth came back to me.  it was great.  also, watching the amazing dancers dance was just crazy. the women spin so fast and dance so sexily.  i wanna be that good that i can ask a random woman to dance and she will be able to add such sassy pizzaz.

if i can have as much fun during weeknights as i did tonight, then this work thing will be alright.  :_)

Last night, i mustered up energy and went to target to finally buy house items.  I got stuff that every house needs - cups, a decent pot, dish and hand towels, that sort of stuff.  I also got bed sheets.  they were expensive.  but MAN are they soft and comfortable.  that was the best investment I've made in a long time.  so good.

tonight i'm going swing dancing, to meet people and to ... go swing dancing.  i'm pretty excited.  In all likelihood its a bunch of grandma's (it always is with these things) but maybe there will be some cute girls.  or at the very least some young people.  i'm still in the friend gathering stage, so i'm not looking for dates, but that is in the grand scheme summer plan, so it couldn't hurt.

also, I'm signed up to do this song for the karaoke contest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSQOeQakExU.  I don't think i'll win because there's 2 very capable singers/performers - you know the charismatic, fun to watch on stage, adam fierman types.  BUT, my costume should be the best.  More details to come on this front

The good news is, I'm not hung over this morning.  The bad news is, I didn't get ridiculously drunk in order to be hung over.  But.  That was intentional.

So yesterday started at 10 with me walking half an hour to pick someone up, and then we walked another 45 minutes to the party.  we got to Kegs and Eggs and it was going to be between Kickapotamus (Pink Team) and Kicktease (Purple Team - mine).  But, there were two Pinkies and 7 purples there.  So pretty much we had a team party at the Pink guy's house.  We ate food and drank drinks and it was good.  but it was hot.

Then we walked over to the field and played kickball.  our team is not so good, but we won by way of forfeit.  Then, when we played a scrimmage, we lost.  but we're 2-0 baby!

Then the real fun started when we got to the bar.  Of course this time i DID NOT buy rounds of jeggerbombs, someone else did.  drank a ton, sang some karaoke, and generraly was silly.  my dance moves go over well.  However, I seem to have inheritted the baby role.  One of the girls yesterday said she just wanted to adopt a little brother and teach me about boston.  how cute i was and all.  lame!  (though i'm pretty cute).  Thats okay though, there's 8 teams and I'm meeting people and if I'm the youngest whatever.

I was informed that there was an after party last week that everyone went to, not me because I was too drunk and was walking home by then.  This week they made sure I went.  it was really cool too.  I made friends with a guy named kellen (who is awesome).  he introduced me to hillbilly horseshoes.  it was pretty cool.

Then, i made my way home.  Now for another week of the boring stuff until I can get back to fun!

Oh, and Saturday night, the celtics lost.  But I had a great time at the bar.  Some of the kickballers met up at a sports bar and we sat and drank and watched (but then didnt watch at certain key times).  It was cool.  Not exactly a bar though, it was really kind of a restaurant.

So, the party last night here was fine.  Interesting friends.  But it made me feel old and made me miss my college and my friends.  so that so stupid.  also i ate ratatoulli.  looked nothing like from the pixar film.  it was alright.

today i went to a sports bar to watch germany portugal and again no one would talk to me.  but tonight.  TONIGHT!  i'm going to a bar with some of the kickballers and watching the celtics game.  should be pretty awesome.  i'm really excited.

this is a talk kevin, the vp of research and development gave at google.  its a pretty cool summary of the company and the technology.  also, kevin is awesome.  i eat lunch with him most days.

http://www.wesolveforx./#t=s&n=5fde3a97 com


also, I got invited to a breakfast pregame on sunday.  that should be cool.  drink, play kickball, drink and karaoke, then sober up so i'm not hungover for monday.

I made tangible contributions to the company today.  Not to say they need me as opposed to a semi cognizant monkey, but still it happened.

On the boisterosity meter, we (me included somehow) are hosting a friday party.  Its a potluck food/drink party.  I don't know anyone, but deniz does, and he says it'll be awesome.  so, thats gonna happen.


% non boisterous talk %
Its also weird,  I go through periods where I am suddenly incredibly lonely without my vassar people. Like, peri hasn't walked into my house in for fucking ever.  thats a problem.  also, i have 2 numbers of people that I could call and hang out with.  and 1 of them I've kind of leaned on for more than I should so i need to give him a break.  but then, I think about how I get to reinvent myself again.  with no network, theres no image of darren.  I'm not the tactless number cruncher yet.  and thats exciting.
Facebook is actually the go between of those worlds.  its really easy to go onto facebook and stay "connected" with my college friends, just like i did for a while with my high school friends.  but that facebooking actually inhibits me from going and making every imaginable effort to meet and make new friends.  not literally, for the most part I'm not sitting on facebook instead of going out adventuring.  But more mentally.  I wonder what my people are doing and it makes me miss them and it may make me more skeptical or pessimistic about making new friends.

its oddly turning me off to facebook.  but obviously I can't get rid of it or lose the connection to them.

Oh man.
Adults get drunk too.  Thats a good thing.

On sunday I went to kickball.  I met 10 or 15 young adults in the area and we played.  It is a surprisingly quick game.  Afterwards, we went to a karaoke bar.  Thats where the fun really started.  so we sat down and started drinking.  It was fun for a while, then somebody suggested jeggerbombs.  My rookie mistake was to be drawn in to help carry them.  we ordered 12.  and I paid for 5 of them.  pretty damn expensive.
Anyways, I haven't any idea how many drinks i had.  we sang songs, did dances.  I got maybe 15 people's numbers, some even that live near me.  Caitlyn said she would invite me to a party they were going to this friday.  Also, age came up in discussion just once - this was something I was a little worried about.  I didn't want to be a baby in the group.  But it was pretty inconsequential.
Anyways, I was too drunk to figure out bussing back to my house.  So I walked home for like an hour.  Its a miracle I made it back.  I kept texting friends and at one point I thought back to the "echo echo co co" story of freshman year.  How this really was the same thing, but in the real world.  If I took 1 wrong turn I'd end up in a ditch.
Anyways, I got home, fell on my bed and woke up this morning hung over as fuck.  Somehow, some crazy way, I got my shit together and went to work and functioned somewhat and no one noticed.
But I can't wait to go do it all over again, but maybe with less drinking.

*UPDATE*  Thats a lie, no less drinking, just more water afterwards

1.75 for wash and 1.75 for dryers?  only in quarters?  ba-phooey!

So, I decided to make this blog about my new life.  I graduated from Vassar College, so I have those, you know, writin' skillz.  Or something.  So I should be able to do this right?  Well, I don't know who will be reading and what those people want to hear, so I'll just summarize the past two weeks and then I'll be more up to date.

Well, I started off my new adulthood with a drive to Boston and no where to live.  I stayed on a couch and went to work with my entire life in my car.  I worked and people would ask where I was living and I'd point at the parking lot, there.  Well, last sunday I moved into a place.  This place is full of crazy Tufts college students who smoke a bunch of pot and don't live, well, clean.  I cleaned the kitchen spotless on monday cause I knew I was going to be unhappy living in filth, and then I went into Boston on the T.  I got totally lost in china town.  Eventually I stopped and had a beer and then went home.

The next week of work was lame.  sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours is aweful.  Don't graduate.  Seriously, slouching off is way easier in college.  Getting home at 6 exhausted isn't fun.  But it's getting better little by little.

Today, Saturday, I did nothing at all.  I had planned to go to the aquarium and explore more.  But it poured rain today and I got scared.  I don't want to go out in the ick if I'm not going to meet people.  So I sat on my ass and watched TV literally all day long.  Its the most ridiculous slobbery ever.  However, tomorrow is my big day!  I'm playing kickball and drinking with many many new friends!  The waka kickball league was made for young people to make friends.  LIKE ME!  So that will be good.

Check back for more boisterosity!