Saturday Adventures

Saturdays are for adventures. When school and other life obligations start taking the front seat on the list of priorities, it can be hard to cross things off of our bucket list as quickly as we'd like. So, with loose plans in mind, J & I set out this Saturday to do as many of the things that we've been dying to do lately and it turned out to be a lovely little day. 

We started our adventure in Hyde Park because J needed to exchange something at Anthropologie. That place is a dream world full of kitschy little accessories, gorgeous clothes and aesthetically-pleasing home decor. While J was working on his exchange, I ran into one of my good friends Brie and also managed to find an embellished sweater in the sale area that wasn't astronomically out of my price-range. Before we left Hyde Park, we stopped into Indigo Coffee for a little caffeine boost. Naturally, J ordered a caramel iced coffee and I had an iced tea with lemonade. We are creatures of habit.

One of the required assignments for my Advanced Creativity class was to go to The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg before February 10th. J & I have been talking about going there ever since we first met, but this finally gave us a reason to actually follow through. As lovers of contemporary and pop art, J & I were more than pleased to find out that the Warhol exhibit is at the Dalí until April 27th. We loved browsing through his brilliant sketches, photos and screen prints. Also, if you're a USF student admission is free, so remember to bring your student ID.  

Daddy Kool is always a required stop when we are in St. Pete. We love digging around and trying to find vinyl that we know the other one would love. J picked up some stuff by the Germs, Minor Threat & Fugazi and I got a little 7" by the Ramones. We also peeked into a record store called Bananas, which was like walking into something from an old John Hughes movie. I would have loved to be this age in the 80s. Big hair, amazing music and brilliant films.

J & I finished off the night by having a little dinner date at Carrabba's. It was absolutely packed & to avoid a 45 minute wait we decided to sit at the bar. We people-watched, chatted about our day and got stuck watching an infomercial channel forever because someone had accidentally switched off the Olympics while we weren't looking. Whenever we're out in the world, I always look around at all the other people & think about how lucky I am to have a best pal in life. J's there for me; whether I'm happy, sad, cranky or excited. He accepts me being real & there truly isn't a greater gift than that.

After dinner we popped into Pet Supermarket for, what I call, Bun Therapy. I've been doing Bun Therapy forever because there isn't anything that can't be fixed by holding a little bunny. I mean, seriously, go hold a baby bunny for 5 minutes & tell me that you still feel stressed and anxious. It's just not possible.

Love,

A

I'd Do Anything

This past week was my & J's first week back to USF. While we are excited to get this semester underway, we are both a little nervous because we've both taken on a lot more this spring. I'll be writing for CollegeFashionista again, interning with the Dean's Office and taking an accelerated class schedule so that I can graduate in May and J just accepted an internship with Clear Channel, is still doing NO WAVES RADIO every Wednesday night & scored position as an entertainment writer for our school paper, The Oracle.  

In case you missed it, let me just repeat that this is my LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE. I know, I'm breaking into a cold sweat just typing this...

Anyways, we thought that having a good, old-fashioned adventure weekend was just what we needed to prepare us for the impending doom of this semester. On Friday night, J took me to the Fun-Lan drive-in to see Anchorman 2. The drive-in is one of our favorite places to go because we bring a huge blanket, snacks & can talk as loudly as we want during the film. We even brought our pal, Bentley, along.

Saturday was one of the best days I've had in a while. J came over around noon to take me to AMC Veterans so that we could watch the  new Spike Jonze film, Her. I love seeing artsy movies like that with J because we get all weird & nerdy and start pulling out all the lingo we learned in the film classes we took together. 

And I mean, how #punk do we look dressed up in all black accidentally? Sometimes, it's tough to hide just how funky the two of us are. So simpatico.

Then we drove over to Seminole Heights so that we could eat at a pizza place that we've been absolutely dying to try called Cappy's. We popped into Microgroove Records beforehand to check out some vinyl. J walked away empty handed as usual but I found a few gems that I was pretty excited about. 

One of the things that bring J & I together is our mutual adoration of the band, Simple Plan. They were my favorite band as a pre-teen(...and teen and also as an adult, if you could even classify me as one of those yet). I literally had a Simple Plan birthday cake when I turned 12. That's true dedication. So you can imagine my excitement when I walked into the store & saw their first album "No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls" sitting right on top of the CDs. It was only .99¢. That is a steal, people. I also snagged two 7"s: Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant & Take On Me by a-ha. I know, I'm weird.

Cappy's was brilliant. Their kitschy, 80s-esque decor was right up my & J's alley. They had little dated trivia cards that we played with until our food came, which could have been exciting if either of us had actually been alive in the 70s. We split a Diet Coke and ordered cheese bread with marinara sauce & a pepperoni and sausage pizza which suddenly seems ridiculously redundant to me because isn't cheese bread with marinara sauce basically just pizza...? Yup. It was all so delicious though & they played classic 80s hits the entire time. I was living in a dream world of carbs & dated pop music.

Afterwards, J took me to St. Pete so that we could check out this zine fest that he heard about. If you don't know what a zine is, they are just little paper books that people put together full of cool stuff. They can be filled with anything from poetry to art to photography. We got there & immediately felt like we were the weird ones because of how normal we were compared to everyone else. It was cool to check out a scene that we aren't really familiar with but the over-powering smell of patchouli oil made it absolutely necessary for us to leave after about 20 minutes. 

To make the best out of our trip, J & I looked up a little dessert shop called Everything Dolce. We split the most delicious tiramisu and a cafe con leche & read some of the little zines that we picked up. On the drive home, we blasted the Simple Plan CD. We both know every single word of it. It's moments like these, when I'm screaming lyrics full of teen-angst in unison with J, that I feel so lucky to have someone who just gets me. He accepts me for all of my weirdness. He lets me listen to Electric Avenue while I'm getting ready, no questions asked. He picks out lame 7"s from the 80s that he knows that I'll like to show me if he's looking through bins that I missed. He takes me to the drive-in. He makes these little detailed mental notes about what makes me happy & then does those things every day. He gives me room to grow but gives me unending support. That is love & I am just so lucky to experience it in this way, with this wonderful person.

I am simply mad about you, J.

Love,

A