oh, they're like separated?

Last night Meg Miraglia and I were sitting next to one another at the OASN concert (which was awesome, btw) and sitting across the aisle from us was a girl in seriously horrifying pink, suede, fringed boots*. I turned to Meg and said "Can we please just talk about this girls boots?"

Meg starts scanning the crowd and looking really confused.

Meg: Trace, I don't know what you're talking about.
Me: Right there, across the aisle!! How can you miss them.

She scans the crowd again.

Meg: Oh, they're like separated**?

At this point I was totally confused. Why, I wondered, is she looking at all those girls, you can't even see their feet!! How could she be missing those hideous boots! Then it ocurred to me.

Me: I said BOOTS NOT BOOBS.
Meg: Ohhhh, that makes sense. I was looking around and thinking, "Trace, I'm not seeing anything out of control here..." Oh, and yeah, how could I have missed those boots, they're disgusting.

I must have laughed about his exchange for about 20 minutes, but maybe it was one of those 'you had to be there' moments.

<3tracy

*In addition to those gross boots, I also saw at the concert the elusive 'ugly version of Eric Modrak' that Tara always mentions. I was beginning to doubt his existence, but there he was sitting just five rows ahead of me, looking suspiciously like Eric Modrak. I sent Eric a text message that said 'Spotted: the ugly version of you, at the OASN concert' (the only thing Eric loves more than sending 'spotted' texts is receiving them from me). Two seconds after I sent this I had a horrible thought: what if it was actually Eric and not his doppelganger and I had called him ugly!! Then I remembered that it was the last day of classes and he was much more likely off getting plastered than sitting at an OASN concert.

** What does that even mean? Haha.

david and the exploding soda machine

David: I just got soda all over my pants! Because God hates me.

Joe: Aw, and they're microfiber...

David: What? Really?

Joe: Yes. Microfiber. I used to golf, okay? We know our microfiber.

David: Oh shit, does that mean I just messed up my really nice pants???

Joe: Well, yeah, but don't worry -- it's microfiber.

nick's observations from the windows of the library

"Who plays croquet? Really?? And then there's that guy sitting in a kiddie pool. Our campus is so weird."

spending my sunday in the library: pros and cons

Pros

- AIR-CONDITIONING. This is my primary reason for being a real college student and acquainting myself with the second floor of the library. It is 90 degrees and humid and the dorms make me want to die.

- Comfortable couches.

- The wonderful company of Stephanie and Nicholas.

Cons

- Being forced to confront the overwhelming amounts of information I should have already learned. Studying sucks.

- Sitting in front of a huge window that taunts me with views of of other, happier AU students getting tan on the quad.

- Listening to the loud, obnoxious people enter the second floor from the stairwell. (To the girl who spent five minutes detailing her drunken weekend before commenting, "Wow, this floor is sooooo quiet!" -- YES. GOOD POINT. I believe this is the "quiet floor" of the library. FOR A REASON.)

Can we fast forward to May 7, please?

<3tara

i love data entry! not.

I know my day is off to a good start when I find myself typing the follow entry:

Robert Pinto, Jr.
Chairman, Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians

If only I got paid by the vowel...

<3tara

it never ends

You know those trick candles that keep burning no matter how many times you blow them out? Well I'm convinced that the same company that manufactures those candles is also manufacturing my to-do lists because no matter how many things I cross of, somehow the list just keeps getting longer.

16 more days!

<3tracy

by the way, i am a creepy stalker person.

Tracy and I have already blogged about the Mormon couple that we're obsessed with -- we follow their blog religiously and are determined to "casually run into them" now that they've moved from New York to DC. (We'll have a lot of spare time this summer. It will happen.)

But I have COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED the fact that Kal Penn (from "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle," the greatest stoner movie ever made) is apparently living in DC and working for the Obama administration. I usually lie when people ask me who my celebrity crush is, but I will admit to you all that I am inexplicably obsessed with Kal Penn. So now I have even more of an excuse to wander aimlessly around the Northwest quadrant for the next three months, hoping for a chance encounter.

The District is only so big. Anything is possible.

<3tara

dear DC-area weather...

Why do you tease me like this? You had me all excited for summer by giving me a weekend full of sunshine, clear skies, and temperatures in the 70s -- only to crush all my dreams with a cold and rainy Monday morning. After pulling out my flip-flops and sundresses, now I'm back in rainboots and scarves. I know you think you can do whatever you want and blame your mood swings on global warming, but this isn't fair to me. You can't just build me up and tear me down week after week. Can I finally put my sweaters into storage? Should I stock up on sunscreen? Can I start camping out on the quad, or do I have to prepare for flash floods?

Make up your mind. 

Sincerely,

Tara

<3tara

a life goal accomplished

So anyone who really knows me knows that I have an unhealthy addiction to reading the missed connections postings on Craigslist. For those of you who aren't familiar, people post looking for people they had passing encounters with like on a train, in a store, elevator, etc. I read these postings RELIGIOUSLY. And I do so for a few reasons:

1) Pure entertainment value.
2) I always hope that I'll have witnessed a missed connection happen and will then read about it later.
3) I secretly hope that someday someone will post one for me.

Well readers, it's finally happened! Yesterday I got off work early so I decided to head to Rockville to go to AC Moore to get some craft supplies for my next project. I got on at Union Station and there were these ADORABLE little boys (like 4 and 8) sitting in front of me. I chatted with the littler one for a couple of minutes (his name was Nate) and then their uncle sat down next to me. The kids, their parents, and their uncle got off at Friendship Heights and I stayed on the train to White Flint. This morning, I was reading the missed connections when I saw this:

If you can't read it it says:

"You were the beautiful woman I was sitting next to when I got on the Red Line toward Shady Grove. My nephews were sitting in front of us and I wanted to ask for your number. I hope you get this and write me. We were smiling as I looked back at you when I got off at Friendship."


Finally, a life goal I can check off my list!

<3tracy

things i am on

-ibuprofen
-antibiotics
-sudafed
-zycam
-my death bed

<3tracy

the worst part about living in a dorm...

(besides very thin walls and too much noise and broken appliances and cold showers and gross dishes in the lounge and everything else that I hate with a passion) is being in close proximity to so many germs. 

Tracy and I are sick. It sucks because it's the kind of sick that doesn't make us feel bad enough to skip class, but it makes us sound bad enough to cause our friends to wonder if we've been sneaking three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm talking serious gross raspy coughs. We both went to the Health Center hoping that someone would give us a miracle cure, but instead we both got $40 bills and advice that our mothers could have told us. gahhhhhhh. 

I'm especially bitter about being sick right now because it's Holy Week and I want to be able to sing the Easter hymns. I know I'm lame.

<3tara

the joys of working for the federal government

Today I overheard this conversation between two of my coworkers:

Coworker 1: Hey, man. So I kind of underestimated the secrecy of that document I sent you.
Coworker 2: Oh, yeah? So how secret is it exactly?
Coworker 1: Like, super. It is super secret.
Coworker 2: Ummm...okay then, that might be a problem.

<3tracy

things i have done so far at my internship today

- drank 3 cups of black coffee (because the kitchen is out of sugar, and also because I'm trying to be a little bit more of a badass)
- made an appointment at the Health Center to get some drugs for my myseterious illness
- listened to every single Belle & Sebastian song on my iPod (and if you have any sense of my music library, you should know that this is no small feat)
- familiarized myself with my Facebook newsfeed
- brushed my hair
- calculated the amount of menthol that would be in my system if I finished my entire bag of cough drops
- daydreamed about the summer
- considered the fact that I should probably be more productive before I get fired

<3tara

how to tell when something comes from costco.

The nutrition label on my bag of milk chocolate M&Ms reads as follows:

Calories: 280
Serving size: 1.5 oz or 1/4 cup
Servings per container: 38

Thanks, Costco. I love you for fulfilling all of my chocolately needs for weeks to come.

<3tara

a milestone!

We're celebrating our 100th post here at To Be Determined!!!!! To celebrate, we are bringing you a list of 100 things that Tara and Tracy love to hate. Enjoy. And make you sure you read our next 100 posts.


1. couples
2. love
3. couples in love
4. people who say we're bitter
5. brussels sprouts (not to be confused with trent's blog, which is awesome)
6. classes
7. homework
8. vacuuming
9. the shuttle
10. cisco clean access
11. snow
12. wind
13. cold
14. winter
15. socks with sandals
16. certain beards (the gross mountain man kinds -- you know what we mean)
17. tights as pants
18. jobs
19. cubicles
20. people who leave their gross dishes in the lounge for weeks on end
21. package hours
22. textbooks
23. escalefters
24. when the toaster in tdr is at that awkward speed that won't toast your bagel when you put it through once, but will burn it when you put it through twice
25. TDR PDA
26. the new facebook
27. the way mcdowell smells
28. drunk people in our nook (excluding us -- it's OUR nook)
29. creepers at guapo's who steal our 5 dollars
30. creepers at guapo's who won't take a hint when our gay friends are trying to rescue us
31. creepers in general
32. girls who somehow manage to look amazing for their 8:30 am classes
33. whole milk
34. when tdr is out of dishes
35. delays on the red line
36. small closets
37. small freezers that can't fit a pint of ice cream
38. washing dishes
39. alarm clocks
40. the weird wind tunnel by mckinley
41. artificial metro winds
42. bad hair days
43. sunburns
44. people who don't sunburn
45. laundry
46. dryers that shrink laundry
47. people who leave their laundry in the dryer for days
48. the fact that we are those people
49. humidity
50. tourists who don't understand the metro and ask a million times where they should get off for "the smithsonian"
51. waiting
52. finishing things we start
53. fluorescent light
54. thin dorm walls
55. mondays
56. tuesdays
57. actually, every week day
58. the fact that this campus is so small that we can't go to tdr without running into someone we once made out with
59. country music
60. commercials on television
61. late fees at the library
62. passive-aggression
63. rush hour fare on the metro
64. people who give us funny looks when we sing and dance along to our ipods on the metro
65. bratty children
66. parents who give in to bratty children
67. tests
68. research papers
69. studying
70. all-nighters
71. deadlines
72. getting sick
73. going to the health center when we're sick only to be told we're pregnant
74. people who don't recycle
75. the wireless internet on campus
76. camp bread
77. mosquito bites
78. drama
79. the fact that a little part of us secretly loves drama
80. people who live on higher floors and yell at us for using the elevator
81. beer
82. professors who can't speak english
83. professors who don't have office hours
84. contact sports
85. watching sports on tv
86. sports in general
87. the weird sounds our fridge makes
88. when we forget to buy milk
89. when people we know from class stop saying hi to us
90. people who ask questions in big lecture classes
91. cold showers
92. laundry forests
93. those days when we think it's later in the week when it actually is and we realize the weekend is farther away than we imagined
94. cliffhangers
95. science
96. lab reports
97. that brand of crest premium toothpaste that tastes disgusting
98. blogs that are funnier than ours
99. blogs that aren't as funny as ours
100. people who don't read our blog

why yes, tracy and tara have conversations online while sitting in the same room.

Tara: creepy creepy creep creep
Tracy: creepier creep creep
Tara: creeeeeeeeeeeeep
Tracy: creeeeeeeeeeeeeeep creeper
Tara: why are we having this conversation
Tracy: cuz you're a creep
Tracy: creep
Tara: you are too, creepy creeper creep creep
Tracy: creepity creep creepster
Tracy: CREEP
Tara: creepity creep creep
Tracy: C R E E P
Tracy: E
Tracy: R