I made it to Stray Dime Island. How pretty is it?!

No, I’m at the Barrett Family Compound (BFC, which also stands for big fucking cabin) in New Buffalo, MI, hard at work in the fields of eating, drinking, and developing skin cancer. This is my first official “vacation” all year! I plan on using it to avoid any houeshold duty whatsoever. My dad’ll be like, “Yo, A, how ’bout a refill on ice water?” and I’ll wince and shake my head, “Sorry,” even though I’ll be standing at the sink, spitting cherry pits that don’t belong in the sink into the sink. Or Dee will cry out, “Annie! Cut yourself a phat slice of raspberry-almond danish!” and I’ll glare at her from my perch on the couch, then point to myself with both index fingers with a powerful smirk that clearly conveys: “ON VACATION.” She will then serve it to me with a fork, and I will laugh and laugh, but not hard enough to make my stomach muscles exert themselves, because that’d be like… working.

Dee bought these awesome Cadbury Buttons while we were on vacation at Christmas. Everybody loves buttons, and I am always quick to go with the crowd, so I knew these would be a hit with me. Just look at this kickass wrapper with an enormous cartoon button on it. Gaze adoringly at the bubble-like notches. Awwww!

But look:

NO NOTCHES.

These are not buttons! These are coins. But since they’re not worth anything, they’re actually most like the small, silver, coin-like discs of the same size that my sister and I used to “collect” while roaming around our dad’s unfinished construction projects. I don’t know what these things were or what they fell out of, but every time we went with Bill to “check the jobs,” there would be a fresh smattering of worthless silver coins in every room. Maybe the workers left them there to toy with us. I believe Meg and I would compete to see who could find more “money,” until we got sick of it and started tearing up large swatches of cotton candy-like pink insulation instead. Yes, the chemically poisonous kind. Ah, childhood.

Back to candy. Once you wipe the tears away from the false-advertising setup, the Cadbury Buttons are seriously amazing. The slight curvature on the top lends to some terrific mouth-melting, and January 23rd is by no means too soon to begin raving about the distinct chocolatey/oddly fruity (at the end) taste only America’s favorite vaguely British Eastertime import can provide.

But still. I call bullshit!

DR is obviously under construction. I’m in the process of switching over to Wordpress so I don’t have to keep doing every single thing on the site manually, like a total idiot.

It will look somewhat normal soon.

Welcome to Volume 001 of the Play Along With The Snorks Brooklyn Challenge, available only at DR and your local Target. I’ll give you a topic: free furniture.

Q: What did Annie and Leno see for free on the street, flip out over, and bring back to their new apartment?

……

a) decrepit green chair

b) infested floral sofabed

Vote now!

Loyal readers will note that Annie is clutching her purple camera case/mitten in the photo on the left. You know, just in case.

I’ve been avoiding my first post from Brooklyn for awhile now. What if I was changed? What if this site became much worse…. OR BETTER? The thought was more than I could bear.

No, I’m just lazy.

So here I am! This neighborhood is called Park Slope and I love it. Like OMG it is so cool and original of me to move to Park Slope! I am a Slopester. Watch me blog about it!

But first: last photos of the Village.

Here I am in the Pink Palace, just moments after the three movers lugged out all of my crap from it… and just before I got stuck in a 90-minute traffic jam in a cab because I was too shy and rejection-fearing to bum a ride in the moving van. (The woman on the phone said it was illegal for them to drive me… I’m not sure why I listened to her. I think it was so that I’d have a good excuse to not ask for a ride, even though it was all I wanted/needed in my life at that point. So basically, the prospect of saving up to $95 (the extra hour on the move + $20 for a cab) was not worth the effort of a few lines of awkward conversation between me and strangers. I need to develop some new priorities. Hence, the move to Brooklyn.)

Speaking of awkward, I certainly played my part in making the scene between me and the movers as uncomfortable as possible. It took them maybe 30 minutes to haul everything out of the place, but I still kind of had to be in there to answer questions and generally get in the way. So I pretended to busy myself with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Tilex Shower Fresh cleanser. When they’d leave the room, I’d relax and put both items down; when they returned, I’d be furiously scrubbing the oven top for the fifth time. I also did a number on the closet and bathroom floors. None of this was necessary. All I really wanted to do was clean behind the bed, where I knew would be an assortment of sugary cereals, hair things, and broken glass. Finally the bed was gone, and I was right. The broken glass was more like a broken goblet. It was this huge beer chalice from Munich, and I loved it. I almost didn’t want the guys to move the bed so I wouldn’t have to bear the sight of its pieces. (Keep in mind the glass broke over a year ago and I just never bothered to pick it up. I’m cool.)

The most awkward few minutes occurred after I realized there were still some popsicles in my freezer, and decided to start gnawing on one while the movers were still in the thick of things. It was an Edy’s Whole Fruit strawberry bar and it was absolutely heavenly. So good, in fact, that I started feeling extremely guilty about eating the treat in front of the mover men. Here they were hustling and sweating their asses off, and there I was gingerly sinking my teeth into each bite so as not to incur brain freeze.

A few bites in, the scene became too traumatic to handle, so I started rushing and developed brain freeze anyway. The whole time, I wondered if it would be appropriate to ask the guys if they wanted one. It would have been so weird. We were barely speaking, but they had to notice how delighted I was by the popsicle. I’m positive I was swaying around in a deep swoon, trying to catch my balance on the countertop. I was pissed I never got to enjoy the other bars in the package. I ended up leaving them for new tenant Kate, but first I had a fleeting notion of asking the guys if they wanted one. I wonder how I would have phrased it, because their English wasn’t so hot.

“Want a popsicle?”

“Would you like a delicious popsicle in a strawberry flavor?”

“Here.” [shoves it]

Either way, it would have been weird. Think about it. I’m paying them to carry crap downstairs at 10 in the morning and suddenly I’d be like “No, stop and have dessert with me.” I’m positive they’d have said no, so I never asked, Plus, I knew I’d be offended if they declined. When people say no to things I suggest, I get really mad. Not because I want to win, but because I really want others to enjoy what I’m obsessing over at that moment. It makes me feel less insane and selfish. So seriously. Humor me.

My my, check out how much more pink and loserish the Palace looks when it’s empty! It also seems smaller, if that’s possible. Did I really live in that thing for two years? (A: Yes, and you adored it, so stop that right now, young lady. I mean it!)

I expected to be teary-eyed and blubbery during these moments; instead I was thrilled (see above photo, in which I swear I wasn’t trying to look that excited on purpose). I think the most appropriate term is “giddy.” I like that one because when I say it, I seem to feel the need to add an extra syllable, a sort of “ehn” sound before the g. It comes out like “nnngiddy.” People have mocked this. They’re like, “Say giddy again.” But I don’t. I’m not their clown.

It’s Moving Day, finally.

Join me in a moment of silent chewing for the final Pink Palace post.

And it’s just a photo. Which is fitting. (Refer to site’s title.)

[Sniff.]

We’re in the process of painting our new apartment. I’m living with a Scandanavian arctic creature named Poor Leno (right). He doubles as a human. We hosted a “painting party” last night and got one room completely done, in a life-affirming shade of green called Brookdale Gardens. Yes! Painting is extremely fun and rewarding for at least ten minutes. You should try it!

I’ll tell you what’s disgusting: primer. I coated my room with it because the infant named Jackson who lived there before had an apparent fondness for pumpkin orange, a color darker than my choice of Luster Blue. (I’d actually call it Dusty Violet, but whatever.) Let’s not linger on the fact that I’m moving into a tiny cube previously inhabited by a baby, and instead focus on primer being disgusting. From the first massive “roll” I applied to the wall, I was treated to a constant shower of tiny wet, white specks. I felt like I was in a commercial for a shampoo called “Primer.” It was sort of fun becuase I’ve always wanted a ton of cute freckles, but mostly it was disgusting. I don’t even know if it was worth the effort. Note to everyone: Say no to primer!

I love how I paint one room and I’m suddenly an expert on manual labor.

Here’s one cool thing: the color we picked for the hallway (a light sea green) is called Prairie Princess, and both of us are from Illinois, which everyone already knows is… The Prairie State! True to our roots, we are. Maybe we should make it a theme and stencil in some corn on the cob and the ever-obligatory outline of Abraham Lincoln’s head.

Since painting the rest of it looks to take 10-15 days or perhaps years, this site will be even lamer than usual (Exhibit A: this post) in the near future. Please stand by… and grab a roller and HELP us, with a backwards E.

Or leave tips on painting, specifically how to do it for extended periods of time without going insane.

Just blew into the bottom row of keys on my laptop and all these crumbs flew out. Buffalo shrimp batter, Dorito cheese mold and, most recently, Mrs. Gallagher’s caramel brownie droppings (holla!). This scattering reminds me of one of the post-its on the multicolored “quote wall” Kelly and Meaghan made senior year at BC. Most of the quotes were short and sweet, but one time Kelly took the liberty of writing out something I appreantly said out loud about my open laptop being the perfect-sized tray for those nasty homemade garlic-bread-and-bruschetta things I used to make. Did anyone take a digipic of that wall?

I was thinking about food earlier, which was weird, and suddenly realized that I made a big mistake in not securing more leftovers from Dee’s big New Buffalo bash. We got loads and loads of these awesome ribs from the Red Arrow Roadhouse (holla!) and for some reason that won’t be mentioned on the Internet, I was so distracted that I only ate four that night. Now I’m sitting here in New York with no groceries and a freezer full of Lean Cuisines I’ll never eat, dreaming about that sweet, tangy, glorious meat. I should have taken about 100 ribs, carefully shaved off just the meat, and packed it oh so tightly into a huge plastic bowl to take on the plane. I bet I still wouldn’t be at the bottom of the bowl yet, if I’d used enough packing force. Every few hours, or minutes, I could lazily dip my fork, or finger, into the meaty mess and pluck out a few more shreds of absolute delight. I’d swirl it around in my mouth with a beverage or just suck on it like tallow, depending on my current activity or lack thereof.

I guess the good thing about me not having transported the ribs that is that I won’t have to bear the disappointment of the bottom of the bowl. This way, I can talk to my parents while they’re eating the leftovers for dinner and wistfully describe what I “should have done” while smugly knowing that they themselves will eventually reach the bottom of the huge, glistening aluminum tray. Take that, Deedles.

I’ll be starting a full-time Entertainment Weekly internship at the end of the month. Yay! I’m pumped. I know it’ll take my nationwide following awhile to get used to the idea of me working during daylight hours, but I will try to smooth the transition by altering the time on my posts to read “5:30 a.m.” just like they used to.