After getting to work this morning and sitting down to read some articles off of the Washington Post website, I was absolutely stunned to see an article specifically about possibly lowering the legal drinking age from where it's at now at 21.

I just want to say that I have always felt that being legally able to drink at 21 is one of those rare rites of passage in life that all people wait for much like the rite of passage to be able to vote when you turn 18. Now I know that most people when they hear something like that will say something like, "If I'm old enough to vote and make a big decision of who my next President is at 18, why am I not old enough to drink at that age too?" My thinking and reasoning about that is that just because your old enough to do one thing doesn't alway mean your age reflects your maturity to do something else that requires a lot of responsibility. Keep in mind that there ARE young adults out there who are just simply incapable of acting mature for whatever reason and, yes, I know that people like this ruin it for the majority when it comes to matters like lowering the drinking age. Even if that weren't the case though, factors other than drunk driving need to be taken into consideration as to why the legal drinking age should be kept at 21.

That being said, I've never understood why those who are under 18 feel like it's imperative that they be allowed to legally be able to drink alcohol. I know it makes them feel more adult and grown up, but, in all honesty, I was in no rush to go out drinking during those three years between being 18 and 21 before I officially turned 21 and was finally legally allowed to drink. I'm now 3 1/2 years away from turning 30 (the thought that I'm not that far from 30 is a scary thought in and of itself!). My feelings are that you've got your ENTIRE life ahead of you for legally drink alcohol, so what's the harm in waiting 3 more years to legally be able to do so? Then again, these opinions and feelings that I have on this matter may simply be due to the fact that I have matured since both turning 18 as well as turning 21 and finally be legally able to drink.

Personally, I don't know how Presidents of these Colleges can support lowering the drinking age. I'm sure many of them are parents themselves and while they for the most part trust the judgement of their kids, I couldn't even begin to imagine how much guilt they'd be racked with God forbid something should happen to their kid(s) because they were drinking and all because the legal drinking age was lowered to some other age under 21. If I were a parent even if I fully trusted my kids, I wouldn't let them drink if they were under 21 because it is a tremendous load of responsibility to take on at such a young age when for the most part all your focused on is having fun and enjoying your youth.

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I'd just like to start out by saying that I very rarely wake up in the middle of the night. I'm the kind of person that is NOT a light sleeper and can sleep through pretty much ANYTHING.

Just to give you a better example, my second to last year of College there was a TERRIBLE Thunder Storm in the Towson area and my roommate at the time asked me the next morning if I heard the thunder from the previous night. I replied with a "What thunder?" type response and got a REALLY stunned look from her. That's the kind of sleeper I am where thunder as loud as the kind that went on that night won't wake me at all during the night. Last night, however, I had the strangest case/sense of disorientation. Although it was definitely much later on into the night, it only felt like 30 minutes between the time I turned out my light and went to sleep and when this happened. At some point last night I woke up and for a moment didn't know where I was.

Before you start thinking the worst, I knew I was in my HOUSE, I just didn't know if I had fallen asleep on the couch or had actually gone to my bedroom to go to bed. That has happened to me before where I did fall asleep on the couch. Happened my second year of College after transferring from Frostburg to Towson and the first year I was in an off-campus apartment rather than in a dorm. I had stayed up late watching a movie after moving all my stuff into my apartment and fell asleep while watching these movies.

Last night though I literally sat up in my bed and had to get my bearings for a moment to remember that I *had* gone to my bedroom to go to bed and hadn't fallen asleep on the couch. Part of me wants to attribute this disorientation last night to what has been a pretty stressfull and hellish week for me. I'm hoping that now that the week has come to an end and is essentially over, that I won't have another occurance of any kind like the one I had last night.

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I have felt very blessed to have been brought up in a family where I was exposed to a wide range of different music. Back in 1994 when I was 12, my Dad had been able to catch the Eagles at RFK Stadium in DC when they did their Hell Freezes Over tour. Now 14 years later I was finally able to be fortunate enough to see them in concert myself. This new tour they planned was in part due to the group having had released an all new album titled Long Road Out of Eden. While almost all of the songs from their new album has more of a country sound to it than their older stuff, it's still great music. Which is why I was VERY shocked to read an article in the Washington Post stating that the guy who wrote the review of the concert bashed the group's new stuff. If you had been at this concert you could SO tell that EVERYONE in the Verizon Center arena absolutely loved EVERYTHING regardless if it was the new or old stuff by the group as well as some of the solo hits from Henley, Walsh, and Schmitt.

That shocker aside though, I can now officially say that any concert I see throughout the rest of my life will be pretty hard to top after having seen the Eagles in concert at the Verizon Center this past Saturday night. Prior to seeing the Eagles perform the best concert I had seen was Huey Lewis perform at Wolf Trap a couple of times with The Police last November at the Verizon Center coming in at second. While I will ALWAYS LOVE Huey Lewis (as a child of the 80's they were after all the group that I grew up listening to), I don't think they could ever top a concert done by the Eagles no matter how long they continue to perform at Wolf Trap.

If you ever get the opportunity to hear the Eagles perform I strongly urge you to do so no matter WHAT THE COST! While my only complaint is that it took me a moment to recognize the music when they did Hotel California (on their Hell Freezes Over album the intro they do for the song combines bongo drums with a guitar whereas Saturday night's performance the intro was done completely by trumpet) it is SO worth seeing a group like the Eagles perform live even if tickets are expensive because you leave not feeling in any way cheated. Additionally, despite the fact that the concert was supposed to start at 8pm and didn't officially get underway until about 8:30, it went until 11:45pm including TWO encore's that left the crowd holding up their cell phones as the new form of using lighters at a concert.

Basically unlike the line in Hotel California where the group boldly states, "You can check out anytime, but you can never leave!", you'll find yourself not wanting to check out anytime and/or leaving at the end of an Eagles concert.

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After breezing through the entire show of SATC in a month and a half, I finally saw a 6:45 showing of SATC: The Movie on Friday evening. Here's what I thought of it.

To start off with it was totally worth it getting through the entire show. I definitely understood the personality of each character and loved the opening sequence during the opening credits. When I saw the show I placed the men in Carrie's life in this order: Adian, Big, Berger, the Russian. Honestly, I still don't get what Carrie found so attractive about the Russian. The fact that he kept ditching her angered me only slight more than the post-it "break up" done by Berger.

That being said I actually found myself not hating Big AT ALL during the movie. When I would watch the show my feelings about Big would keep going back and forth, but it was entirely different for the movie. Instead my anger was directed at Miranda not for the mistake that she made early on in the movie, but because it took her SO long to come clean about it (for those who haven't seen the movie yet I won't spoil what it was that Miranda did that took her so long to come clean about).

One of my two complaints is not with the movie itself, but rather with one of the other audience members. Some idiot of a mother decided to bring her 3 year old (or so) to the movie with her. Needless to say no parent should bring a child to an R rated movie period, but the fact that this mother brought such a small child to a movie that had every kind of adult content category imaginable was just completely, totally, and utterly ignorant. Especially considering this child started getting restless and as a result began making noises and other sounds distracting myself and other audience members from continuing our enjoyment of the movie.

While I'm on the subject of audience members, my other complaint is that many of the other people in the theatre kept laughing at what I thought were the most inappropriate places and where maybe a bit of quietness in regards to what happened would have been more fitting. There's a saying that laughter is contagious and can definitely be said in regards to this particular complaint. When others in the audience were laughing I constantly tried my best to not let it affect me, but unfortunately I kept feeling a smirk spread on my face and had to stifle laughter or chuckles from myself as much as possible.

Those two things aside though,I was very pleased and happy with the ending, loved the comedy, and look forward to buying this movie when it comes out on DVD.

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It is safe to say that I will be doing the most boldest thing ever in my life in a little less than TWO weeks.  Most of you who know me well know that I align myself with the Democratic party.  After the last 8 years of probably THE MOST corrupt administration in the history of our country (yes, even MORE corrupt that NIXON'S Administration!) I am SO ready to have a person like Barack Obama in the White House.  The fact that he'd be our FIRST African American President only FURTHER excites me!

Just to digress a little, during the Democratic Primaries my initial support was towards Edwards.  When he dropped out my support shifted to Obama.  I personally have nothing against Hillary Clinton.  I think she has done a lot as a woman to further the cause of women's rights, I just think that she, Bill, and her campaign people played VERY dirty politics.  In fact, when Bill made the comments he did leading up to the South Carolina Primary that was pretty much the point when I lost most of my respect for Bill that I had when he was in the White House.  There were times when it felt and seemed like Hillary was taking pages from right out of Karl Rove's playbook.

In any event, a Facebook group that I'm a part of sent out an event invitation for a fundraiser for Barack Obama's campaign.  Now you may be thinking and asking yourselves, what does that have to do with me/her doing probably THE MOST boldest thing in my life???  Well this particular fundraising event is a date auction and mixer titled "Unify Your Love" Date Auction and Mixer for Obama! event.  What makes this probably THE MOST boldest thing I've ever done is that fact that I have WILLINGLY volunteered to auction myself off as a date!  Prior to making this decision the boldest thing I had ever done was actually BID on (and WON) someone during a Valetine's Day auction that had been going on in Arlington, VA that the Arlington Young Democrats were doing.

I'm certainly curious now though how much I'm exactly worth and whether I'll end up being pleased or insulted as to how much that will actually be!  Of course what I need to concern myself with first is that the single men who will be there to actually make bids on me......... 

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A lot of my friends who live in Virginia will on ocassion tease me about moving to Virginia and leave behind my  residency in Maryland.  With one particular event going on this summer in my hometown however, has only further convinced me of not doing so.

Just to digress slightly, I'm a Silver Spring native.  Born and raised here.  If you were someone who grew up here in Silver Spring, there was almost absolutely NOTHING fun to do.  To find something fun you had to travel outside of Silver Spring.  With this in mind the past 5 or so years has almost nearly drastically altered the majority perception of the Silver Spring area.  We've gotten many shops and restaurants as well as the Discovery Channel moving their headquarters from Bethesda to Silver Spring.  In addition to all of that we've also gotten TWO movie theaters with the Majestic 20 and than the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center.  The latter theatre is just absolutely incredible and actually used to simply be known as the Silver Theatre.  Up until 5 years ago when the American Film Insitute came in and restored the facility the theatre had been shut down for 20 years and was actually probably destined for demolition.  The American Film Institute came in and saved it and in the process gave the residents of Maryland a wonderful theatre to see restored classics as well as new foreign and independent films.

This past weekend kicked off summer long excitement of different film series the facility is doing.  These include Part 1 of a Steven Spielberg Retrospective (Part 2 apparantly comes next year during the summer of 2009), a David Lean Retrospective (with films that include Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and The Bridge on the River Kwai), The Films of Milos Foreman (with films that include One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus), Totally Awesome 2: More Films from the 1980's, a Muppet History 101 (both the 80's and Muppets series include films like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth), and an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award for Warren Beatty Retrospective just to name a few.  This past weekend they kicked off the Spielberg and 80's series with JAWS and The Goonies.

JAWS is DEFINITELY one of my favorite movies, but since I've already seen it at AFI Silver a year or so back I wasn't all too eager to see it.  The Goonies, however, I was absolutely eager to see seeing as how I was only THREE years old when it came out in 1985.  THREE! Can you believe it?!?  I was just a baby!  My Dad insists that he and my older half brother took me to see it, but of course I have no recollection of that since most kids can't remember things prior to around their 3rd birthday.

That being said, seeing The Goonies on a screen and in a theatre as big as this main theatre at AFI Silver was incredible!  I felt the same wave of emotions that I felt when I saw E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial in theatres when it was re-released for it's 20th Anniversary back in 2002 (I was only THREE MONTHS old when THAT came out in 1982!).  And of course it was great to laugh along with the jokes shot out by every single actor who starred in The Goonies.  I think at the age of 26 I now finally get every joke made by every actor; especially since if you grow up watching something you steadily begin to get each joke as that time passes or progresses.  For anyone who grew up in the 80's (even if you were born AFTER the release of certain movies), seeing this Totally Awesome 2: More Films from the 1980's is something definitely worth looking into.  As an 80's child you owe it to yourself to re-familarize yourself with movies from the 80's the AFI Silver will be showing.

If you live in the DC/MD/VA area I highly suggest making a trip to Silver Spring to catch a movie at AFI Silver. While traveling a distance to get to AFI Silver depending on where you live probably isn't the best idea due to how bad gas prices are, it's worth at least ONE trip to this wonderful and beautiful facility.  Additionally, while the overall experience is absolutely incredible and wonderful, if your lucky to see a movie in the main theatre, the overall experience will have been heightened even more!

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I just want to say right here and now (WOLF! - sorry, inadvertantly channeled a character from a Stephen King/Peter Straub book called The Talisman) that I've never really been the type of girl who would feel at home spending hours in a mall.  In a way that's the masculine/guy side of me (other than enjoying a Sunday afternoon watching NFL football), where I have a mission of knowing what I want to get, getting it, and getting out with as little a fuss as possible.  So to those of you women who do enjoy that type of thing I mean absolutely NO disrespect whatsoever to ANY of you who enjoy doing things like that.  You see, my fear is that if I remain in a mall for too long and I do too much window shopping that I'll end up buying useless crap that I know I don't need.

That being said, it was with great shock that I found myself steering ever so slightly off course of the original plan and reason that I had for going shopping on Sunday afternoon in order to buy a new purse.  I absolutely love the Guiness tote bag that I got while I was in Ireland, but honestly, I started thinking it was about time I had a bit more of a feminine bag to carry things in like my wallet, checkbook, cell phone, etc.  Granted, I didn't steer THAT far off course of my original plan and reason for this outing because I saw in a JC Penny savings magazine from this past weekend that many of the purse's in the store were on sale.  That aside, my mission was simply for the emergency clothing shopping that I needed to do and thus the cause of my intial worry and concern that this would throw me off course down a path I didn't want to go.

My brief shopping digression aside though, the purchase of the purse wasn't a complete and total bad thing.  The one I bought was originally marked between $38.50 and $40 dollars, but was marked down at $24.70 as the on sale price.  That's a pretty good deal!  I saved nearly $15 dollars buying that purse!

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Since when did it become "cool" to make a pact with your girlfriends to all get pregnant at the age of 17???  The fact that this truly has me puzzled is probably a sure sign of how much I've grown up and matured, but neither me or my friends from High School would EVER make such a pact with one another.  I mean when someone that young has their whole life ahead of them, why would they want to ruin their life by having a kid at such a young age?  You've certainly got plenty of time to kids.  Why ruin the opportunity to go off to college and get a degree to help you get a decent job that's not a dead-end one?  Why flush any hopes and dreams you might have down the drain simply because you think it'd be cool to make a pact with your other girlfriends to all be pregnant at 17?  It just honestly makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever to me, but then again maybe my thinking is also due to how I was raised much like how the way these girls were raised obviously reflects their thinking or lack of it to do something this boneheaded.

There is certainly a part of me that feels absolutely ashamed to be part of this generation of young adults known as Generation Y (one of my friends who is part of the Generation Xer's told me that apparantly anyone who basically graduated in the year 2000 from High School is NOT part of Generation X and since I graduated in June of 200 that apparantly makes me part of Generation Y).  I certainly don't completely feel this way since I know many people who are part of this particular generation like myself and would never act or behave this way at all.  It just absolutely and completely saddens me that now the few will ruin things for the majority for this generation that I'm a part of due to the behavior that some girls are taking on of celebrating being pregnant at 17 after having made a pact with other girlfriends of theirs.

I will say though that now I'm going to find myself thinking more often of Generation Y in the sense of "Y are some of these people that are part of my generation acting like fools and idiots?!?"

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Usually when most people wake up they don't expect their day or their week to start off on a bad note.  Most people also don't expect to have bad things happen often enough in one day to make them question if the week as a whole will turn into a bad one for them.

This was how I felt when I woke up a couple days ago on Monday morning preparing to head into work for a new week.  Never did I imagine that over the course of the day I would end up nearly hurting myself twice.  The first time came as a result of me trying to do a juggling act when I probably shouldn't have tried to do one.  I was leaving my house to head into work balancing my purse over one shoulder as well as a gym bag over the same shoulder (I had planned on going to the gym, but left my gym bag at home after the part of my body that I injured kept hurting for most if not all of that day), holding my coffee thermos in one hand, and tucking a bottle of water under my other arm.  I got probably less than halfway down the stairs when one of my feet went into a kind of twist throwing me off my balance.  I nearly went all the way down the stairs (which would have definitely resulted in me badly hurting various parts of my body to the point where I may have had to go see a doctor).  However, my reflexes quickly kicked in and I quickly moved my left arm to brace against the railing.  The down side to doing that though was my left elbow made a rough impact with the wall causing some surface skin to break and some bleeding to occur (not too mention the fact that it REALLY hurt).

About a few hours after getting into work I went to go use the ladies room.  As I approached the counter with the sinks fter exiting one of the stall's, I stubbed either one of my toe's or my entire left foot against the side of the counter.  I was sporting dress sandals on my feet, which made the feeling all the more painful to experience.  It was this second incident that began to plant the seed in my head of hoping this and the earlier incident happening wasn't an omen for a bad rest of the week.

Ever since hurting myself twice on Monday my week thankfully has not gotten worse (there's still 2 1/2 days left in the work week though and I am playing in a softball game tonight at 8PM, so we'll see).  In terms of the first incident that happened though as I was leaving for work, the ironic part was that before I saved myself from falling down the rest of the stairs I didn't spill a drop of coffee onto myself from my thermos.......

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After getting advice from friends to at least watch a few episodes of SATC before catching the movie, a couple weeks ago I spent the better part of one weekend blowing through the entire first season and getting through the first two episodes of the second season.  I've now finished Season 2 and am awaiting the arrival of Season 3 from Blockbuster Online.  So far I am highly enjoying the show (Carrie is my favorite character, but I'm mostly like Charlotte in terms of that optimistic almost naive personality, lol) and thought I'd post my thoughts on my favorite episode from Season One.

In the episode "Bay of Married Pigs", Carrie and Co. discuss how married women tend to view the single women as a "threat" to their husbands.  To be as discreet as possible (in complete drastic contrast to Cattrall's character Samantha), these married women view single women in this way due to certain "freedoms" that single women possess compared to married women.

I think what allowed me to relate to this episode the most is the fact that a lot of my girlfriends from high school are either engaged or married.  Granted, it's usually typically the case that you lose touch with your friends from high school as you get older, but I always thought that I'd maintain touch with my girlfriends from high school.  Especially considering I've kept in touch with them while I was going through College and through various parties and social gatherings that were planned either by them or me.  The fact that I hardly get a response back from them if I were to touch base by email or phone certainly has begun to lead me to believe in the theory that Carrie and her friends have about marriage being this exclusive or elusive club.  That until your in a serious relationship, engaged, or married your alienated by other women.

Overall this show definitely makes me look at it and think: how hard can it be to find good friends like those four women who are there for one another through thick and thin?  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my friends, but it feels to me that there really isn't a close or tight a bond with them as I might hope.  Or maybe there is and I'm just not looking very closely and seeing it?

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