Boston and Bowling Balls

So much has happened! This blog entry is gonna be kinda long. But I'm ready for it.....are you?

Let's do it!!!!!

So I left you way back when in Burlington, VT. After Burlington we traveled to Concord, NH (where my dad went to the great St. Paul's School) for two shows. The second show was particularly memorable for me. I wear a wig when I play the Mathemagician, which is one of my many characters in the show. It's this huge white wig with a graduation cap on top. I've never really had a problem with it before aside from the fact that it's hot, it itches, and to be completely honest it's starting to smell a little. During that second show I most definitely had a problem with it.....it went flying off my damn head. That's bad enough but what made it worse was the fact that we had a talk-back after the show. A talk-back is when a group of kids who have just watched the show come backstage to meet us and ask us questions. Needless to say, I was pretty embarrassed.

Anyway!

After Concord we drove to New Bedford, MA. We had a day off there so Carolyn, Margo, Lindsay and I decided to go into Boston. Since I went to school there for four years I got to be the tour guide! We took the commuter rail into South Station and then caught the T to Hynes Convention Center so we could start the tour right at the top of Newbury Street. We walked down Newbury for awhile and then I took the ladies over to beautiful Commonwealth Avenue. I wanna live on Commonwealth!Carolyn and Margo strut like city girls.....We then found some statues along Commonwealth which were more than willing to join in for a photo shoot.....I tried to get this ladies attention. She just wasn't having me. What the hell was she looking at?!I mean, all I wanted was a kiss.....Ha! Awkward. I look like I'm about to eat her nose.

After Commonwealth we headed back to Newbury for some food. Unfortunately, nothing really caught our attention so we headed over to Charles Street for some soup and sandwiches. After lunch we headed into the Boston Gardens.Yoga in the park!New headshot?This fountain has always made me.....uncomfortable. What the hell is going on here?After our walk through the Gardens and Boston Common we walked to downtown Boston to meet my sister at her work. We all then walked to Faneuil Hall where we watched a rather boring street show and did a little shopping. Thankfully, we were near my most favorite spot in all of Boston. Don't ask me why it's my favorite, it just is. It's not even that pretty! It's right on the North End waterfront near the Aquarium. For some reason I just love it there. Woo! My favorite spot!Here's Andrea and I :)Andrea and Lindsay.....Yay Boston!After our waterfront extravaganza we headed to the North End for some Italian food. It was exactly what we needed, we were tired from all the walking! But before we sat down for dinner Andrea took us to see this interesting building. Take a look.....It's called All Saint's Way and it's all lit up and decorated with paintings of all the saints. Kinda cool, right?

All in all, our Boston trip was a wonderful success.

The day after our Boston adventure we had a 3pm show which my sister and a bunch of her friends came to! Thanks again for coming!!! Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the whole group. Silly me.

After the show, Dave, Eric, Rudy, Brian and I went to a nearby bowling alley. We had a really great time despite having to wear the most ridiculous bowling shoes I've ever seen.....I quickly got over the ridiculous shoes. Especially since I scored a Turkey!!! That's when you score three strikes in a row. See?Right next to the J? Yeah! That's me. Somehow I still managed to get third, though. Ugh. Here I am expressing my anger toward Brian. He won.....And here's a few more shots of us bowling away. Brian shows off his amazing bowling skills.....I'm not bitter.Here I am in the process of scoring my Turkey!!!Rudy had a pretty great way of throwing his ball. He was totally Fred Flintstone; I called him Twinkle toes. You can't quite capture the amazingness here but I'll let you all use your imaginations.....This next one is probably the best picture of the night, though. Dave threw his bowling ball with such vigor.....and hit only one pin. Here he is totally dejected.....
That's all for now. Bye!

Victory

First things first.....we have a new President-elect. BARACK OBAMA. My happiness is beyond words. The energy and excitement of Madonna and her fans at her Election Day concert sums it up pretty well.....

This is the same video but you can see the audience going bonkers. It's pretty amazing.....

She's absolutely nuts. If I had been there when his face went up on the screens I probably would have burst into tears.

Now that a few days have passed since Obama's win I am filled with a lot of happiness, excitement, and nervousness. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Where did we leave off, though? My last lengthy blog entry was all about Halloween, I think. A LOT has happened since then! After Virginia Beach we drove to Connecticut for a night and then to Lowell, MA where we did two shows. After our Lowell shows we drove to Burlington, VT. The drive through New Hampshire into VT was absolutely beautiful. Carolyn (and her ridiculous sunglasses) was our fearless driver.....Sunset.....Doesn't look the same here, but that hill seriously looked like it was on fire because of the changing leaves.....
Once we got to Burlington a few of us decided to go downtown for some dinner. We went to a placed called Trattoria Delia which was absolutely wonderful. Brian's satisfied face expresses our general mood by the end of our meal.....It's amazing that Kevin is smiling at me in this next pic. I accidentally forgot my money at home (I almost had a heart attack when I realized I didn't have any when the bill came) so he agreed to pay for me. Carolyn diligently figures out the bill behind him. Thank God we have her around.....I hate figuring that shit out!Margo couldn't be happier. I'm guessing it was the huge ass wine in front of her. Haha. Just kidding.....kinda.....
The next day was Election Day!!! Since many of us had a day off we decided to go hiking at nearby Mount Philo. I happily decided to go along. It was a great way to get my mind off the fact that the election made me all crazy nervous. And it most definitely worked! This is me at the start of the hike.....And here's the rest of the group starting our hike.....It was an absolutely beautiful hike. Most of the trees were still changing colors, it was sunny, not too cold, we were all in good spirits, woo!So, apparently when you place Dave on a mountain or near climbable trees he almost immediately turns into a kid again. He was so damn excited to be there. It was pretty fun to watch. Here he is, our fearless leader.....I'll have you know that he got off that rock by easing his way down that tree by the random branches sticking out of it. I'm pretty sure I yelled "You're gonna impale yourself on one of those damn branches!" at him. He got down without a single scratch, though.

On our way up we rested by this little cave where Margo and Jeffery recreated the ending of The Descent.....Here's most of the group halfway up. Nice pic, right?And here I am being absolutely ridiculous. AAAAAAAAAAH! BEARS!!!!!!!!Margo celebrates our hike.....And then performs an impromptu stripper dance.....Here's Carolyn risking her life at the edge of Mount Philo.....I HATE heights and told her countless times to get away from the damn ledge. She just kinda laughed at me.

Here's Margo pondering the beauty of the trees.....or something like that.....And look at this great pic I got of Dave!This is what Jeffery threw in my face after I called him a straggler. Gotta love him.....Eric, Margo and Dave try to get us to the top of the Mount. "We're not lost, we swear" they said. Hmmm, right.....And, actually, we weren't lost! We soon made it to the top! Look at that view!Here's most of the group at the top. Tired, a little sweaty, and most definitely happy.....WOO! I made it!!!!!Since we were at the top, we decided to celebrate with a little photo shoot. We've heard that there are apparently a lot of lesbians in Vermont. I don't know where the hell they were so Margo and Carolyn tried to make up for it.....Tried being the operative word.....Jeffery and Rudy then made a valiant effort of showing the girls how it's done. I don't think I've ever seen Rudy look so uncomfortable, though.....Gollum!And, of course, Yentl.....On our way down we were joined by the sweetest black lab. He ran right up to me and let me pet him for awhile. I miss my dogs so much!So excited!Finally, we made it down. VICTORY!!!Here's Mount Philo on our way back to the hotel. Thanks for the good times!
On our way back to the hotel Carolyn checked her Facebook profile on her phone. She noticed that one her friends had written this as his status.....Oh yes, it says "Stephen Gregory Smith is home from voting. It took 4 minutes. We only got 4 minutes to save the world, peeps." Thank you for the Madonna reference whoever you are!

Anyway, since we had a little extra time on our way back we decided to stop at the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. Good times ensued.....They had all sorts of teddy bears! There was even a gay friendly teddy bear!And a HUGE teddy bear.....There was even a box full of defective teddy bears which sold for $20. Rudy was kind enough to supply a bear with a head.....The best teddy bears, though, were the Obama/Biden teddy bears.....And the McCain/Palin teddy bears. Yes, she is definitely carrying a hockey stick.....
That night a few of us went back into downtown Burlington for some shopping and food. We had a lovely dinner and tried not to stress too much about the fact that we were getting closer and closer to the moment of truth. After dinner we all headed back to the hotel where I proceeded to shut myself in my room and glue my eyes to the TV.

Needless to say, it was quite a night.

Here I am the next morning. I stayed up WAY too late the night before. You can see it all over my face.....We had two shows that day (Carolyn's top came undone during one of the shows.....she almost fulfilled the fantasies of many of the boys in the audience but, luckily, she was able to keep it on) and then we spent the rest of the day relaxing. That night we went back into town for some more shopping and a victory dinner. Jeffery was most definitely feeling victorious, so he threw some more of this in my face.....Margo was elated.....
After dinner a few of us went to a bar near the hotel called T-Bone's where a guy by the name of Chad Hollister was performing. He was pretty damn good!We had a few drinks and then headed back to call it a night. It had been a great, exciting, long and tiring day.

That's all for now. I'll be back soon with more exciting stories. Love you all :)

GO OBAMA!!!!!