love/hate: st. patrick's day.

reasons why hil loves st. patrick's day:

+ this is the only day of the year where i can actually do an irish car bomb and be excited about it.

+ i look good in green, which makes dressing for the festivities easy.

+ my dad's family is kind of old school north shore proud to be irish american and he's making corned beef and cabbage tonight and he's all cute about it.  i can't go for dinner, but it's sweet to see him get all excited.

reasons why hil hates st. patrick's day:

+ this is the only day of the year where i can actually do an irish car bomb and be excited about it.   (yes. i know that i wrote that twice.)

+ i will punt a small child/puppy/something else wholesome and good if i have to listen to the dropkick murphys' "shipping up to boston" or "the state of massachusetts" ONE. MORE. TIME.  i will beat a stranger into submission with my bare hands if i have to listen to them trying to wail either song on the T/on the bus/in the general vicinity of my apartment.

+ overhearing the following in line at the coffee shop, on the t, at the grocery store, and most assuredly at the bar later: "OH MY GAHD DOOD I'M SO IRISH.  I'M 110% IRISH.  110%. LIKE SO WICKED IRISH. LIKE I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO DANNY BOY AND I DRINK GUINNESSS LIKE WATER AND "BOONDOCK SAINTS" IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE DOOD AND I HAVE A SHAMROCK TATTOO FOR MY HERITAGE BECAUSE I'M SOOOO IRISH. MY LAST NAME IS Mc-/O'- SEE I'M MORE IRISH THAN YOU ARE."  you are not from ireland.  your parents were not from ireland.  i highly doubt your great great grandparents were irish, you tool.  i bet you're about as irish as i am at best, and even though i have so many freckles that it looks like someone threw mud at me through a screen door, i'm not gonna parade my "heritage" around suffolk county to impress randos and try to get laid for love of the republic.  jump off the MGH bridge, brah.  or go back to the suburbs.  i don't care.  stop existing.  you give my city a bad name.

+ nothing good can come from this holiday except for an upset stomach from corned beef and cabbage and a blistering hangover.  three years ago (when i was still in college and therefore didn't know better, c'mon), i woke up the morning after st. paddy's on a balcony in astoria with a shamrock painted on my face.  no one needs that. ever.

so, for those of you looking to avoid what's sure to be an incredibly unpleasant scenario, avoid the following bars/neighborhoods tonight:

1) faneuil hall/causeway street/the north end.  any bar (the purple shamrock, the bell and hand, kitty o'shea's, emmett's, hurricane o'reilly's) that's anywhere near faneuil hall.  this goes without saying.  any self-respecting bostonian avoids faneuil/government center like the plague anyway when it comes to nightlife and st. paddy's day is hardly the day to make this mistake.  lines, college kids and cover charges? hellllllll no.

2) landsdowne street.  do you want to get puked on by some sorority girl from one of the colleges of the fenway who can't match her brah of a boyfriend baileys shot for baileys shot? do you want to get shoved around by drunken buffoons in scally caps only to get punched in the teeth by one of them in front of the cask and flagon?  i didn't think so.

3) the intersection of brighton ave/harvard ave in allston.  i don't mind the bars in allston on the week nights when it's a bit more chill and especially during the summertime.  with that said, two that i refuse to ever go to are the kells and the joshua tree. (j-tree isn't on brighton ave, it's actually on comm, but it's close enough.)  expect to see/hear a lot of drunk girls crying on the sidewalk because the bouncers took their fake ids. 

4) southie.  don't be stupid.

whoooa.  that's a lot of saint paddy's day hate.  sorry for the negativity, guys, but i had to get it out.  should you chose to frequent one of the previously mentioned establishments this evening, get housed before you go.  it's the only way you'll enjoy it/make it out alive.

erin go bragh,

hil.

couch fort? why, yes. yes indeed.

things i should be doing instead of building another hangover induced couch fort and watching law and order svu episodes before marcy and los come over and we make brownies:

+saving my apartment from the hellish mess devouring it at present.  it was created by a merry band of spaghetti-and-meatball-eating friends who wound up at my place after another rowdy sunday at precinct for tiramisu and hookah and, apparently, leftovers.  my kitchen is D E S T R O Y E D.

+picking out a green outfit for eighties st. paddy's dance party tomorrow evening at phoenix landing.  

+taking a shower.  i'm still wearing my makeup from last night and my hair looks ... interesting.  that requires leaving the couch fort, though. hmmm.

+committing to memory the list of reasons why i never, ever need to go to southie ever again after going to the parade yesterday.  as a local, i grew up with parents who forbade trips to southie for any reason whatsoever and who frowned upon the annual saint patrick's day parade because they deemed it an obnoxious, booze-soaked walk of shame perpetrated by good for nothins' and stupid college kids.  my parents? kind of right.  if i see one more wasted girl with flat-ironed hair, an oversized paul pierce/kevin garnett jersey, leggings and uggs, i'm going to vomit.  on their uggs. on the green line.  on the way back to suffolk/bu/bc.  which is where they can be found in their natural habitat. ugh ugh ugh hate so much hate so much seething searing hate.

+going to the gym.

+cutting up my credit card. NO MORE SHOPPING FOR A LONG LONG LONG TIME.  the stuff (headband, belt, dress and shirt) i picked up at urban today is grrrreat and completely unnecessary but i had to have them. a;sjdfal;sdjkf.

+getting coffee. 1369 please.  the starbucks on somerville ave made me want to eat glass a couple of days ago and i haven't been back since: basically, the girl working the bar (read: making the drinks, putting them up on the counter for customers to collect 'em) was real bad at her job.  i hate when people bitch and moan about food service ("how hard can it be? you work with coffee." "how long does it take to heat a croissant?" etc.) unless they, like myself, have actual food service/bartending/waitressing experience and they can tell the difference between someone who's awful at their job/lazy and someone who's slammed/unlucky/having a bad day.  this girl was either stoned or lazy or both.  laaaaaame.

+sending in my audition tape for rock of love four.  jessie and i are going to romance bret michaels.  (just kidding! we like/respect ourselves too much to do that, i think.)

Kendall Square: You confuse me.

last night, after a lovely couple of hours spent drinking limca (indian keylime soda, look into it as it's DELICIOUS and i'm going back to shalimar to get some more in a few) and smoking some rose and mango shisha with mike and matt, we opted to head over to kendall square to shoot some pool.  on the way there, i realized that my friends and i, uh, NEVER go out in kendall. ever.  know why?  because kendall is a royal pain in the ass and one of the most awkward areas in cambridge or boston to navigate, on foot or otherwise.

here's my beef with you, kendall: you're humongous.  and nothing of interest, with the exception of buildings important to MIT and all that, is situated anywhere near your T stop.  when i say "everything of interest", i mean everything that's not legal sea foods or the harvard coop satellite store, both of which are located on main street.  i mean the kendall landmark theatre, which is one of the best cinemas around for international and feature releases; i mean flat top johnny's, where we were last night; and i mean the garment district, which is the reigning champ when it comes to procuring vintage clothing and costumes in the greater boston area.  the fact that you gotta GoogleMap your kendall-bound destination before you even leave your house is enough reason to refrain from heading anywhere near that part of cambridge for the night.

with that said: i wish your layout was a little more sympathetic with the needs of boston/cambridge nightlife, kendall, because your location is ideal.  you're right over the bridge, for chrissakes! you've got movies, booze, pool and decent shopping! why can't you just be a little more accommodating when it comes to organizing a bar crawl or shopping on a rainy day?  

we wound up ditching flat top johnny's for the independent in union square, which is way closer to our respective homes and open until 2am on fridays and saturdays.  the food is awesome and the drinks are fantastic, and it's one of the few bars around that serves legitimate cocktails: i'll bet you $20 that a faneuil/causeway/comm ave bartender has no idea what an aviation cocktail is, let alone how to make one, and they shake up a mouthwatering aviation over at the independent.  union square, i fall a little more in love with you every day...

so, yeah. sorry, kendall.  you're kind of awkward, which is too bad because you've got some real potential. and now, i'm off to central (which beats kendall in every single solitary sense for food, nightlife, entertainment, shopping etc. anyway) to pick up some canvases, limca and some more paint.  i think i'm gonna walk there, too, seeing as it is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS OUTSIDE.  seriously.  get off your computer and take yourself for a walk, just be sure to leave the jacket at home and bring your shades.