Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Flagstaff, Mindy Kaling, and New Kids on the Block

I've lived a lot of places. (Alaska is my 6th state, and I'm starting to think about moving again.) One day I'll live somewhere permanently, maybe. But who knows when that will be.

One of my favorite places I've lived is Flagstaff, AZ.


I went to college at NAU (Go Jacks!) and I'm sure that's part of the reason I love Flagstaff; college was super fun. But I stayed around for a semester after I graduated working for the geology department and I loved it then too. Here are 5 of my favorite things about Flagstaff:

1. The peaks- The San Francisco Peaks are a left over stratrovolcano that would have been huge. You can see them from everywhere and they are beautiful.

2. Downtown- Downtown Flag has a good bar scene (as most college towns do), but it also has good shopping and restaurants and is a good way to waste an afternoon. In college on Friday afternoons, my friend Kali and I would often have Beer Friday. We'd head downtown in the afternoon, get a beer at Flag Brew and then window shop. Excellent start to the weekend.
This is actually from Hot Toddy Tuesday (which became Mojito Tuesday in warm weather) but Beer Friday looked a lot like this too.

3. Hippies- Flagstaff is FULL of hippies. (Coconino County is the only county that continuously votes democrat in elections) But what I like about it, is that it's liberal without hitting you over the head with it. (Most of the time)

4. Seasons - it has them. Flagstaff is at almost 7,000 feet, so unlike most of the rest of Arizona, it gets snow in the winter and it's not 1000000 degrees in the summer.
Fall in Flagstaff
5. Outdoor pursuits- I'm not even going to talk about the Grand Canyon because it's awesome and everyone knows it. But there is lots of other cool stuff too. Hiking, biking, climbing, rafting, patio drinking...

Enjoying the outdoors with my parents
Patio drinking: my favorite outdoor pursuit


Book Review Time!
I just finished Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.


I knew I was in for a good read when I flipped to the back cover and found this:

I originally wanted to get it to read on my way to Nashville, but it was checked out. I'm really glad I didn't get it because I would have been that crazy person laughing to themselves on the plane. And nobody likes that person.

I like that it reads like something one of my sorority sisters could have written. It's approachable and real life-y. Yes she talks about living in New York and LA and going to awards shows, but it all seems so...normal. And amazingly funny. Good work, Mindy. Let's be best friends?

If you do the math, I'm too young to have been a New Kids on the Block fan. But lucky for me, my sister is 5 years older than me, so I was exposed to their wonder at young age. That sounds inappropriate, but let's go with it. We had shirts, pins, all the tapes, 2 videos, posters, even a sweater. (Yeah, like a sweater-sweater, not a sweatshirt.) I regret not having the sheets. I even got the Joey McIntyre doll as a gift one year. Joey McIntyre was, and is, my favorite. Because he's inarguably the cutest, duh.

This week's hot jam is Please Don't Go Girl. This song has everything a hot jam needs. Whispering/talking, the adorable Joey McIntyre singing lead, awesome 80's hats, microphone dancing, and only something like 12 words in the whole song.



Fun fact: If/When I get married my BFF Steven and I are dancing to this song. Weird? Probably. But it's happening. It will probably be choreographed.

3 comments:

  1. Yay Flag! One of my favorite places to live too :)

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  2. At some point, we are going to watch "Please Don't Go Girl" from the NKOTB Fantasy Special (taped off of TV in all it's 80's glory). It's pretty amazing and will fuel your Joey crush. (And hell yeah on the sweater-- we had one too!)

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  3. I'm bad and I'm just now catching up on your blog. But I cannot wait for you future wedding. I will be videoing the maggie/steven/nkotb dance and you will hear my squealing in the background.

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