FRIDAY

12:15pm: decide to drop Macroeconomics. Now I’m only taking four classes!

1:15pm: Run off with Crimson photographer to Second Time Around, Oona’s, and Great Eastern Trading Company to get audio and video for a slideshow. Photographer is unexpectedly hiliarious; storeowners are sometimes crazy/unstable.

4:30pm: Makeovers at the YWCA. Turns out the women are more impressed by my French manicure skillz than my artful eyeshadow application. I administer white tips on nails ragged, chapped, and worn down to their nubs. The women are very sweet. I am embarrassed by the state of my makeup collection, which is smeared in spilled bronze eyeshadow.

6:30pm: Stop at Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square for some uh, kickass cupcakes as a birthday gift. I order four, with an extra for myself. I wolf down my mojito cupcake walking back to the T stop. The cream cheese frosting is cut the tang of lime and the center is soaked with rum – enough to warm my throat.

Kickass Cupcakes

10:30pm: Drop off birthday present. Present recipient is inebriated and proceeds to throw up twice, after which she feels better and munches on a corner of a Super Chocolate cupcake. The rest go in the fridge.

12:30pm: I am shooed off the table of of The Advocate by the DJ, who reminds me that it collapsed last time. Time for the Kong!

1am: Mmm, scallion pancakes and scorpion bowls. How much more classic can you get?

SATURDAY

2pm: Time to research in the North End for the Unofficial Guide. I have lunch at La Famiglia Giorgio, which is not really worth the shitty cellphone pictures I took of it. I nosh on lobster ravioli smothered in pink vodka cream sauce and scallop giorgio.

4:33pm: Woah, the Freedom Trail! Woah, tourists! Paul fucking Revere! This feels wrong, somehow. Kind of like touching John Harvard’s foot, you know?

Japanese love their tentacles

8pm: Valentine’s dinner, spontaneously found in Porter Square Exchange Mall at Blue Fin. Stop at Kotobukiya, a Japanese grocery, first.

Kotobukiya

Monkfish liver, duhhh (Does cooking use only mean that it can't be an organ transplant?)

Then, the actual meal, which was expansive, adventurous, and lovely.

Sashimi on a bed of natto (fermented soybean with a bizarrely sticky nature - picking it up results in cobweb-like strings trailing from bowl to plate)

Unagi, my favorite!

Valentine's day sushi platter... the rose stem to the left of the image was secured in a base of wasabi.

Donburi bowl, the roe is fun to eat.

SUNDAY

10am: Work out at the gym, which I’ve failed to do for longer than I’d have liked.

Noon: Do some hair and makeup for the Identities fashion show photoshoot. The nice thing about doing makeup, I’ve realized, is far from making you see all the flaws you should cover up, it makes you see all the little things that make someone beautiful.

Near the end, I hold down the fort while the models are off doing their hip hop shoot. I take photos of myself with my hairspray-assisted hairstyle.

Photobooth: sometimes better for boredom than Facebook.

2:30pm: Off to the Garment District and The Closet for more audio and photos for the audio slideshow with another photographer. This takes way too long.

Me standing in front of the Garment District's shocking pink storefront.

7pm: Crimson exec dinner. People give silly gifts, I watch passively, feel lonely, go back to Crimson and finish editing slideshow. It’s BALLER. Me and the editor do the crossfade. We add background noise. I do voiceovers. He records me screaming “fuck a duck!” incessantly. We laugh. We cry. We mock the interview subjects.

12:45am: Exit the Crimson. Finally.

Here is the fruit of my labor (plus 3 other dedicated people).

This took, uh, 10 solid hours of my life.

Related posts:

1. Kickass Cupcakes to add ice cream cupcakes
2. Masa’s in Porter Square Exchange Mall serves some really awful sushi
3. Kickass Cupcakes: A Happy Hour