Most hilarious thing I've seen all day.

You know what I hate about New Year’s Eve? Pretty much everything, minus the confetti. Confetti is fun.

New Year’s Eve is a needlessly stressful holiday which pressures strangers into rubbing up against each other in a public space just so they have someone to swap spit with at midnight. New Year’s Eve is just as fake a “holiday” as Valentine’s Day only instead of buying $15 boxes of chocolate and unnecessarily expensive flowers you’re doling out hundreds of bucks for a ticket to some hot, sweaty club party in the hopes that Prince Charming will sweep you off your feet and you’ll fall in love…and if it doesn’t last for the whole year, it’ll at least last until 12:01 am.

Gross.

People place too much pressure on New Year’s Eve. It’s just another day. Whether or not you’re tongue wrestling with someone at 12 o’clock is not going to make or break the next 365 days of your life (at least let’s hope not). Who put such a high premium on making out in the middle of the night in a room full of people? Aren’t we getting too old for that?

Everyone I know (it seems) is fretting about how to spend the evening and who to spend it with. I used to be one of them. The last New Year’s Eve I spent with a boyfriend I planned the whole party out down to the last second only to be disappointed. Why? Because at midnight my boyfriend gave me a peck on the cheek then went back to hanging out with his friends and I spent the next few weeks obsessing over what the lameass kiss meant…turns out it meant “I want to get drunk with my friends,” but I had placed so much pressure on the night that I was too blinded by glittery confetti and Carson Daly’s horrid hairstyle to come to that logical conclusion.

And that is when I vowed never to put so much pressure on one stupid night ever again. Whether it be New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, a birthday, an anniversary, nothing is worth freaking out over. Do whatever moves you on that particular evening. If you feel like dancing, go dancing. If you feel like sitting in the nursing home playing bingo with your grandma, go for it. If all you want to do is lay on your couch, watching Dick Clark while eating an entire bag of Cheetos and not wearing pants, then I say do it. If you feel like finding someone to kiss at midnight then do that, too. My point is that no one should feel socially forced into exchanging saliva at a particular time on a particular date.

This New Year’s Eve I plan to swing by a friend’s party for a bit and then I plan to be home by 9:30 pm to pack the rest of my boxes for my Jan. 1 move to Brooklyn. I’ll watch what’s happening 100 blocks south of  me on TV all alone, and I’m OK with that.

Priorities, people.

Also, stop saying “see you next year” when saying goodbye to people. It’s not clever. I can read a calendar. You’ll see me Monday, which just happens to fall in the year 2012.

New Year's Eve, Times Square...I work there.

I’m over 2011.

There I said it. I’m dunzo with 2011. It can be Dec. 31, the big sparkly ball across from my office building can fall and 2012 can come rushing in and relieve me of the drama and stress of 2011.

I know people always make New Year’s resolutions and then proceed to break them and then go on to complain about breaking them…I’m usually that person. But for some reason this year just seems different. I have a different confidence, a different view of what the next year can bring.

On Jan. 1, 2012 I move into a new apartment on the cutest street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Yes, Miss Caitlin ‘commitment phobe’ Tremblay signed a one year lease. I am so excited to move. The apartment is cheap, huge and in the best neighborhood. It’s still 20 minutes from work and unlike where I live now there are record stores, bars and adorable coffee places just around the corner. It’s going to be so refreshing to leave where I am now and only live with one other person…ahhhh space. And the best part is that we both have 9-5 career-type jobs so no more loud people keeping me awake a night…and I have two closets! It’s the small things in life.

Come Jan. 1 I will be 23 with an apartment I love, in a neighborhood I love, in a city I love with a job I love. I will pretty much be the happiest girl in the world. I feel so much less stressed out.

2012 will be the first full year where I won’t step foot inside a classroom to learn something. My first full year as a real adult with a job and student loan bills and rent and utilities. It’s overwhelming and scary but I’m so excited to just jump right in.

2012 is also the year where I FINALLY make my pilgrimage to Bonnaroo with my wonderful caravan of music-loving friends….which is really just the most amazing added bonus.

So hurry up and be done, 2011. Let’s eat some turkey, spin some dreidles, decorate some trees, count backwards from 10 and get on with ’12.

I still can’t believe I signed a year-long lease. Maybe I’m not as scared of committment as I thought. Baby steps.

Buy this. Yes, I said BUY.

So, I’ve been busy which is good because I find that if I have too much downtime I tend to go a little insane by nitpicking every aspect of my existence. (ex. “My knees are fat. Can knees be fat? I need to dust. I also need to take my AC out of my window. I also should stock my fridge with something other than ranch dressing and apples.”)

Sigh, the things that go through one’s head when they’re home alone, staring at a lava lamp and listening to The Who.

What have I been doing?

1. Writing

Album Review: ‘Metals’ by Feist

Ten Dream Musical Collaborations

And I’m currently working on an article about concept albums. A regular Lester Bangs I am. (not really)

2. Listening

Right now I’m really into The Sounds …a revived obsession. I’m seeing them on Nov. 2

I’m also really digging this new band out of Bowling Green, Kentucky called Sleeper Agent. I can’t wait for them to add dates to their tour.

3. Reading

I finished Chuck Klosterman’s new novel “The Visible Man.” I liked it a lot more than “Downtown Owl” but it was weird. Half way through the book I didn’t want to finish the book because I hated the two main characters so much. They were narcissistic assholes who drove me crazy and made me mad. But, I finished the book and I came to one conclusion: Chuck Klosterman is a genius. Like a Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs lovechild with an insanely large vocabulary. Chuck makes my brain fall in love with sentence fragments.

I also finally started “Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music” despite having bought it approximately a million years ago. From what I’ve read so far, Ellen is my hero…even more so than she already was. She’s the first rock critic for The New Yorker and has such an edgy writing style that I am so incredibly jealous of. If she still wrote for The New Yorker I might actually read it and not think it’s so boring.

4. Being a grown up

It’s kind of exciting, yet kind of scary. So. Much. Paperwork. Consolidating student loans, address changes, health insurance, apartment hunting…It’s kind of overwhelming but it’s actually a lot of fun (Did I just say that?).

5. Having a love/hate relationship with Occupy Wall Street

I am all about changing things in this country. Yes, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that such a small percentage of the population controls such a high percentage of the money. Yes, Wall Street is full of money hungry dudes only out for themselves and taking people’s houses and livelihoods away because of schemes to get richer. I agree with the premise of Occupy Wall Street, I do. I just don’t understand it.

Maybe I’m being naive here but why aren’t we putting pressure on the politicians? CEOs don’t need our votes to keep their jobs but Senators do….but then my bank (Bank of America) decided to start charging $5 a month so I can spend my own money and I get torn all over again. The reason BofA is charging is because of lost revenue because Congress passed the Dodd-Frank act to help the little people…but that backfired.

I’m just confused by the whole situation because I don’t really know what the best course of action is. I’m not even going to pretend I understand enough about economics and politics to make an educated statement. However, I think Matt Taibbi got close (and I usually think he’s 90 percent idiot).

Stuff I’m looking forward to:

*New Coldplay album this week

*Bonnaroo tickets on sale soon

*The Bowie Ball

*Going to work

*Boycotting Halloween

I've been listening to this on vinyl a lot.

This weekend I spent a few hours in a midtown coffee shop writing a review of Feist’s new album Metals for The Next Great Generation (Will link to it when it goes live). It felt really great to write again. I hadn’t for the longest time, and I missed it more than anything.

I love my job. I love what I do. I love where I work and I love the incredibly impressive and talented people I work with, but it makes me realize how much I took the last few years of my life for granted. When I was in Buffalo, at The Gazette and at Columbia I had so much time just to write. Stories, reviews, magazine features…my job was writing. While I wouldn’ trade my job for anything in the world I decided I’m going to make a point of writing more. Maybe an album review each week or something along those lines. Even if my only publishing platform is this tiny slice of the Internet, it’s something I need to do for myself. Plus, I should stay in practice.

***

The Village Voice rejected my student debt story so I sent it to NY Magazine, but I haven’t heard back so I’m assuming that’s a rejecton, too. I’m kind of ready to give up on it. It’s such an important topic but in this economy when everyone is hurting, I can’t get anyone to care about broke, indebted college kids. I can’t say I blame them.

***

I had a dream last night that I was a staff writer for Rolling Stone with an adorable one bedroom East Village apartment and an assignment to go on tour with the Goo Goo Dolls in order to write a feature on underappreciated bands. It was one of the best dreams I’ve had in a while and it gave me an idea: Maybe I should try to get some interviews with the Goos and pitch it to RS when their next album comes out? Maybe? I’m probably insane.

***

Things to PICK UP RIGHT NOW:

* Metals-Feist (album)

* Sweeter-Gavin DeGraw (album)

* The Visible Man-Chuck Klosterman (novel)

* Out of the Vinyl Deeps-Ellen Willis (non-fiction book)

* The news issue of Rolling Stone with Pink Floyd on the cover

Things to AVOID AT ALL COSTS:

* PanAm: WAY over-hyped. Seriously dumb show.

* The new season of Gossip Girl–pregnant Blair is annoying

* Apple cider in New York City unless it’s being sold at a green market and was homemade by a farm upstate.

* Foster the People (band)-The rest of the album is not nearly as catchy/fun as “Pumped Up Kicks.”

Here’s some stuff I wrote in August.

Things to do with boxed wine

Thoughts from a former Borders employee

The six best Shakespeare film adaptations

Here’s a list of stuff I’m really into right now:

The new Incubus album (pictured)

The new Red Hot Chili Peppers album “I’m with you”

My job

Kurt Vonnegut

Patent litigation (byproduct of my job)

Extraordinarily large bags

Lester Bangs (as always)

“Peanut Butter Cup Perfection” with vanilla ice cream from Coldstone

Things I’m not so thrilled about:

Michele Bachmann

Student loans

Hurricane Irene

The end of summer

That there’s no new episodes of “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report” for another week

*Real blog post soon, I promise.

Read it. (If you want.)

It was actually pretty incredible, though I may be a bit biased. I’ve always been Team Richards, mostly because I’m more of a fan of “guitarists with mistique” (points if you know where that quote is from) than frontmen.  Jimmy Page > Robert Plant. Joe Perry beats out Steven Tyler, but only by a small margin because Steven and I connect with our obsession with scarves. I think the Goo Goo Dolls are the only band where I would pick the lead singer…but that doesn’t count because Johnny Rzeznik plays guitar and Robbie sings a lot.

Anyway, if you have time for 500-plus pages of heroin, jam bands, bromantic cat fights, arrests and Rastafarians read the book. The only way I can really describe it is that it’s like a “Great Gatsby”/Hunter Thompson hybrid…which is sounds awkward but is actually awesome.

Also, I’m really digging this song today and it’s only 8 a.m. Enjoy.

1. Travel Agent: In “Rockin’ Me” Steve sings that he “went from Phoenix, Arizona all the way to Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A., Northern California where the girls are warm…” Now this isn’t exactly the most direct route to travel–by car or by plane. Surely planes would require various lay overs and by car it makes absolutely no sense to start in Arizona, drive way up north to Washington, then cross the country to Pennsylvania, then drive south to Georgia and then back northwest to California. This would waste endless gallons of gas and cost endless hours of wait time in airports. If this dude was a real travel agent, he’d be canned.

2. Weatherman: In “Jet Airliner” Steve croons “Touchin’ down in New England town, feel the heat comin’ down.” I don’t know if you’ve ever been to New England but even on the hottest of the hot days it is not hot. New England in the summer is a sea breezy, Kennedys playing football on the beach haven of sun, lobster, polo shirts and inexplicable khaki shorts. Steve’s weatherman was seriously mistaken because landing in a New England town would only be hot if you burned your mouth on some clam chowder. However, on a related note:

3. Pilot: Steve’s pilot in “Jet Airliner” could potentially be the one to blame instead of the weatherman (though, since when are weathermen ever right?). Unless Mr. Miller has a license to fly a helicopter someone else was taking him there and if he landed somewhere hot he was either A. not in New England B. potentially in New York City in the middle of a heat wave or C. maybe the helicopter took him to Atlanta (where it’s hot/humid) before he crossed the country to L.A. as per his shitty travel agent. Also, why did this pilot even agree with the travel agent? Shouldn’t he know better?

4. Therapist: Steve Miller is apparently a man of many different personalities and his therapist has yet to thoroughly medicate/help him cope with this. In “The Joker” Steve proclaims “I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker…” and then goes on to also say “I’m a picker, I’m a grinner, I’m a lover and I’m a sinner.” Who are you Steve? Do you suffer from multiple personality disorders? Or are you really just a “joker” trying to pull a fast one on us? Also, what the fuck is a “pompitous of love,” Steve? Which one of your self-identified personalities came up with that word. Speaking of…

5. Proofreader/copy editor: The word “pompitous” in “The Joker.” It’s a not a real English word. Where’s the editing, Steve? And for the last time, what does it even mean?

6. Detective Billy Mack: In “Take the Money and Run” Detective Billy Mack in Texas apparently knows what the facts are and is absolutely not going to let Billy Joe (who shot a man while robbing his castle) and Bobbie Sue (who took the money and ran) get away. But, as it turns out, Bobbie Sue slipped away with the money and Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day. Apparently Billy Mack, who makes his money off people’s taxes did not know exactly the facts because the two headed down south (apparently Mexico because that’s what’s south of Texas) and they’re still running today. Billy Mack is a failure as a detective. This is probably why he is not sheriff.

There are a few more honorable mentions, like the eagle in “Fly Like an Eagle.” If an eagle could fly into the future, Michael J. Fox wouldn’t have needed the Delorian. The magician in “Abracadabra” doesn’t sound like he’s very good at his job. He apparently wants to “reach out and grab ya” but that would A. be unnecessary if you knew magic and could just draw someone towards you and B. get the cops called on you at a child’s birthday party.

Having lived in Albany/Saratoga, NY then Buffalo, NY and now New York City, I have never been prouder of my home state.

The New York state senate passed the marriage equality bill tonight 33 to 29.

It’s 2011, it’s about time we starting treating everyone as equals. Thank you to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Roy McDonald, Sen. Tom Duane, Gov. Cuomo and all of the other New Yor state senators and assembly members who made this possible. Thank you for doing the right thing. Thank you for bringing equality to everyone and thank you for allowing some of my best friends, who are 100 percent completely in love to marry one another in their home state with their families surrounding them.

This is a momumental moment and I won’t lie, I shed a tear when the official vote came in. I’m still upset that it took until 2011 to get to this point, but I’m so glad it’s finally here. Let’s keep up this momentum and make this federal!

Corny. True. Still corny.

Today I decided I was only going to listen to bands from present or former commonwealth nations. I don’t know why. It’s just what I decided would be a good idea.

I always have crazy ideas like this, 99.9 percent of which involve music. I’ve been feeling a little lost in this world ever since graduation. I have a master’s degree and a dream, where do I go from here? I’ve been spending so much time looking for music writing jobs that I neglected to acknowledge that I can build my music-writing portfolio by putting it all on here. It’ll serve two-fold: It’ll give me practice and keep me sane.

So be prepared for an onslaught of serious, semi-ridiculous and completely ridiculous posts about music. They’re coming. I have lists and lists and lists of ideas.

Until then, know this: Do not spend an entire day vowing to only listen to music from commonwealth nations and forget to put Liam Finn on your iPod. That would be a mistake.